An investigation launched by the Wall Street Journal(WSJ) reveals that teenagers as young as 13, are found viewing X-rated, abusive and drugs and alcohol related content as the video sharing platform related Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithm is failing to distinguish adults and teens and is seen pushing content of all ranges to everyone.
So, as the filtering automated tool is failing to live up to its expectations, teenagers are being exposed to X rated content that can drive them craze by poisoning their minds with ill thoughts.
The Wall Street Journal hired an IT firm to investigate what the content sharing platform was showing to its young viewers. And so it took 13-15 automated bots on lease to check whether the china-based video sharing app was serving appropriate content to its users based on their age, country and gender.
It was found in the WSJ feed analysis that the AI powered algorithm was serving every user with the same content that can otherwise be termed as inappropriate to young viewers.
WSJ research found that the automated accounts used for testing purposes were being shown videos promoting X- rated video files and some products and services related to S## shops.
Some were also filled with videos encouraging young minds to take up alcohol, eating disorders and other adult oriented content.
Although most of the content was removed as soon as it was flagged off by users, still some content promotion aimed at adults was being served to minors.
When TikTok learned about the BOT experiment conducted by WSJ, it argued that the viewing experience of data analyzing robots cannot be linked as same to that of the real person. And the company’s army of 10,000 content monitoring staff is capable enough to issue a fix, if their automated content filtering software programs tend to fail in some situation.
Note- TikTok was developed by Chinese firm ByteDance and hit headlines in 2018 when the then US President Donald Trump issued a ban on its usage in America citing its usage as a threat to National Security and Integrity.
