Black Canadian TikTokkers Deserve More!
Design: Malaaya Adams
It’s official. TikTok can be a very difficult place to create content––especially if you’re a Black content creator.
Last summer, after a blackout that was a call-to-action for Black creators to be treated more fairly on TikTok, the video-sharing platform apologized, claiming to take steps to do better. However, a year later and despite their efforts, Black creators are still complaining about the algorithm and creator experience, with some creators declaring that “it may even be worse now.”
According to TikTok, “the system recommends content by ranking videos based on a combination of factors – starting from interests you express as a new user and adjusting for things you indicate you’re not interested in, too.”
When a user makes a TikTok video, the video is featured on TikTok’s For You page (a page of videos customized for a user), and the algorithm first shows the video to a small group of users. These users might not follow the creator, but TikTok has found that they may be more likely to watch the video because of their past interests on the platform. If this group of users watch the video in full or share the video, TikTok then shows it to a wider group of people. However, if the small subset of users does not react to the video favourably, then the video will be limited in its audience reach.
This system can be very useful, as TikTok creator Exmiranda (@sincerelyexmiranda), a rapper, creative and advocate for racialized communities with over 100,000 TikTok followers, notes, “the great thing about the platform is that it allows you to find like-minded people . . . and the algorithm [helps] bring people who have similar ideas or interests as you.” With this set-up, the platform should be able to adequately help “inspire creativity and bring joy” to TikTok users and creators, yet some Black Canadian content-creators describe a difficult experience on the social media application.
K4FIA (@k4fia), a Black Canadian food justice content creator with over 18,000 TikTok followers, noticed that a lot of video content from other users were being suppressed. In her own experience, when she “tried to post a whole educational series . . . it was [placed] under review for hours.” Annoyed and frustrated by the experience, she decided to delete the video.
@k4fia Want to learn more? I’m starting a food Justice reading group. #foodjustice #education #blacktiktok #leftist
♬ Didn't Cha Know - Erykah Badu
At times, the censorship against her was flagrant, as she recounted noticing a video from a white creator who repeatedly said the n-word in a video with over one million likes, but when she attempted to post something as simple as “saying the word neoliberalism,” her video was placed under review and then deleted. A smaller TikTok creator with over 3,000 followers, Ozioma (@chinasa_n), also describes a similar experience with censorship concerning the bodies of Black people, as some Black people were erroneously reported on the application for community guideline violations and were placed under review for just showing their bodies on the application.
@chinasa_n Don’t ask for my name if you’re just going to do whatever with it lmao
♬ Kali MMM MMM INSTRUMENTAL - Kali
Of course, algorithms are not free from bias as humans build and develop them. In a 2016 study, ProPublica investigated machine learning used by the courts to predict who is likely to commit another crime, and they found that the software rated Black people at a higher risk than white people. Additionally, a 2019 study found that the algorithm used by hospitals was less likely to refer Black people than white people who were equally sick to programs that were supposed to improve patient care. To Lily Hu, a Harvard researcher in applied mathematics and philosophy, “for many systems, the question of building a ‘fair’ system is essentially nonsensical because those systems try to answer social questions that don’t necessarily have an objective answer.”
For Exmiranda, it is not necessarily the algorithm alone that serves as a potential barrier for Black content creators; rather, it is the antiblack perspectives of users that impact the way Black creators navigate TikTok. The antiblack experience of Black content creators “has more to do with people . . . [and their] interests,” she says. “Users sometimes have an unconscious bias [against] Blackness,” she says.
These discriminatory experiences make it more difficult for creators who genuinely want to create content, spread knowledge, build a platform and inform others. When content creators have platforms focused on subjects such as social injustice, users can report these videos en masse causing the video to be placed under review. K4FIA had started creating videos on TikTok because she “noticed that there wasn’t a lot of information on food justice [and she wanted to] make education and knowledge more accessible.” But because of her particular experience on the platform with some users, she was “less interested in putting [her] message out there.”
While TikTok has made efforts to foster support for Black Canadian creators on the application, there is still no creator fund for Canadians (but there are funds in the US, UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy). This reality can make the experiences of Black Canadian creators feel like a fragmented one.
Although K4FIA does research on food justice in Canada, she mainly recommends books that are set in America, so she has gained “quite a lot of American followers.” She says that she is “trying to find a way to bring Canada into the mix so that [she] can make resources for people in [her] own community,” but she is unsure if the audience is there as most of the ideas that she discusses “usually resonate with Americans.” Likewise, Ozioma says that her audience is mainly American, and so at times, she does not create content made particularly for Canadians. Exmiranda notes that because she wants to reach as wide an audience as possible, she doesn’t limit her content to a specific Canadian audience. Moreover, as she has had such a negative experience navigating Canadian hip hop spaces on different social media platforms, she engages Canada when she feels it is most necessary (discussing Indigenous land dispossession on Canada Day, for instance).
All the creators still claim that, overall, they have gained much from being on the platform, citing vast connections that they have formed with people globally.
“No matter how the systems are operating, or the responses we’re getting based on user interactions, I really believe that these platforms are so great. It’s been such a blessing for me personally as a creative,” says Exmiranda.
The hope for the future is that a creator fund is created in Canada so that Black Canadian Tik Tokkers will have more resources to support them on the platform, allowing them to access the platform in the same ways that white creators are able to.
Yet, as Black Canadian Tik Tokkers have found success with the platform, they should not have to be worrying about discriminatory experiences as creators on Tik Tok. They should not have to worry about their videos being removed or being suppressed. They should not have to worry about encountering antiblack users as they create on the platform. They should not have to worry about their accounts being suspended on a whim.
As K4FIA aptly asserts, “Black creators deserve more. [We] deserve to have our stuff put out, [we] deserve not to be under review, and [we] deserve to not have [our] accounts banned for just existing on the app.”