Views on TikTok hashtags hosting eating disorder content continue to climb, research says
TikTok videos using hashtags previously identified as hosting eating-disorder content are continuing to attract views, new research by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate has found.
A December report by the campaign group identified “coded” hashtags where users could access potentially harmful videos promoting restrictive diets and so-called “thinspo” content, designed to encourage harmful weight loss.
New analysis of those hashtags by the organisation found that since the study, just seven had been removed from the platform and only three carried a health warning on the UK version of the app.
But TikTok said it had removed content which violates its rules, which do not allow the promotion or glorification of eating disorders.
The Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) said the hashtags it found still on the platform had amassed 1.6 billion more views, which the UK’s leading eating disorder charity Beat has called “extremely concerning”.
“There is no excuse for harmful hashtags and videos being on TikTok in the first place,” Andrew Radford, Beat’s Chief Executive said.
“The company should immediately identify and remove damaging content as soon as it is uploaded,” he told Sky News.
Content warning: this article contains references to eating disorders.
TikTok’s community guidelines restrict eating disorder-related content on its platform and this includes hashtags explicitly associated with it.
But users will often make subtle edits to terminology so they can continue posting potentially harmful material about eating disorders without being spotted by TikTok’s moderators.
‘Coded’ language to avoid detection
In its December report, the CCDH identified 56 TikTok hashtags using “coded” language, under which it found potentially harmful eating disorder content.
The CCDH also found 35 of the hashtags contained a high concentration of pro-eating disorder videos, while it said 21 contained a mix of harmful content and healthy discussion.
Among the material found in both categories were videos promoting unhealthy weight loss, restrictive diets and “thinspo”.
In November, the views across these hashtags stood at 13.2 billion. When CCDH reviewed them in January, it found that the number of views on videos using the hashtags had grown to more than 14.8 billion.
Since the original study, CCDH says seven of the hashtags it identified had been removed from the platform altogether.
Four of those hosted predominantly pro-eating disorder content, while three contained both positive and harmful videos.
In the review, the CCDH found when accessed by US users, 37 of the hashtags they identified carried a safety warning directing users to the US’s leading eating disorder charity.
However, the same review found that for UK users, just three of those hashtags carry the same kind of warning.
Centre for Countering Digital Hate found 56 hashtags associated with eating disorder content. 35 of those contained a high concentration of pro-eating disorder content. Pic:TikTok
‘Outcry’ by parents
“TikTok is clearly capable of adding warnings to English language content that might harm but is choosing not to implement this for English language content in the UK,” said Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate.
“There can be no clearer example of the way the enforcement of purportedly universal rules of these platforms are actually implemented partially, selectively, and only when platforms feel under real pressure by governments,” he told Sky News.
The new research also indicates that most of the people accessing material under these hashtags are young.
Using TikTok’s own data analytics tool, CCDH found that 91% of views on 21 of the hashtags came from users under the age of 24. This tool, however, is limited as TikTok does not include data for any users under the age of 18.
“Despite an outcry from parents, politicians and the general public, three months later this content continues to grow and spread unchecked,” Mr Ahmed added.
“Every view represents a potential victim – someone whose mental health might be harmed by negative body image content, someone who might start restricting their diet to dangerously low levels,” he said.
Following CCDH’s findings, a group of charities – including the NSPCC, the Molly Russell Foundation and the US and UK arms of the American Psychological Foundation – have called on TikTok to improve its moderation policies in a letter to its head of safety, Eric Han.
Responding to the findings, a spokesperson for TikTok said: “Our community guidelines are clear that we do not allow the promotion, normalisation or glorification of eating disorders, and we have removed content mentioned in this report that violates these rules.
“We are open to feedback and scrutiny, and we seek to engage constructively with partners who have expertise on these complex issues, as we do with NGOs in the US and UK.”
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
Business
Chancellor’s Mansion House speech vows to rip up red tape – saying post-financial crash rules went ‘too far’
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has criticised post-financial crash regulation, saying it has “gone too far” – setting a course for cutting red tape in her first speech to Britain’s most important gathering of financiers and business leaders.
Increased rules on lenders that followed the 2008 crisis have had “unintended consequences”, Ms Reeves will say in her Mansion House address to industry and the City of London’s lord mayor.
“The UK has been regulating for risk, but not regulating for growth,” she will say.
It cannot be taken for granted that the UK will remain a global financial centre, she is expected to add.
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It’s anticipated Ms Reeves will on Thursday announce “growth-focused remits” for financial regulators and next year publish the first strategy for financial services growth and competitiveness.
Rachel Reeves
Bank governor to point out ‘consequences’ of Brexit
Also at the Mansion House dinner the governor of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey will say the UK economy is bigger than we think because we’re not measuring it properly.
A new measure to be used by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) – which will include the value of data – will probably be “worth a per cent or two on GDP”. GDP is a key way of tracking economic growth and counts the value of everything produced.
Brexit has reduced the level of goods coming into the UK, Mr Bailey will also say, and the government must be alert to and welcome opportunities to rebuild relations.
Mr Bailey will caveat he takes no position on “Brexit per se” but does have to point out its consequences.
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Bailey: Inflation expected to rise
In what appears to be a reference to the debate around UK immigration policy, Mr Bailey will also say the UK’s ageing population means there are fewer workers, which should be included in the discussion.
The greying labour force “makes the productivity and investment issue all the more important”.
“I will also say this: when we think about broad policy on labour supply, the economic arguments must feature in the debate,” he’s due to add.
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The exact numbers of people at work are unknown in part due to fewer people answering the phone when the ONS call.
Mr Bailey described this as “a substantial problem”.
He will say: “I do struggle to explain when my fellow [central bank] governors ask me why the British are particularly bad at this. The Bank, alongside other users, including the Treasury, continue to engage with the ONS on efforts to tackle these problems and improve the quality of UK labour market data.”
Business
Reeves has welcome support from Bank’s governor as she goes for growth and seeks to woo City
When Gordon Brown delivered his first Mansion House speech as chancellor he caused a stir by doing so in a lounge suit, rather than the white tie and tails demanded by convention.
Some 27 years later Rachel Reeves is the first chancellor who would have not drawn a second glance had they addressed the City establishment in a dress.
As the first woman in the 800-year history of her office, Ms Reeves’s tenure will be littered with reminders of her significance, but few will be as symbolic as a dinner that is a fixture of the financial calendar.
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Her host at Mansion House, asset manager Alastair King, is the 694th man out of 696 Lord Mayors of London. The other guest speaker, Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey, leads an institution that is yet to be entrusted to a woman.
Ms Reeves’s speech indicates she wants to lean away from convention in policy as well as in person.
By committing to tilting financial regulation in favour of growth rather than risk aversion, she is going against the grain of the post-financial crash environment.
“This sector is the crown jewel in our economy,” she will tell her audience – many of whom will have been central players in the 2007-08 collapse.
Sending a message that they will be less tightly bound in future is not natural territory for a Labour chancellor.
Her motivation may be more practical than political. A tax-and-spend budget that hit business harder than forewarned has put her economic program on notice and she badly needs the growth elements to deliver.
Rachel Reeves on budget day. Pic: PA
Her plans to consolidate local authority pension schemes so they might match the investing power of their Canadian and Australian counterparts is part of the same theme.
Infrastructure investment is central to Reeves’s plan and these steps, universally welcomed, could unlock the private sector funding required to make it happen.
Bank governor frank on Brexit and growth
If the jury is out in a business financial community absorbing £25bn in tax rises, she has welcome support from Mr Bailey.
He is expected to deliver some home truths about the economic inheritance in plainer language than central bankers sometimes manage.
Britain’s growth potential, he says, “is not a good story”. He describes the labour market as “running against us” in the face of an ageing population.
With investment levels “particularly weak by G7 standards”, he will thank the chancellor for the pension reforms intended to unlock capital investment.
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Governor warns inflation expected to rise
He is frank about Brexit too, more so than the chancellor has dared.
While studiously offering no view on the central issue, Mr Bailey says leaving the EU had slowed the UK’s potential for growth, and that the government should “welcome opportunities to rebuild relations”.
There is a more coded warning too about the risks of protectionism, which is perhaps more likely with Donald Trump in the White House.
“Amid threats to economic security, let’s please remember the importance of openness,” the Bank governor will say.
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All that is welcome for Ms Reeves.
Already a groundbreaking chancellor, she is aiming for a political and economic legacy that extends beyond her gender and the dress code.
Water company United Utilities has reported hundreds of millions in profit as it seeks to further increase customer bills.
The utility serving seven million customers in the northwest of England recorded £335.7m in underlying operating profits for the first half of this year, up nearly 23% from £271.1m a year ago.
It comes as the firm has requested bills rise 32% to make them among the most expensive in England and Wales.
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The proposed average annual bill would increase to £584 by 2030 from the £443 typical yearly charge in the 2023/2024 financial year. Since April 2023 bills have been upped 6.4% and then 7.9%.
Bills hikes were behind the rise in revenue to more than £1.08bn from £975.4m in 2023.
Other ways of assessing profit were lower than the underlying operating sum. Profit before tax reached £140.6m while after tax profit topped £103.1m for the six months to the end of September 2024, both lower than a year earlier.
Boss’s pay
Bonus and benefits payments worth £1.416m were paid to two executives on top of £1.128m in base pay, according to analysis of company filings done by the Liberal Democrats.
It’s down compared with 2022/2023 when three executives were given £1.6m in base pay and £2.456m in bonuses and benefits.
Read more:
Water giant United Utilities strikes £1.8bn pension deal
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The environment
In a year of record sewage outflows into waterways the company was one of just three firms that met the Environment Agency’s top four-star performance ranking.
United Utilities in July came under investigation by water regulator Ofwat for not meeting its obligation to minimise pollution.
In response the company said at the time: “We understand and share people’s concerns about the health of the environment and the operation of wastewater systems, including combined sewer overflows.”
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