| Characteristic | Share of videos |
|---|---|
| Not relevant | 73% |
| Lived experience post speaking about anxiety, depression and self-harm (without romanticizing it) | 13% |
| Post showing people in emotional distress | 4.3% |
| Post portraying feelings of loneliness or inadequacy as helpless and/or deserved | 1.5% |
| Post intended to portray self-harm, depression and suicidal thoughts as inescapable | 0.7% |
| Dramatic description of trauma, suffering and suicide | 4% |
| Traumatizing imagery | 0% |
| Post that glamorizes, romanticizes or trivializes depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide (including through drawings, comics, use of music and captions) | 3% |
| Post conveying mental health-related misinformation, e.g. posts dissuading users from seeking professional help, taking prescribed medications or encouraging self-diagnosis based on misleading information | 0.4% |
| Post that mentions plans to self-harm or die by suicide or explains how to self-harm or die by suicide or otherwise encourages self-harm or suicide | 1% |
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Source
Source
Release date
November 2023
More information
Region
Kenya, United States
Survey time period
June and July 2023
Supplementary notes
The research is based on an automated algorithmic audit of TikTok’s ‘For You’ page recommender system using research accounts simulating 13-year-olds’ engagement with the platform in Kenya and the United States.
The source adds the following information: "The broad mental health-related terms list included terms such as: mentalhealth, mentalhealthmatters, sadtiktok, schooldraining, struggling, ventingaccount as well as prominent abbreviations, misspellings and code words for depression and self-harm.
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