What’s up le$beans!
I’m Mel Woods, Xtra’s staff writer. As a noted millennial-Gen Z cusp (I was born in 1995, okay?) who aspires to be hip with the kids, I’ve spent the past year embedded on TikTok gobbling up all of the queer content, cat videos and recipes the relatively new social media platform can put in front of my eyes.
Allow me to welcome you to the first edition of Tik Talk, my bi-weekly column where I’ll put all of that scrolling to use and break down what you need to know about what’s happening on queer TikTok. Every second Tuesday, expect to read about the hottest trends, the best videos and the complicated politics of being queer and trans online.
For the inaugural edition of Tik Talk, we’re talking about censorship and the dangers LGBTQ2S+ people face on a platform like TikTok. While it can be super freeing to connect with your niche communities, fall in love with women’s basketball players and share trans health tips online, TikTok is still a social media platform at its core and we all know how those can royally suck—especially for marginalized communities.
Here’s what you need to know.
How does TikTok handle anti-LGBTQ2S+ harassment and hate speech?
This week, GLAAD published their Social Media Safety Index (SMSI), the first baseline evaluation of LGBTQ2S+ user safety across a variety of social media platforms. The index found widespread issues of hate speech and harassment targeting LGBTQ2S+ people across all social platforms.
When it comes to TikTok specifically, the SMSI singled out a few key issues with the platform around hate speech and how it’s moderated: TikTok’s Community Guidelines concerning “hateful behaviour” specifically prohibit attacks on the basis of “protected attributes,” “slurs” and “hateful ideology.”
From July to December 2020, 6.6 percent of videos removed by TikTok were related to bullying or harassment, and 2 percent were related to “hateful behaviour.” But even the platform’s operators acknowledge it’s a challenge to catch everything.
“We have systems to detect hateful symbols, like flags and icons, but hate speech remains a challenge to proactively detect and we continue to make investments to improve,” a recent TikTok transparency report read.
In the SMSI, GLAAD called on TikTok to improve moderation and respond quickly to instances of hate speech and harassment on the platform. Suggestions include specifying transphobic slurs and hate speech in its community guidelines, and improving the process of how users report inappropriate content.
And there is evidence the platform is capable of it: In March, the platform moved to quickly ban the #SuperStraight hashtag after it was linked to transphobic and neo-Nazi groups. (The hashtag emerged from transphobic memes where people claimed a “new sexuality” of being “super straight,” where they refused to date trans people.)
Not only was the hashtag shadow banned—meaning videos using it would not appear in searches or on recommended video lists—TikTok also banned the original user who created the meme. This is good and, frankly, how the platform should handle every instance of hate speech and harassment.
Why are trans creators being censored and why does everyone on TikTok use weird hashtags like #le$bean?
But what happens when the banning turns against the very people it’s trying to protect?
When TikTok swiftly bans transphobic content, that’s great. When TikTok starts banning actual trans people, that’s a lot less great.
Unfortunately, the latter has been happening a lot.
Back in September, TikTok actually admitted to censoring some LGBTQ2S+-related hashtags in certain regions. According to a report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, terms that were not linking to content included “gay” in Russian and Arabic, “I am a lesbian” and “I am gay” in Russian and “transgender” in Arabic.
According to TikTok, some LGBTQ2S+ terms were being flagged as pornographic content, while others were censored to comply with local laws.
“We believe that accountability and transparency are essential to facilitating trust with our community. As part of this, we’ve committed to making our moderation policies, algorithm, and data security practices available to experts, which no other company in our space has been willing to do,” read a statement from TikTok at the time.
Trans people have repeatedly (and repeatedly, and repeatedly) called out the platform for censoring or taking down their content. Most recently, trans creators are complaining that TikTok straight-up deleted their accounts without notice.
In late April, Buzzfeed reported that 20-year-old trans creator Adea Danielle’s TikTok account had been deleted without warning after she’d amassed over 1.5 million followers. She told BuzzFeed that her videos had previously been banned for “violating community guidelines,” even though she mostly just shared comedic takes on the trans experience.
Her account was only reinstated following inquiries from BuzzFeed into why it was taken down in the first place.
TikTok denies it removed videos focusing on gender identity and purports to support and elevate trans creators on the platform. But content by queer and trans creators is still getting banned, blocked and deleted, whether for being mistakenly labelled as porn or, more nefariously, for being reported by transphobic and alt-right corners of the platform.
Latina trans creator Rosalynne Montoya’s account was taken down after trolls reported her account for violating community guidelines, even though it didn’t. HIt was later reinstated, and an online petition from Montoya calling on TikTok to update its algorithm and community guidelines to prevent this from happening has amassed over 17,000 signatures.
A creative solution some queer folks have started using is unconventional hashtags. Spend a few minutes on the lesbian corners of TikTok and you’ll quickly see the phrase “le$bean” floating around. Same goes for tr@ns, g@y or other hashtags like #alphabetmafia.
And while these adaptations—particularly le$bean (pronounced le-dollar-bean, obviously)—have become part of TikTok culture in their own right, we shouldn’t have to tiptoe around the words we use to describe ourselves to be able to post freely on a platform like TikTok!
The platform must work to not only protect queer people from hate speech, but also to protect our right to post freely.
How can TikTok be better to queer people?
So what can change in order to make TikTok better for queer folks? In the SMSI, GLAAD calls on TikTok to bring more nuance to how it regulates LGBTQ2S+ people on the platform using its content policies.
“GLAAD also reminds the platform of the need for continued diligence in the implementation and enforcement of these policies, lest legitimate LGBTQ content be over-policed or unfairly removed,” the organization wrote. “GLAAD also strongly urges TikTok to devote resources to gathering and releasing data on the current state of LGBTQ self-expression on the platform.”
GLAAD also encouraged the app to use human moderators, who can better determine the difference between, say, a trans creator sharing helpful health tips and actual inappropriate content. Similarly, the organization calls for more tools to report disinformation, and a more expansive and nuanced process for reporting hate speech and harmful content.
And finally, GLAAD called on TikTok to hire more queer and trans people to make sure these mistakes don’t happen.
“In addition to departments related to content creation and social impact, it is also essential to hire LGBTQ content moderators and to train all content moderators to understand the needs of LGBTQ users,” they wrote.
Let’s all work together to make sure queer people can not only survive but thrive in the exciting internet space that is TikTok.
🌈✨ Queer TikToker of the week
Speaking of thriving online, at the end of every column I’m going to highlight a queer TikToker who’s innovating, sparking joy or is simply worth checking out if you want somewhere to start as you dive into the wonderful world of TikTok.
This week, in the spirit of big spring energy, I present @AlexisNikole, a Black bisexual forager who shares tips and tricks for making the most of the natural world around you. From dandelion straws to harvesting morel mushrooms, every time one of her videos appears on my feed her enthusiasm makes my day a little brighter. Go make some cherry blossom milk tea!
Happy scrolling my friends!
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