TikTok is quietly limiting the data tool used by critics

TikTok has quietly limited one of its few tools to help measure the popularity of trends on the video app, after the tool’s results were used by researchers and lawmakers to suppress content on the site related to geopolitics and the war between Israel and To take a closer look at Hamas.

The tool, called the Creative Center, is intended to help advertisers track popular hashtags on the site. The Creative Center is open to everyone and can provide figures on the number of videos associated with a particular hashtag and information about the audiences who saw those videos.

The company’s critics had used the tool to argue that TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, fails to adequately moderate the app’s content and that Beijing influences the posts that appear on it. TikTok itself has mentioned this hashtag data to oppose claims of pro-Palestinian bias.

But as of last week, there was no longer a “search” button on the tool, and links to hashtags related to the war and American politics no longer worked. TikTok said the tool is now focused on sharing data about the top 100 hashtags across different industries, such as pets or travel.

“Unfortunately, some individuals and organizations have abused the Center’s search function to draw inaccurate conclusions, so we are changing some features to ensure it is used for its intended purpose,” said company spokesperson Alex Haurek. TikTok said the tool was created in 2020.

The change highlights the pressure TikTok has been under since the start of the war. Lawmakers and researchers have been scrutinizing the app’s influence on young Americans and raising fears about how Beijing could potentially influence content on TikTok. There have been attempts in Washington to ban the app – an outcome many consider unlikely – or to force a sale of TikTok to an American company.

Rutgers University’s Network Contagion Research Institute, which tracks disinformation and extremism online, noticed the changes last week. The group used it last month for a report that said topics that Beijing oppresses within its borders, such as the Uyghur population and the protests in Hong Kong, were unusually underrepresented on TikTok compared to Instagram.

The researchers said they could no longer find data on the hashtags they studied, including current events like #BLM, #Trump2024 and #Biden.

“Anything that is politically sensitive or could be politically sensitive or explosive is gone, and anything that is M&Ms or pop culture is not a problem,” said Joel Finkelstein, founder of the Network Contagion Research Institute. “I think it’s really creepy that they haven’t announced it or said anything about it.”

TikTok, which has repeatedly said the Chinese government has no control over the app, has said the report used “flawed methodology to reach a predetermined, false conclusion.” Some outside experts also cautioned against drawing too firm conclusions from hashtag data.

But experts also said the investigation raised interesting questions, and at least some lawmakers, including Rep. Josh Gottheimer, Democrat of New Jersey, praised the report as part of a broader effort to regulate TikTok.

Other social networks, such as X and Facebook, also provide little data about how people use the services, or how the algorithms that surface messages work. TikTok, like some other social networks, has a sign-up process for researchers who want to study the platform independently.

Joshua Tucker, co-director of the Center for Social Media and Politics at New York University, said the United States needs regulations that require social media platforms to share data with outside researchers.

“Leaving decisions about transparency up to the platforms means that by definition we will end up with policies that the platforms think are in their interests at that particular time,” Mr Tucker said. “Sometimes this policy fits well with the interests of societies, journalists and external researchers, and sometimes it does not.”