Early this December a report from ByteDance, the company that owns the internet sensation, Tik Tok, was obtained by a German newspaper company. In these documents ByteDance’s anti bullying policy was outlined, and caused some controversy.

“The platform instructed its moderators to mark videos of people with disabilities and limit their reach,” an article by netzpolitik reported.

People who are Queer, as stated in the article, and overweight also have their posts views capped along with those who have disablilites.. After someone is deemed “at risk” for bullying and reach between six and ten thousand views they are flagged as “Auto R.” Once they are flagged as “Auto R” if they reach a certain number of views they are automatically placed into the not recommended page.

Many of the users are surprised that the Chinese application company ByteDance caps the views on their users after seeing a diverse crowd while browsing the app.

“I have seen a lot of different people on the For-You-Page so its like thats a little weird,” said freshman Emmalia Diccairello “ I do see a lot of “pretty people” though, because social media is about showing your better side.”

Getting rid of bullying is a very hard thing to do and people think that preventing people from being seen on a social media platform is actually pushing our society in the wrong direction.

“If you want to get rid of bullying that’s not really how you do it,” said senior Coleman Grehawick.

Capping a disabled individual’s views doesn’t let their messages get to the broad crowd that may need a lesson on acceptance.

“I think it is unfair that they are not giving everyone equal opportunity and not to have everyone see what they are saying,” said freshman Megan Giles.

If Tik Tok wants to stop the bullying on their page they should have an acceptance page not an algorithm that caps a disabled individual’s views.