TikTok removes views from hashtags
TikTok obscured hashtag view counts, reducing transparency for researchers studying harmful content.
Executive summary
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The Center for Countering Digital Hate compared screenshots of 21 eating-disorder-related hashtag pages on TikTok taken in 2022 and again in February 2024 to document a change in what the platform displays to users and researchers.
The comparison showed that TikTok had stopped publishing total view counts for hashtags, a data point earlier CCDH studies had relied on to quantify exposure to harmful content — including a prior finding that the same 21 hashtags had accumulated roughly 11 billion combined views, and other research citing hundreds of millions to billions of views on pro-eating-disorder, steroid, and antisemitic hashtags.
The report characterizes the removal as a reduction in platform transparency that limits independent researchers' ability to measure the scale of harmful content exposure, framing it as part of a broader pattern of TikTok curtailing external access to its data tools.
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