Whistleblowers Allege Social Media Prioritized Growth

Whistleblowers from TikTok and Meta have alleged that both companies prioritized user engagement and growth over user safety, leading to an increase in harmful content on their platforms. This outcome, detailed in a BBC documentary, stems from an "algorithm arms race" initiated by TikTok's rapid expansion.

Internal research reportedly showed that outrage fueled engagement, prompting decisions to allow more "borderline" harmful content, including misogyny and conspiracy theories, to compete for user attention. For instance, a Meta engineer stated that senior management directed the allowance of such content due to stock price concerns.

At TikTok, an employee provided evidence suggesting staff were instructed to prioritize cases involving politicians over reports of harmful content featuring children, aiming to maintain political relationships and avoid regulation. A former senior Meta researcher, Matt Motyl, indicated that Instagram Reels, launched in 2020, lacked sufficient safeguards, with internal data showing higher rates of bullying, harassment, and hate speech compared to other Instagram sections.

Meta reportedly invested in 700 staff for Reels' growth while denying safety teams requests for additional personnel to protect children and ensure election integrity.

Both companies have denied the allegations. Meta stated that any suggestion of deliberately amplifying harmful content for financial gain is incorrect, while TikTok dismissed the claims as "fabricated." A former TikTok machine-learning engineer, Ruofan Ding, described the algorithms as a "black box," acknowledging the difficulty in building completely safe systems and noting that engineers primarily view content as numerical IDs, relying on safety teams to remove harmful posts.