Here is an interesting article about how TikTok heads off cyberbullying by limiting the audience of (possible) targets of cyberbullying:

https://netzpolitik.org/2019/discrimination-tiktok-curbed-reach-for-people-with-disabilities

First, I have to admit that I have a technology blind spot when it comes to Instagram and the newest thing “TikTok”.

I have an Instagram account and have no fucking idea what to do with it.

At some point, I will ask some of my more tech-savvy friends to help this fat old lady with expanding her social media presence.

In the meantime, at least as far as TikTok is concerned, I needn’t bother – much.

Like many places where bullying is a problem, TikTok has taken the position of eliminating the target of the bullying rather than eliminating the bullying.

What TikTok does is designate any video which features a person who is considered vulnerable to cyberbullying as “Auto_R”.

The TikTok Playbook Rule on Auto_R is any video depicting a “Subject who is susceptible to bullying or harassment based on their physical or mental condition.”

In practice, these targets of cyberbullying out to include gay people, people with disabilities (including autism), people with “facial problems (such as a birthmark, slight squint, etc.)”, and, of course, fat people.

Auto_R means that:

As a result, if these videos exceeded a certain number of views, they automatically ended up in the “not recommend” category. Such a categorization means that a video no longer appears in the algorithmically compiled For-You-Feed, which the user sees when opening the app.

“Certain number of views” is 6,000 to 10,000 views, which is a drop in the bucket when you consider that TikTok’s global audience is around one billion!

So instead of growing a set and actually dealing with the ass hats, TikTok chooses to “disappear” us poor victims.

This is just the latest example of what I perceive as the world’s attitude about people who are bullied – It is the victim’s fault.

This is especially true regarding fat people, because many take the attitude that we should “just lose weight.”

First off, (as I have pointed out over and over and over again) there is no known way to achieve substantial long term weight loss for most people.

Second off, even if there was a way – why is it incumbent on me to change my appearance in order to garner someone else’s approval?

Fuck all of that shit.

Stop blaming the victim of bullying.

They are not the problem.

The problem is the bullying.

The problem is the bully.

Stop pretending that they are somehow not accountable for the nasty things they say and do.

They are the ones you should be concerned about – and should want to help.

It’s like all this BS about how girl’s in school shouldn’t dress provocatively because the poor boys can’t focus on their studies.

What a steaming load that is.

All you’re doing is teaching boys women are there only for one thing and that they (the boys) have no control (or responsibility / accountability) over how they react to women.

Stop infantilizing males.

It is insulting to everyone to pretend that boys can’t study in the presence of females unless those females are dressed in a certain way.

And ditto for how people react to fat people – or disabled people – or gay people.

All they have to do is learn to do better.

Nobody is even demanding that the bullies learn to think differently about the people they want to bully.

All we are demanding is that they act differently.

Nobody is asking that you stop being an ass hat.

Just don’t act like an ass hat.

Pretty simple when you think about it.