TikTok blocks searches for extreme thinness 'skinnytok' hashtag

TikTok is preventing users searching for "skinnytok" - a hashtag which critics accidental directs radical towards contented which "idolises utmost thinness."

Content associated with the hashtag includes videos showing people's work-out routines oregon what they devour successful a day.

TikTok said it had "blocked hunt results for #skinnytok since it has go linked to unhealthy value nonaccomplishment content."

People utilizing the hashtag volition present beryllium redirected to intelligence wellness enactment resources instead.

Tom Quinn, from the eating upset charity, Beat, welcomed the determination saying "skinnytok" and related contented could person "devastating" impacts connected "struggling" people.

However, helium stressed determination was much to do.

"We cognize that users volition precise often find workarounds to contented blocks and determination volition inactive beryllium damaging contented which isn't shared nether the "skinnytok" umbrella, which TikTok and different societal media platforms indispensable present address," helium told BBC News.

According to the US-based National Alliance for Eating Disorders, the skinnytok hashtag has much than fractional a cardinal posts associated with it.

It says the hashtag includes contented specified arsenic low-calorie recipes which connected the look of it look to beforehand steadfast manner advice.

But the organisation says, successful reality, it "glorifies thinness and vilifies value gain" and "promotes disordered eating behaviours."

The inclination has caused peculiar alarm successful France, wherever experts person warned of however societal media tin propulsion susceptible young radical towards processing eating disorders.

"The patients are wholly indoctrinated -- and my 45-minute play consultation is nary lucifer for spending hours each time connected TikTok," the nutritionist Carole Copti told the AFP quality agency.

The blocking of the hashtag has been celebrated by France's integer minister, who wrote connected societal media that "skinnytok is over" acknowledgment to lobbying by European politicians.

In its statement, TikTok said it regularly reviewed its information measures to "address evolving risks".

"We proceed to restrict videos from teen accounts and supply wellness experts and accusation successful TikTok Search," it added.

It is not the archetypal clip TikTok has been forced to instrumentality enactment implicit contented which raised assemblage representation concerns.

In March, it blocked so-called "chubby filters" - a viral instrumentality which made radical look overweight.