Key facts
- TikTok disabled an algorithmic safeguard designed to prevent harmful content for 15 million U.S. users.
- The experiment aimed to assess the impact of the safeguard on user engagement.
- A 16-year-old user in the control group reportedly received content about sadness and suicide before dying by suicide.
- Senators Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal are demanding answers from TikTok's CEOs.
- TikTok must respond by September 1 to 13 questions regarding the experiment, including employee knowledge and minor participation.
U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal have issued a deadline to TikTok, demanding answers about an experiment that intentionally disabled a safety feature for approximately 15 million users in the United States. The senators described the company's decision to conduct the experiment as "depraved."
According to a Bloomberg report, TikTok disabled an algorithmic safeguard designed to prevent users from being exposed to harmful content. This was done to create a control group for an experiment to determine if the safeguard reduced user engagement. One individual in the control group, 16-year-old Chase Nasca, reportedly received thousands of videos related to sadness, suicide, and loneliness before dying by suicide.
The senators have posed 13 questions to TikTok CEO Shou Chew and U.S. business CEO Adam Presser. These questions seek to identify all employees aware of the experiment and understand why minors were included in the control group. They also requested a list of all algorithmic experiments conducted in the U.S. where a safety feature was disabled or delayed. TikTok has been given until September 1 to provide its response.