15 Million People Used as Test Subjects: Shocking TikTok Exposure
Internal documents revealed in court expose the background of a major TikTok scandal. In 2021, the company intentionally excluded about 15 million US users from a safety update to measure how the transition to a safer system would impact screen time and engagement.
Internal documents revealed in court expose the behind-the-scenes of one of the most significant scandals at TikTok. In 2021, the company decided to improve its algorithm to prevent users from being exposed to sequences of harmful videos, such as content dealing with depression or self-harm. However, a secret report reveals that the company chose to exclude about 10% of users in the USA—approximately 15 million people—from the safety update to test how much screen time and viewership the transition to a safer system would cost.
The Economic Price of Safety
One of the users randomly selected for this control group was Chase Nasca, a 16-year-old teenager from New York. Shortly after being excluded from the update, Nasca began receiving a sequence of videos dealing with suicide instead of the usual entertainment content he watched. Within less than a month, he took his own life. According to the report, the company continued to monitor his active account even a year after his death, while employees attempted to draft an official response that would show empathy and minimize reputational damage ahead of a journalistic investigation.
This secret experiment illustrates the economic dilemma of social networks, where screen time is directly translated into revenue. According to data from the research firm Edison, about 83% of weekly TikTok users in the USA over the age of 13 performed an action following an advertisement in the app, and 43% even purchased a product through it. The algorithm designed to keep users glued to the screen is also the economic engine driving the company's sales, and any decrease in viewing time directly hurts its bottom line.
The Family's Legal Battle
To get ahead of negative press, company employees accelerated the launch of a button to reset the recommendation feed, which was released to all users in March 2023. However, this is only a partial solution that requires users to actively navigate through three different menus to activate it. TikTok stated in response that it is committed to user safety, but refused to answer questions regarding the inclusion of minors in the experiment or the acceleration of the reset button's launch.
Currently, Nasca's parents are waging a persistent legal battle against the tech giant. The damages lawsuit they filed was dismissed last year after TikTok claimed protection under Section 230 of federal law, which exempts websites from liability for user-uploaded content. The family has filed an appeal, and simultaneously, the Attorney General of Arkansas recently requested to question the teenager's father as part of a separate lawsuit against the company.
