By Zoe Kleinman, BBC Technology editor
A still from the short film at the heart of the conflict. Emmeline Hartley performs in the film as well as having created it. Photo: Supplied/ Keep Breathing film still
A video on TikTok about sexual consent has been swamped with comments from men accusing women of alleging assault.
Many of them mention Andrew Tate, a controversial influencer banned from several platforms for his misogynist views.
The two-minute video, from an account with about 1700 followers, had been viewed more than 1.2 million times.
Its creator Emmeline Hartley said she believes TikTok's algorithms are driving more hate towards the film.
People using TikTok are served content based on a mixture of videos they have previously liked, and on which people like them have watched and commented.
TikTok said misogyny was prohibited on the platform.
"Our community guidelines specifically call it out as a hateful ideology and we are crystal clear that we do not want that content on our platform," a spokesperson said.
It added that it had removed more than 100 comments from Hartley's video, which it said was a small proportion of the number that had been left.
Hartley said she had found it impossible to make direct contact with someone from the platform to get help managing the comments.
"We don't have the capacity or the manpower to respond to all the comments," Hartley said.
"I thought, 'what have I done? I've made a film that's helping rape culture."
She said she had seen other videos on TikTok that had been swamped with abusive comments where the creator appealed for likes and positivity to help "pull them back from the wrong side of TikTok".
A still from the short film at the heart of the conflict, Keep Breathing. Hartley said the film was intended to be nuanced, and to explore complex issues around consent Photo: Supplied/ Keep Breathing film still
Fictional story
Hartley's original video, Keep Breathing, was 18 minutes long and made in 2018, with funding from various local organisations in Derby and backed by the British Film Institute.
It is a fictional story featuring a couple arguing in a lift about a previous sexual encounter, interwoven with flashbacks to the evening it took place.
The characters had both been drinking alcohol, they met in a nightclub, and there were misunderstandings about how they were going to get home and whether the man was going to stay with the woman.
However, the clip she posted to TikTok in September featured only the pair's argument and not the contextual flashbacks. When Hartley tried to add a separate video featuring those, they were repeatedly removed by TikTok on the grounds that they were explicit.
She has now been able to share the context, but said there were still many comments that are abusive towards women.
Although she considered removing the videos, Hartley said she was content that she decided to share the post.
"I don't regret it, but I'm trying to navigate how to respond," she said.
"Some of the comments have been healthy, a couple of people have changed their minds while replying to each other. I think it's important, it needs to go out there."
How the algorithm works
Social media consultant Matt Navarra said TikTok's algorithm functions as a recommendation service, drawing on the previous activity of the individual user and of others like them, in order to serve up new content with which the person would also be likely to engage.
It was designed to keep users on the platform for longer and to draw them to use it more frequently, which is good for advertisers and therefore also good for TikTok's advertising revenue.
"It means if this content has been seen, engaged with and liked by a group of users who are, for example, Andrew Tate fans, then it's likely to show that piece of content to even more people who are that sort of user," Navarra said.
"It's self perpetuating."
The creator could not stop that train once it was in motion, because they had no control over the algorithm itself, and there were limited options for reporting issues, he said.
In July it was reported that Meta, which owned Facebook and Instagram, was going to make its algorithm more similar to TikTok's, rather than prioritising content from accounts that individuals were already following.
- BBC
