Targeting Content: Social media algorithms use sexualized media to promote more male interaction

Every time I see a conventionally attractive woman with even a miniscule amount of skin showing on social media I can already hear the putrid and objectifying comments before I press “view.” 

The nature of these comments isn’t new to the internet. Yet, I believe there’s a reason that videos susceptible to sexualization are being seen by users who are willing to do so — the majority of which are men. 

TikTok’s male-designed algorithm was leaked in a lawsuit on Oct. 11. Gender-based recommendations weren’t accounted for, although statistics based on age demographics and user interaction were shared. Because of the lack of information, I decided to run an experiment to test TikTok’s algorithm based on gender.  

I created two separate accounts, the first as a 16-year-old boy and the other as a 16-year-old girl. No other specifications were made—that was all that TikTok knew about me. 

On the “male” account, it took exactly two scrolls until I found myself reading, “This girl is flashing me! Check the location,” which inherently encouraged me to interact with this zealously sex-driven media. The video had 10.6 million views and 113 thousand likes in only three days. And because I was picked to be one of those viewers, the algorithm will recommend more videos of a similar nature. 

And that algorithm works. According to Social Media Today, TikTok has a 150% higher engagement rate than Instagram. That’s 150% more comments, shares, likes, and reposts daily. The average user also spends over 90 minutes on TikTok daily. 

The site is attempting to get more user interaction, and it seems that sex appeal is the most efficient way to get it from men — there’s no other reason why they would need to recommend that to an underage boy. 

On the second “female” account, however, what I saw in the first few videos scrolling through was even more surprising. Videos about “Hacks I wish I knew before I was a mom,” the unhealthy nature of fast food, women breaking into their ex-boyfriend’s car and women talking about how they love that their boyfriend is stronger than her flooded the feed.

All of these videos are either setting a stereotypical view of a motherly, weight-conscious lifestyle or are videos of women doing negative things like smashing someone’s car. These ideas and videos are essentially putting women in a box with a label of emotional outbursts and stereotypes.

If you personally align with stereotypes, there’s no issue with that whatsoever, but if a man promotes stereotypes for women it’s simply intolerable and wrong. 

It wasn’t until the 26th video that I got a sponsored ad about ‘booty shorts’ with 507 likes — something I would consider targeted and sexualized media. The difference between this example and the video I viewed on the “male” account is that this video was encouraging me — thinking I was a woman — to purchase suggestive, tight and revealing athleticwear to appeal to men rather than for a cute clothing choice.

I don’t have a problem if someone buys those shorts or posts about them. That has nothing to do with me at all and it’s completely their choice. As a man, however, I can judge the men who create and design the algorithm that recommends those videos to the young women on TikTok, setting more unrealistic beauty standards.

The New York Times concluded in a 2020 article that over a third of TikTok’s population may be under the age of 14. Both of the test accounts were in a two-year range of hitting that demographic and were still recommended videos of a highly inappropriate and uncontextualized nature because of the lack of content preferences set. 

I’m not the only one to notice these issues, in 2022, Apple reviewed TikTok’s age restrictions to test its algorithm; what the team found was exactly what you’d expect. 

“[There’s] frequent or intense mature or suggestive content,” Apple stated. “We hope [TikTok] will consider making the necessary changes to follow the App Store Review Guidelines and will resubmit.” 

The issue remains prevalent with no attempts being made to fix it. If anything, this issue has gotten worse, and my experiment proves it. 

Yet there’s no reason they’d want to change it. TikTok is benefiting from its higher user-interaction rate as it’s better than any other social media platform to date, even if the methods that bring them undervalue women.

It’s futile to even ask for reformation because that’s not profitable for TikTok or any other social media platform. What’s most important is for people to be informed on the subject, making sure others are aware of the new and developing forms of scrutiny in social media algorithms by sharing articles like this and doing research of their own. It’s also important to select “not interested” on any sort of video to try to break the cycle of the algorithm. 

It’s a broken and corrupt system—that denotes the positivity social media is supposed to bring to users. I don’t think I can handle seeing more videos or comments asking me to succumb to the algorithm and avidly choose to harm the feminine image. Social media like this is a huge step back from all the progressional feminism of the past century — don’t let us fall behind any more.