Are Censorship Algorithms Changing TikTok’s Culture?
How social media users push back against the policing of speech
When I was a kid, my mother would speak in pig latin whenever she needed to have an adult conversation in front of my sister and me. Because I didn’t understand pig latin, I viewed these exchanges with childlike wonder, as a secret adult language or code that I could never replicate or comprehend.
In watching TikTok videos, I have started to notice another strange type of language use proliferating on the app. Unlike the freedom of expression that I saw in previous months and years, many users have begun to perform a kind of doublespeak, in which specific words and topics are discussed using abbreviations, euphemisms, and even omissions and pauses, where audience members are meant to fill in the blanks using context clues.
Like parents and adults talking in front of a group of small children, these combinations of nonverbal communication, symbolic writing, and coded language are commonly used to discuss topics that might be considered taboo or NSFW. And, although TikTok is known as an app for children and teens, this use of coded language by users of the site is not just an attempt to protect the eyes and ears of the youth. This use of complex communication styles and techniques is one of many ways…
