It is known that social media from time to time have fallen into abundant faux pas as they have sent users to the hospital and spread false news. However, no one expected what happened days ago in TikTok when multi-week video data was discarded in thousands Scientific studies.
It all started when a teenage girl posted on TikTok one 56 second video where she encouraged her followers to use a research site to make extra money. As a result, chaos was caused in thousands of studies with the main culprit being Sarah Frank, a high school graduate and TikTok user.
The 18-year-old posted the video in question where she informed the viewers about it Prolific, a research site for scientists and companies conducting behavioral research. The platform allows users to sign up and complete surveys, in exchange for a small fee for the user’s participation in the survey – in fact, Frank herself described the move as “Side hustle”, ie “trick in order to put a pocket money aside”.
Within a month of its first screening in late July, Frank’s video gathered four million views and flooded the platform with new entrants – most of whom were girls who belonged to the demographic group of her followers, ie 18 to 25 years old, most high school graduates or in the early years of higher education.
The result shocked the scientific community as thousands of studies were carried out using Prolific. Why did this happen? Why because of Frank’s video and thousands of teenage girls taking part in surveys, and With the vast majority of responses coming from the vast majority of women aged 18 to 25, the researchers considered the data to be distorted.
The response from the scientific community has essentially confirmed… glitch in the Matrix: “We noticed a huge jump in the number of participants in the platform from the US, from 40 thousand to 80 thousand. Which is great, however, 85% of the participants are women with an average age of around 21 years “, wrote a member of the Stanford Behavioral Lab in a post on the Prolific forum.
“Before the video in question on TikTok, about 50% of the responses on our platform came from women,” he said. Prolific co-founder Felim Bradley on The Verge, emphatically adding that despite the fact that it went viral, the number of new users on the platform has already begun to decline as we speak.
“This sudden surge has raised this rate to 75% in a few days, but since then, that number has been declining and we are currently behind less than 60% of the responses coming from women,” she concludes. Bradley and admitting, indirectly but clearly, that the damage was not as small as the scientific community might want to admit.
However, such as summarizes The Verge, “the event demonstrates the power that even a teenager with a small audience can have on online platforms like TikTok “.
Under the microscope again for processing children’s personal data
And all this is happening at the same time that, some 24 hours ago, the competent Irish regulatory authority started two TikTok surveys, concerning the processing of children’s personal data and the transfer of data to China.
THE first of the surveys is related to “the processing of personal data in the context of the platform settings for users under 18 years of age and the age verification measures for persons under 13 years of age”, the Irish regulator announced.
“THE second survey “It will focus on the transfer of personal data from TikTok to China and whether the company complies with relevant EU law when transferring personal data to countries outside the Union,” the statement said.
A TikTok spokesman said: “The platform has implemented extensive policies and controls to safeguard users’ personal data and is based on approved data transfer methods from Europe.”
“The personal data and security of the TikTok community, especially its youngest members, is our highest priority,” the platform spokesman added.
The Irish Data Protection Committee, which is the A key regulator in the EU for many of the world’s leading Internet companies due to the fact that they are headquartered in the country, can impose fines corresponding to up to 4% of their global revenue.
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