TikTok Audit

As part of the project Approaches to Analyse and Evaluate AI-Based Recommendation Systems for Internet Intermediaries we are closely examining the social media platform TikTok. On this page and at tiktok-audit.com, we are collecting various insights, both minor and major, that we gained during the examination of the platform.

• February 12, 2024: Ads, Ads, Ads. How the for you feed is clogged with ads.

• February 9, 2024: What the first months of DSA enforcement have meant for TikTok (and other big platforms)

• January 19, 2024: Auditing TikTok: Methodological reflections on the RSBA process. A short analysis of political ads and TikToks new advertisement library

• January 10, 2024: Shop Till You Drop...: How Temu exploits TikTok's affordances. A short analysis of political ads and TikToks new advertisement library

• November 7, 2023: Minors à la carte: TikTok allows profiling of underage teens. We look into the Research API and its shortcomings.

• October 16, 2023: The Research API falls woefully short. We look into the Research API and its shortcomings.

• October 13, 2023: How TikTok drags users into the digital war zone. An analysis of the suggested searches related to the Israel-Hamas War

• September 25, 2023: We found 100 political ads on TikTok Germany. An update on political ads in Germany + Dataset

• August 28, 2023: Ad-Targeting for minors still exists but it shouldn't. An data analysis of ads targeting minors on a set of 7.000.000 ads shows that, although TikTok claimed it ended the practice, still exists

• August 18, 2023: Diving into TikTok's Ad Library: Surfacing with Missing Data and Unenforced Guidelines. A short analysis of political ads and TikToks new advertisement library