National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia 4067, Australia.
School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia 4067, Australia.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Jan 20;19(3):1141. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19031141.
There are concerns regarding what young people are exposed to on TikTok due to trending content promoting e-cigarette use through humour, marketing and lifestyle acceptability. Using baseline data from November 2020, we aimed to examine how much content from a sample of popular vaping videos remained accessible at 9- and 12-month follow-ups. We aimed to monitor changes in viewer engagement (using metadata) before and after the U.S. Congressional Hearing on youth protection measures on social media in October 2021.
Hashtag-based keywords were used to collect the most viewed publicly available e-cigarette related videos on TikTok (N = 802) from inception to November 2020 to form a baseline. Researchers conducted a longitudinal descriptive study using this data, with 9- and 12-month follow-ups to measure changes in viewer engagement (using metadata) and content availability.
Of the 802 videos from the baseline, 562 remained at the 9-month follow-up and 511 remained at the 12-month follow-up. At the 12-month follow-up, the majority of vaping-related hashtags were removed by TikTok after the Congressional Hearing. Between the baseline and 9-month follow up, views increased by 1.4% and likes increased by 4.4%. At 12-month follow-up, views had increased by 1.7% and likes by 4.2% compared to baseline data. Whilst 291 videos were no longer publicly accessible at 12-month follow-up, 39 of these were made inaccessible by the content creators. The most viewed and most liked vaping videos at baseline were still publicly available.
Whilst the depiction type and thematic distribution of removed videos suggest that TikTok may be removing a small proportion of content that promotes the use of e-cigarettes, metadata of remaining videos indicate an increase in viewer engagement. TikTok's removal of explicit substance-related hashtags from the platform could be a step towards preventing adolescents from being exposed to harmful behaviours and substances online. However, the platform should consider enforcing effective age restrictions on content that promotes substance use in a positive light.
由于 TikTok 上的热门内容通过幽默、营销和生活方式的可接受性来宣传电子烟的使用，因此人们对年轻人在 TikTok 上接触到的内容感到担忧。利用 2020 年 11 月的基线数据，我们旨在研究在 2021 年 10 月美国国会就社交媒体保护青少年措施举行听证会前后，从抽样的热门电子烟视频中仍有多少内容可以访问。我们旨在监测观众参与度（使用元数据）在听证会前后的变化。
使用基于标签的关键词从成立到 2020 年 11 月在 TikTok 上收集最受关注的公开电子烟相关视频（N=802），形成基线。研究人员使用这些数据进行纵向描述性研究，进行 9 个月和 12 个月的随访，以衡量观众参与度（使用元数据）和内容可用性的变化。
在基线的 802 个视频中，有 562 个在 9 个月的随访中仍然存在，有 511 个在 12 个月的随访中仍然存在。在国会听证会之后，TikTok 删除了大多数与电子烟相关的标签。在基线和 9 个月的随访之间，浏览量增加了 1.4%，点赞量增加了 4.4%。在 12 个月的随访中，浏览量比基线数据增加了 1.7%，点赞量增加了 4.2%。虽然在 12 个月的随访中，有 291 个视频不再公开，但其中 39 个是由内容创作者设置为不可访问的。在基线时最受关注和最受欢迎的电子烟视频仍然可以公开访问。
虽然被删除视频的描述类型和主题分布表明 TikTok 可能正在删除一小部分宣传电子烟使用的内容，但剩余视频的元数据表明观众参与度有所增加。TikTok 从平台上删除与物质相关的明确标签可能是防止青少年在网上接触有害行为和物质的一步。然而，该平台应该考虑对以积极方式宣传物质使用的内容实施有效的年龄限制。
