The UN accused TikTok of “profiting from people's misery” by taking fees and commission of up to 70% on digital gifts given to children who beg on the platform via TikTok Live.
Olivier de Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, urged TikTok to take immediate action:
“Taking a cut of people’s suffering is nothing short of digital predation. I urge TikTok to take immediate action and enforce its own policies on exploitative begging and seriously question the ‘commission’ it is taking from the world’s most vulnerable people.”
TikTok says it bans child begging and other forms of begging it considers exploitative, and that it has strict policies on users who go live, but an Observer investigation found the practice to be widespread in countries including Indonesia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Egypt and Kenya. Many of the live streams showed families with young children begging in their homes, elderly individuals in wheelchairs, and even people doing degrading and dangerous stunts in exchange for virtual gifts.
So what's the real problem here?
Nonprofits have been exploiting the likeness of poor people overseas for decades to solicit donations, of which the folks in need received a single-digit percentage of the funds raised, at best. Now TikTok is cutting out the middle-man between donors and recipients, and people have a problem with exploitation? Compared to what many nonprofits syphon off from donations, taking 70% doesn't seem like that large of an amount.
Besides, aren't all TikTok streamers begging for digital gifts in their own way? If TikTok were to draw a hard line in the sand between entertainment and “exploitative begging,” the folks doing the begging would simply adjust their strategy and change their verbiage to meet the guidelines of the algorithm — as we've seen other TikTokers do who talk about sensitive topics.
Also, I'd like to see what these so-called “exploitative beggars” have to say about the situation. The Guardian interviewed a bunch of privileged, effete intellectuals about their stances on the issue, but I never read a single quote from a beggar speaking to how TikTok has personally impacted their situation.
The real challenge is not knowing which beggars are doing so at their own will, and which ones are being coerced by third-parties, who control access to their earnings. However this is a tale as old as time on the Internet, especially with streamers in other more mature content categories (if you catch my drift), and a problem that TikTok can't necessarily solve on its own.
The question is: Should TikTok ban all begging content — including the non-exploited individuals who could genuinely use a leg up — in order to remove the “bad apples”? And what makes one beggar a “bad apple” over another?
I say, just let people on TikTok do what they want (less violence, dangerous activities, and sexual content). The algorithm can decide if the content is interesting to each individual viewer, and the viewer can decide if they want to give donations and/or continuing seeing this type of content — just like how we can decide to give or not give to folks begging for money on the side of the highway. We don't always know if they really need it either, but the choice is ours.
What are your thoughts on the subject of TikTok begging? Hit reply and let me know.