TikTok has throttled research into the impact the wildly-popular app has on users’ mental health as well as its alleged role in promoting the spread of misinformation, according to a report.
The video app, owned by Chinese-based parent company ByteDance, is requiring that academics submit their research reports about TikTok before publication in academic journals, according to Bloomberg News.
TikTok also stated in its terms of service that it will limit the amount of time that researchers have to review data and that it can require them to delete any data they use in their studies.
The limitations were put in place as TikTok moves toward allowing researchers access to data on the site, which has nearly 90 million users in the US.
“TikTok may monitor your use of the Services and the Research at any time and without notice or otherwise conduct an audit of your activities in order to ensure compliance with these Research API Terms,” the company stated in its terms of service.
The requirements governing researchers’ access to TikTok’s applicAPI are more onerous than competitors such as YouTube and X, experts told Bloomberg.
“The things in the TikTok terms of service that give me pause are mostly about pre-publication review,” Libby Hemphill, director of the Social Media Archive at the University of Michigan, told Bloomberg News.
Ben Serrette, associate director of information technology at Indiana University’s Observatory on Social Media, also noted that some of the data remained secret.
Serrette told Bloomberg News that researchers were unable to see friend lists or information on whether a video on TikTok was part of a stitch — which is akin to a repost on X.
“We’re unable to get that data from the API and so we’re unable to do some of the research that we’ve done in the past with other social media platforms,” Serrette told Bloomberg News.
The Post has sought comment from TikTok and ByteDance.
A spokesperson for the site told Bloomberg: “TikTok is committed to working with the research community to support independent research.”
“Our goal is to make it easy to independently research our platform and bring transparency to TikTok content, while rolling out our API responsibly and in a way that helps ensure data is only used for appropriate non-commercial purposes and protects our community’s privacy rights.”
TikTok has faced calls for an outright ban in the United States due to fears that Americans’ user data could end up in the hands of Chinese government officials.
TikTok and its parent company have denied that they pose a security threat to the US.
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