According to a report by the non-profits Mozilla and AI Forensics, a new version of TikTok, designed for parts of the world with slower connectivity speeds, is a “safety hazard.” The researchers say that there are major differences between the safety features of TikTok Lite, a low-bandwidth app alternative to TikTok, and the original TikTok app.
The report says that TikTok Lite lacks basic protections compared to the original model, including content labels for graphic, artificial intelligence-generated, misinformation, and dangerous acts videos.
The researchers also said multiple safety guardrails are easy to integrate into TikTok Lite without increasing the app’s size, which consumes about 30 MB of phone data.
Top TikTok Lite users come from India, Brazil, and Indonesia. It is currently not available in the United States and the majority of Europe.
The report found that, compared to TikTok, the lighter version provides no warning labels for potentially harmful content, such as dangerous prank videos and graphic content to health and elections-related misinformation and AI-generated content.
Researchers also found that compared to the most popular version, TikTok Lite lacks controls such as the ability to filter offensive content and unwanted keywords and screen management tools that can mitigate app addiction.
TikTok is not the only tech platform to launch a “lite” version to target developing countries that have basic mobile phones or slow Internet connectivity.
Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and even Tinder also have their own models. However, the main TikTok app is available in every country where TikTok Lite app can be used and the company says that content that violates its policies is removed from TikTok Lite in the same way as TikTok.
The report said that tech platforms have a history of neglecting non-Western users, where there is markedly less potential for constraining regulation and enforcement.
Claudio Agosti, co-founder of AI Forensics added: “The safety features TikTok Lite lacks aren’t complex and are perfectly compatible with a lower-bandwidth app. TikTok’s decision to ignore these safety measures is clearly a choice, not a technical necessity”.
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