Today, almost everyone is on TikTok, and — although the short-video platform is extremely addictive and entertaining — as with any social platform, there’s the potential for inappropriate or harmful content as well as comments. To help its users “feel more in control over their interactions”, TikTok is testing a new dislike button for its comment section. In a blog post, TikTok said that the new button will allow users to flag comments that they find irrelevant or inappropriate. The dislike reaction will be private, only visible to the person who pressed it. The social platform stated, “This community feedback will add to the range of factors we already use to help keep the comment section consistently relevant and a place for genuine engagement.”
The dislike reaction to a comment will signal the platform’s algorithms that there may be something wrong or simply irrelevant in said comment. We assume that a certain amount of dislikes would cause a comment to sink further down the list, or flag it for review.
If you wish to straight up report a disruptive, spammy, or plain inappropriate comment — you can do so currently by tapping and holding on the comment and then choosing the “report” option.
Another feature that TikTok said is in its testing phase is reminders that the social platform sends to creators who receive a “high proportion of negative comments.” The reminders will tell creators about features such as comment filtering, bulk block, and bulk delete, which can be used to battle harmful comments. The social platform also noted that it would decide whether to roll the feature out or not in the coming weeks.
