Let’s say that this purported effect of hiding the ”divergent” to ostensibly avoid bullying does not exist at any substantial rate, at least not for you. I’m still curious what you think about the claims in the articles further up the thread, regarding steps they took to try to make that happen (even if maybe they were unsuccessful). Personally, it doesn’t leave me with a great taste in my mouth.
Let's be clear: it sucks, and at least it used to happen.
But it sucks precisely because there's no other platform that gives the neurodivergent crowd a voice the way TikTok does.
This is why I'm talking about it! If the engineers in the West don't understand the value of TikTok, we'll never get a homegrown alternative.
Think about TikTok as an apartment complex with an awful landlord that sometimes kicks disabled people out...
...while still remaining the only accessible housing for disabled people in town.
Everyone here is saying that obviously it's going to turn into a slum, look how it mistreats disabled people!
And I say, please come and see for yourself how this place is different from others if you want us to move, because this goddamn slum at least has wheelchair ramps, and wherever y'all are living does not.
Short legth limits, audio captioning, using audio from another video so you don't have to talk, easy text placement (again, so you don't have to talk), all videos are vertical, ability to respond to a comment with a video (and encouraging it by imposing 150 char limit), responding to another video with video (including part of it for context), ability to download videos (so you can play or edit them however you want),
— and that's just off the top of my head on the content creation side. Off the top of my head.
Most importantly, it's that algorithm does a good job at bringing you the right audience, having one-click promotion tools, having detailed analytics, etc.
If you don't see this as accessibility features, well, that's my entire point.
The net result is that a TikTok post can start a conversation, with videos. And someone just talking - or just acting to audio - is first-class content. As is just showing a slice of your life and slapping some text on it.
Even if you make such content on other platforms, it'll have zero reach there. You have to do much more work to have people watch a video on IG or FB (people would just scroll past your video without playing it), or YouTube (whose UX strongly favors long videos, otherwise it's too many clicks).
The effort required to make a video for other platforms that people would see is a barrier that TikTok creators don't face.
This applies to everyone, but neurodivergent people benefit from it especially.
