Changes in Viewer Engagement and Accessibility of Popular Vaping Videos on TikTok: A 12-Month Prospective Study
| Autor: | Brienna N. Rutherford, Tianze Sun, Carmen C. W. Lim, Jack Chung, Brandon Cheng, Lily Davidson, Calvert Tisdale, Janni Leung, Daniel Stjepanović, Jason P. Connor, Gary C. K. Chan |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2022 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health; Volume 19; Issue 3; Pages: 1141 International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Vol 19, Iss 1141, p 1141 (2022) |
| ISSN: | 1660-4601 |
| DOI: | 10.3390/ijerph19031141 |
| Popis: | Aim: There are concerns regarding what young people are exposed to on TikTok due to trending content promoting e-cigarette use through humour, marketing and lifestyle acceptability. Using baseline data from November 2020, we aimed to examine how much content from a sample of popular vaping videos remained accessible at 9- and 12-month follow-ups. We aimed to monitor changes in viewer engagement (using metadata) before and after the U.S. Congressional Hearing on youth protection measures on social media in October 2021. Methods: Hashtag-based keywords were used to collect the most viewed publicly available e-cigarette related videos on TikTok (N = 802) from inception to November 2020 to form a baseline. Researchers conducted a longitudinal descriptive study using this data, with 9- and 12-month follow-ups to measure changes in viewer engagement (using metadata) and content availability. Findings: Of the 802 videos from the baseline, 562 remained at the 9-month follow-up and 511 remained at the 12-month follow-up. At the 12-month follow-up, the majority of vaping-related hashtags were removed by TikTok after the Congressional Hearing. Between the baseline and 9-month follow up, views increased by 1.4% and likes increased by 4.4%. At 12-month follow-up, views had increased by 1.7% and likes by 4.2% compared to baseline data. Whilst 291 videos were no longer publicly accessible at 12-month follow-up, 39 of these were made inaccessible by the content creators. The most viewed and most liked vaping videos at baseline were still publicly available. Conclusions: Whilst the depiction type and thematic distribution of removed videos suggest that TikTok may be removing a small proportion of content that promotes the use of e-cigarettes, metadata of remaining videos indicate an increase in viewer engagement. TikTok’s removal of explicit substance-related hashtags from the platform could be a step towards preventing adolescents from being exposed to harmful behaviours and substances online. However, the platform should consider enforcing effective age restrictions on content that promotes substance use in a positive light. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
|