Meta And TikTok Boosted Harmful Content To Compete For Users, Former Insiders Allege

The platforms prioritized growth over safety, the insiders claim.

Former insiders allege that Meta and TikTok knowingly boosted harmful content to drive user engagement and outpace competitors, often at the expense of user safety.

Meta and TikTok allowed more harmful content to spread on their platforms after finding that outrage-driven posts increased user engagement, a BBC investigation has revealed.

More than a dozen whistleblowers and former employees have told the BBC that decisions made inside major tech firms prioritized growth and competition over user safety, particularly during the rapid rise of short-form video platforms.

Insiders describe an industry under pressure to retain attention, where internal research showed that emotionally charged and divisive content kept users scrolling for longer and generated more advertising revenue.

One former Meta engineer said senior leaders instructed teams to relax restrictions on so-called "borderline" content – material that may be harmful but does not break platform rules. This includes posts linked to misogyny, conspiracy theories and inflammatory rhetoric.

The engineer said the shift came amid fears of declining market performance and increasing competition.

Documents shared with the BBC suggest companies were aware of the risks.

One internal study warned that Facebook's algorithmic systems were incentivizing content creators to prioritize engagement "at the expense of their audience's wellbeing." It noted that posts provoking outrage were more likely to be promoted because they generated stronger reactions, leading algorithms to assume users wanted more of the same.

Researchers also found higher levels of bullying, hate speech, and violent content in newer features designed to compete in the short-video market.

Last year, Meta faced allegations that it had suppressed research connecting Facebook use to mental health harms among teenagers. Court documents claimed the company halted internal studies indicating that reduced use of the platform could ease anxiety and depression.

In 2024, families in France filed lawsuits against TikTok over teen suicides, with lawyers arguing that the platform's algorithm promoted harmful content to vulnerable users.

Safety Teams 'Overruled'

Whistleblowers said safety teams often struggled to implement protections. In some cases, requests for additional staff at Meta to deal with child safety or election integrity were denied, while hundreds of roles were approved for product expansion.

Matt Motyl, who worked as a senior researcher at Facebook, described a "power imbalance" between teams focused on growth and those responsible for user safety.

Nick, a member of the trust and safety team at TikTok, alleged that, in some instances, moderation teams were instructed to prioritize cases involving political figures over reports of harm affecting teenagers. He said this was done to maintain relationships with governments and avoid potential regulations.

Internal dashboards reviewed by the BBC appeared to show lower urgency ratings for some reports involving minors, including cases of cyberbullying and sexual exploitation.

Engineers involved in building recommendation systems described them as highly complex and difficult to fully control.

Ruofan Ding, a former machine-learning engineer at TikTok, said teams developing algorithms often treated content as "just an ID, a different number" rather than examining its meaning. He added that rapid updates to improve engagement sometimes led to unintended consequences, including the gradual introduction of more extreme content into users' feeds.

Impact On Young Users

Teenagers told the BBC that platform tools designed to filter unwanted content were often ineffective. One young man said he had been "radicalized by the algorithm" as a teenager, after being repeatedly shown increasingly extreme material.

Counter-terrorism specialists in the UK also reported a growing normalization of extremist and violent content online, warning that users were becoming desensitized.

The companies named in the investigation strongly denied the allegations.

Meta said it was "wrong" to suggest it deliberately promoted harmful content for profit, pointing to investments in safety systems and protections for younger users.

"The truth is, we have strict policies to protect users on our platforms and have made significant investments in safety and security over the last decade," a Meta spokesperson said.

TikTok described the whistleblowers' claims as "fabricated", adding that it had invested in technology designed to stop harmful content from being seen at all.

This article originally appeared on MES Computing’s sister site Computing.