TikTok, the popular social media platform where users upload short, often silly or light-hearted, videos is coming under fire this week. Internal moderation documents acquired by the German digital rights blog, Netzpolitik.org, show that TikTok has been discriminating against users who are disabled, queer, and fat.

According to these documents, TikTok instructed moderators to tag any content created by so-called, “special users.” The “special users” tag refers to users who are “susceptible to harassment or cyberbullying based on their physical or mental condition.”

The idea behind the tag was to provide these “special users” with protection from cyber bullying and online harassment. This was achieved by limiting the visibility of these user’s content. Videos with this tag had their viewership limited to the user’s country of origin and were prevented from being featured on the “for you” section of the app.

To make matters even worse, moderators only had about 30 seconds to make the decision to flag a video or not. Imagine looking at a complete stranger for less than a minute and having to decide if they fall somewhere on the Autism spectrum. Now, imagine doing that with only a 15 second video for reference.

Sources inside TikTok say that moderators complained about this policy multiple times, but their concerns were ignored. According to a TikTok spokesperson, the tag system was meant to be a temporary solution.

“This was never designed to be a long-term solution, but rather a way to help manage a troubling trend until our teams and user-facing controls could keep up.”

Point blank, TikTok discriminated against users based on their physical appearance and perceived disabilities. They denied these users a fair opportunity on their app by limiting the visibility of their content therefor preventing them from growing their audiences.

In their statement about the moderation policy, TikTok’s spokesperson asserts that the policy is no longer in effect.

“While the intention was good, the approach was wrong and we have long since changed the earlier policy in favor of more nuanced anti-bullying policies and in-app protections.”

Owning up to their mistake is a good start, but a simple ‘our bad y’all’ is not good enough. When a company currently estimated to be worth 75 billion dollars admits to blatant discrimination against its users, there need to be some reparations.

Facebook is rolling out a new feature which will allow users to transfer their photos directly to Google Photos. The product is rolling out in Ireland first for some beta testing, but set to launch globally in the first half of 2020. At first glance this may seem like a mundane new tool, but it is just one thread in a complex web of legal and social change related to users’ right to their own data.

The true heart of this story is the ongoing issue of data portability. Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Microsoft are all part of the Data Transfer Project which aims to create data portability. Data portability refers to an individual users’ right to control their own data on the web, which includes the right to download and transfer their data to different services. The hope is that a seamless flow of data will create a more authentic sense of competition.

In their statement about the new product, Facebook reiterates this belief by stating, “we believe that if you share data with one service, you should be able to move it to another. That’s the principle of data portability, which gives people control and choice while also encouraging innovation.”

Being able to seamlessly transfer your photos from Facebook to any outside platform is a big step for a company that has spent most of the year in anti-trust investigations.

The photo transfer tool will be helpful to some users, but is it a genuine step towards breaking up the Facebook data monopoly? After all, Google has also gone through anti-trust investigations this year, so perhaps more open competition between two of the largest software companies on the globe is not exactly what legislators had in mind.

It’s nearly impossible to read whether Facebook’s attempts to improve global data portability are sincere or just an elaborate effort to keep governments off their bottom line. There is an argument to made about whether or not corporations can ever be sincere, but that is a story for a different day.

The best thing everyday users can do to protect their data right now is to stay informed and keep asking questions.

The tea is Facebook, triggered by its basic label, is tired of Taking L’s and wants clout and is ready to be on fleek with some yeets from Gen Z.

What this means, is Facebook launched a new app called Whale, which lets users make and share memes in a super simple way. Right now, Whale is only available on the Canadian App Store.

Tik-Tok, a video-focused app, has quickly risen in interest and grabbed the attention of the younger set. In an effort to boost its market share with competition from Snapchat and Tik-Tok, among others, Facebook is using its New Product Experimentation (NPE) team to develop apps that will be of interest to users, The Verge shared. Whether it is able to find its way into their cold and possibly stunted hearts is yet to be seen.

A Pew research study, published earlier in 2019, shared that half of American teens use Facebook, which The Next Web pointed out is not its largest demographic of users. Instead, seven out of 10 adults use Facebook, with 75% visiting daily, according to the research study.

The app arrived on Nov. 15, 2019, according to App Annie. With one, five-star review to date, the app is said to be easy to use to create and share memes. But, not very unique in a market where making memes has become “lit”.

The app allows users to take or select from their camera roll or browse the apps’ stock images to create easy to share memes. Users can also insert text, use filters and effects, according to Tech Crunch. Users have the option to make their own stickers and even draw freehand.

As Facebook’s NPE team comes up with new apps, Tik-Tok, is on its way to 1.5 billion users. But, not without some controversy, since its Chinese-owned and U.S. lawmakers have become concerned about the security of user data.

As Tech Crunch explained, the Canadian launch allows Facebook to test out the app in a market similar to the U.S. but with a smaller user-base, in case it should take off and require it to scale quickly.