Differentiating between harm to users and third parties in the UK’s Online Safety regulations: The phenomena of TikTok Frenzies

Colegate, Ellie

Abstract

When concentrated discussion centres on online harms and the harms experienced online as a consequence of interactions, research and regulatory initiatives focus on the individual user interacting with the content. Whilst it is well documented that these harms are occurring and adversely impacting the users as they interact online, it has been illustrated in the last year that online content can harm third parties. An aspect largely overlooked and unexplored in the regulatory framework. Since its rise in popularity in 2020, TikTok, a short-form video-sharing application, has attracted a worldwide user base, providing new ways for users to create and share content. However, there has been a notable increase in the use of the platform for advocacy for and mobilisation of mass offline actions where users have been evidenced to congregate at large, causing disturbances and adverse impacts to third parties offline. Many young people have responded to such calls to action hosted on the platform, engaging in protests and sit-ins at schools and colleges and demonstrations in public spaces such as London’s Oxford Street. With the recent introduction of the UK’s Online Safety Regulations, it is essential to understand the definition and interpretation of what constitutes harm and to whom it can be harmful. These standards must be considered, especially considering the platform's potential promotion and encouragement of offline disturbances where these are legitimate protests and illustrations of protest to ensure that inappropriate curtailing of freedoms does not occur as a consequence of online moderation.

These TikTok Frenzies – where increased amounts of users are driven to specific topics on the platform than that typically seen – prompt the need to clarify to whom a piece of content has to pose a harm or risk to evoke the need for review or removal by a platform due to the potentially infinite impacts of content should third parties be recognised beyond traditional viewing users as entities potentially harmed as a consequence of content existing online. Although laws limit the purposeful encouragement of crime, the online nature of platforms and calls to action may render them ineffective.

This paper examines notable case studies of TikTok Frenzies where offline harm and adverse effects have occurred to communities, individuals, and property to illustrate the differential relationship between harm to an individual viewing users and harm to third parties. It raises questions about the extent to which harm to third parties and their experience of harm directly connected to content online is accounted for within the UK regulatory framework and how harm is considered and conceptualised in the broader regulatory context. With international and local communities calling attention to digital economy platform actors reportedly placing profit over safety, this paper seeks to establish whether the new regulations introduced to curtail harmful or harm-inciting content online are adequate for this new frontier of frenzies.

Citation

Colegate, E. (2024, April). Differentiating between harm to users and third parties in the UK’s Online Safety regulations: The phenomena of TikTok Frenzies. Paper presented at Conference Name: 'Digital and Green: Twin Transitions?' British and Irish Law Education and Technology Association 39th Annual Conference, Dublin, Ireland

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: Conference Name: 'Digital and Green: Twin Transitions?' British and Irish Law Education and Technology Association 39th Annual Conference
• Start Date: Apr 18, 2024
• End Date: Apr 19, 2024
• Deposit Date: Apr 23, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 23, 2024
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/34100217