This years theme for International Youth Day is “From Clicks to Progress: Youth Digital Pathways for Sustainable Development” and this blog will look at how the social platform TikTok is being used for social activism.
TikTok is not a social media platform to ignore or dismiss – today it has over 1 billion monthly active users globally and on average, each of those users spend 58 minutes and 24 seconds on it every single day.
The TikTok algorithm is the magic behind the popularity of this particular platform. It provides a hyper-personalised collection of videos for each user on their For You Page (FYP) which is like having your own TV channel made exclusively for you. The goal is to find content that interests you, not to connect with people you know, or even people at all. Creators don’t even need an existing audience — influencers can emerge from a single viral video and even relatively small accounts can spread ideas far beyond the reach of their own followers. This is the power of TikTok.
A Platform for Social Activism
Communities centered around specific interests, identities, goals, or trends, are often referred to as “sides of TikTok” and these have become powerful safe spaces for those particular audiences. In the aftermath of US Supreme Court overturning of Roe v Wade, the TikTok community came together to offer their homes as safe spacers for women who can no longer access the procedure, using the touching hashtag #wegodowntogether. “Hey lovelies. I live in Canada near a border city. I will take you wherever you need to go. You and me went “shopping” for the day. You are my sister now. You are not alone. We are in this together.”
These same communities can be called upon swiftly and powerfully to take collaborative action. One memorable demonstration of this strategic coordination was in 2020 when TikTokers sold out tickets to a Trump rally with no intention of showing up and left Trump, who had proudly tweeted to the world “Almost One Million people requested tickets for the Saturday Night Rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma!” actually speaking to a venue of only 6,200. This “prank” captures not only the ethos of online activism on TikTok, but also the remarkable ease and speed that a viral idea can have – and all by a generation hardly old enough to vote.
Another powerful example of how TikTok is used to support a cause is the ‘Pass the Hat’ viral TikTok campaign that is helping to raise funds for families seeking to flee the war. Launched by writer and comedian Erin Hattamer, the project pairs up content creators, influencers and celebrities with Palestinian families desperately trying to flee the Israeli bombardment. The idea is simple – content creators fill out a form and are then assigned a vetted Palestinian family in need of support in order to amplify their stories and fundraise for them by calling for donations, monetising their videos, or calling for the videos to be shared. “We have over 2,000 individuals signed up to symbolically adopt a family and have paired over 600 families. I have been blown away by the reaction.” – Erin Hattamer. You can follow Erin here.
A Tool for Social Justice
In a conflict where, unprecedentedly, all foreign press is banned from reporting within the war region, the responsibility of evidencing the atrocities taking place in Palestine are almost exclusively on the very citizens in Gaza that are being targeted and their only tool is through their social media accounts.
Bisan Owda is a 25 year old Palestinian filmmaker, activist, and journalist who has been documenting the destruction of Gaza and is now one of the leading voices on the ground. Her live TikTok videos allows her 1.2 million audience to follow her on her daily searches for drinking water, her interviews with broken hospital staff and allows them hear the bombs for themselves, see the destruction for themselves, and see the human cost for themselves. She starts every video with “This is Bisan from Gaza, I’m still alive.” and even though she does so at great personal risk, she continues to bravely film and post about her beloved Gaza and has even secured a nomination for the prestigious News & Documentary Emmy Awards. You can follow Bisan here.
Mahmoum Salma is another Gaza citizen who has turned to TikTok to show the world what is happening. Mahmoum uses his TikTok account to document how his young family deal with living in a tent and the constant fear of displacement, starvation and bombing. His videos show transitions of his two young daughters playing in their life before, in their house and in beautiful clothes, to now playing in an empty tent with the words “from inside my tent I play with my little child Sila born this w//ar”. You can follow Mahmoum here.
Misinformation and media bias is removed completely when users can hear directly from those who are on the ground and in the very heart of what is going on. The impact they are having is clear from the sheer number of journalists, both press and citizen, who are being targeted and assassinated in order to silence them – the Gaza Government Media Office has put the figure (as of August 2024) at 165 Palestinian journalists killed since the war began.
How It’s a Penalty is using TikTok
In November 2023, Mya Arora, a student from the University of Manchester studying International Disaster Management and Humanitarian Response, chose to create TikTok content as one of her ‘challenges’ as a Student Ambassador for It’s a Penalty. Since taking over our account, she has accrued a whopping 221,393 views for her videos that covers a range of modern slavery topics such as forced marriage, organ trafficking, fast fashion and debt bondage.
“I love to make videos about underrepresented issues, for example domestic servitude is something which I was not aware of until doing the Student Ambassador training. Fast fashion is a topic which is very close to my heart and I love to educate people about the amazing (and cheaper!) alternative ways of shopping, such as using Vinted, or going to charity shops. As a loyal user of Vinted, I truly believe this is the way to stop fast fashion!”
As a university student herself, she has produced a number of videos to highlight areas around personal safety and student rights as employees and tenets. There are alarming reports of students becoming victims of modern slavery in the UK and our Student Ambassador Programme is helping not only to educate and empower students on modern slavey issues, but also helping to protect them. “As a student who has just finished the first year of university, moving into a shared house has been one of the greatest difficulties. From appropriate landlord behaviour to reading the meters, the Student Rights and Safety course has guided me through it all.”
Mya focuses on short 5 second repeating videos and using the trending sound to capture attention. A simple 5 second video of Mya miming along to a song with the words “just your reminder that organ trafficking does exist and is very present in the modern world! It’s estimated that 1 in 10 organs have been trafficked” has amassed a whopping 20.2 thousand views. “My videos are aimed at the gen-z audience, so I try to stick to using trending audios. I use my own personal tik tok account to scout for trends, and then apply a relevant scenario to it and tailor it towards modern slavery and human trafficking.”
“Tik Tok has evolved from a platform which was used for dancing and lip syncing, to a platform which I use as a substitute for Google. Since there are over a billion users on Tik Tok, almost every hobby or interest is covered on the app. Gen-z are the main users of tik tok, and they are the future, so educating them on a platform which they regularly use is a great way of tackling major issues such as modern slavery.”
We are so grateful to Mya for her contribution to raising awareness of human trafficking, exploitation and abuse. We always have great success with our global campaigns during major sporting events but Mya has proven that we can also increase our reach and impact through reaching different audiences through the TikTok platform.
To date, Mya has created 129 videos for It’s a Penalty and you can follow our account here.