Article about this by the Daily Mail.

Article about this by The Verge.

TikTok intentionally censors any content made by people who look too poor, too ugly, too fat, etc. to make sure only rich, pretty people are associated with their brand. You read those articles right, there are people sitting behind computers whose job is to make sure broke ugly people don't become more viral than wealthy beautiful folks.

Bill Maher made a speech about this a while ago. Social media is engineered to make it look like your life is either a 10/10 in all aspects at all times or you're a loser and you should die in a corner.

So it's not just that people only share their best moments (making everyone's lives look amazing by omitting all the ugly crap going on behind closed doors), but now workers straight up select which videos/pictures will become viral and which ones will not, not depending on the popularity they're getting, but depending on how rich and how pretty the poster looks.

This would be somewhat acceptable if it weren't because it's all lies. Check r/InstagramReality for example. People "visiting" places they never actually set a foot on. People "playing" sports they actually can't perform at all. People with completely fake faces and completely fake bodies (either by computer edition or plastic surgery or both). Lies, lies, lies.

How truly toxic is social media? To what extent can this affect the mental health of the young?

Bonus: Apparently they also censor political content if it's embarrassing for a politician they support. Yaaay, social media is now straight up propaganda!