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“It’s Viral!” - A Study of the Behaviors, Practices, and Motivations of TikTok Users and Social Activism

Authors:

Daniel Le Compte,

Daniel KlugAuthors Info & Claims

CSCW '21 Companion: Companion Publication of the 2021 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing

Pages 108 - 111

https://doi.org/10.1145/3462204.3481741

Published: 23 October 2021 Publication History

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Abstract

Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have long been used for social activism purpose, and lately the short-video app TikTok saw increased popularity for social activism content. We conducted 9 qualitative interviews with TikTok users who recently posted social activism content to better understand user motivations and creation practices when making TikTok videos related to social activism causes. We present an initial look into why TikTok is used for social activism, and what processes users use to carry out this work. Our interview analysis revealed the following five main themes: (1) motivation and inspiration for posting social activist content comes from a wide range of personal sources, (2) video creation practices largely match TikTok standards, (3) social activism has communities on TikTok that provide encouragement and discussion, (4) interaction with other activists and viewers is crucial for social activism content creation and (5) users choose TikTok for its ability to spread messages more simply and with wider range. These findings provide insight into the unique factors that TikTok brings for social activism and corroborates previous findings in understanding how social activists may use social media for their purposes.

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

CSCW '21 Companion: Companion Publication of the 2021 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing

October 2021

370 pages

ISBN:9781450384797

DOI:10.1145/3462204

Editors:
Jeremy Birnholtz
Northwestern University, USA
,
Luigina Ciolfi
University College Cork, Ireland
,
Sharon Ding
Fudan University, China
,
Susan Fussell
Cornell University, USA
,
Andrés Monroy-Hernández
Snap, Inc., USA
,
Sean Munson
University of Washington, USA
,
Irina Shklovski
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
,
Mor Naaman
Cornell Tech, USA

Copyright © 2021 Owner/Author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

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SIGCHI: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 23 October 2021

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CSCW '21

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SIGCHI

CSCW '21: Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing

October 23 - 27, 2021

Virtual Event, USA

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Overall Acceptance Rate 2,235 of 8,521 submissions, 26%

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October 18 - 22, 2025

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Cited By

Tabassum INunavath V(2024)A Hybrid Deep Learning Approach for Multi-Class Cyberbullying Classification Using Multi-Modal Social Media DataApplied Sciences10.3390/app14241200714:24(12007)Online publication date: 22-Dec-2024
https://doi.org/10.3390/app142412007
Turuba RCormier WZimmerman ROw NZenone MQuintana YJenkins EBen-David SRaimundo AMarcon AMathias SHenderson JBarbic S(2024)Exploring How Youth Use TikTok for Mental Health Information in British Columbia: Semistructured Interview Study With YouthJMIR Infodemiology10.2196/532334(e53233)Online publication date: 5-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.2196/53233
Qin YDuan WWu QLu Z(2024)Dismantling Gender Blindness in Online Discussion of a Crime/Gender DichotomyProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36536868:CSCW1(1-31)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3653686
Ming JGong DNgai CSterling MVashistha ADell N(2024)Wage Theft and Technology in the Home Care ContextProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36374288:CSCW1(1-30)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3637428
Gitomer AAtienza-Barthelemy JFoucault Welles B(2024)Youth activism and (de)personalized remix on TikTokSocial Movement Studies10.1080/14742837.2024.2415672(1-19)Online publication date: 22-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2024.2415672
Steen EYurechko KKlug D(2023)You Can (Not) Say What You Want: Using Algospeak to Contest and Evade Algorithmic Content Moderation on TikTokSocial Media + Society10.1177/205630512311945869:3Online publication date: 31-Aug-2023
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Simpson ESemaan B(2023)Rethinking Creative Labor: A Sociotechnical Examination of Creativity & Creative Work on TikTokProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3580649(1-16)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
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Wei MZeng EKohno TRoesner FChiasson SKapadia A(2022)Anti-privacy and anti-security advice on tiktokProceedings of the Eighteenth USENIX Conference on Usable Privacy and Security10.5555/3563609.3563633(447-462)Online publication date: 8-Aug-2022
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Fatimatuzzahro FAchmad Z(2022)What If It Was You (#WIIWY) digital activism on TikTok to fight gender-based violence online and cyberbullyingMasyarakat, Kebudayaan dan Politik10.20473/mkp.V35I42022.450-46535:4(450-465)Online publication date: 6-Oct-2022
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