“The only way you can get any sort of idea how old a video is, is to track the comment history,” says Jessie Sayhey, a food TikToker with over 200,000 followers. “It can be hard to tell who posted a video first when two similar ones appear at the same time,” says Leanna Renee, a TikToker with over 200,000 followers who goes by To keep track of their work, some TikTokers are taking advantage of the sole place where time is recorded on the platform: the comments. TikTok creators say the lack of time metrics on the platform exacerbates other problems, like content theft. After Russia used Facebook pages to interfere with the 2016 US presidential election, for example, the social network made all pages more transparent by including the date they were created and whether their name had been changed recently. And while TikTok has avoided revealing dates and times, other platforms, like Facebook, have recently begun providing users with even more of this data to combat their fake-news problems. But without any date attached to them, it's often hard to know for sure. The hashtag #protest, for example, includes numerous clips that appear to be from the recent youth-led climate change strikes that took place last month. It’s significantly harder to discern the legitimacy of a video when there's no way to tell when it was created. The company has said the instructions are outdated.īut by omitting time stamps, TikTok might open itself up to other scandals, like the proliferation of misinformation. The company has shown it has few qualms about censoring potentially controversial posts: Moderation guidelines obtained by The Guardian show TikTok staff were instructed to censor topics deemed sensitive by the Chinese government, as well as LGBT content in some markets. Lowering the incentive to post news content also helps TikTok potentially avoid the kinds of scandals that have embroiled other platforms, like accusations of political bias. “It’s cool that older content can still be enjoyed weeks later, but also annoying that instead of seeing new content I see videos from months ago,” says Moria Bryson, a TikTok creator with over 200,000 followers who goes by “I wouldn’t say it interferes with my content making, but I wish it was easier to tell when videos were posted.” The most obvious byproduct of that choice: TikTok videos that are weeks or even months old-an eternity on the internet-can suddenly go viral, with viewers blind to their age. But TikTok, named after the sound a clock makes, has no time for time itself-a decision that ripples across the entire platform. Sites like Facebook and Twitter prioritize recently uploaded content. Tap on a user's profile and their videos will appear in reverse chronological order, but they only display view counts. But there's no way to discern when any of them were posted. The app presents an endless stream of algorithmically chosen videos, which you swipe through vertically. Unlike other social media platforms, TikTok is totally stripped of information like when a video was uploaded or the date a user opened their account. But there's a simple facet of the app-which has been downloaded over 1.4 billion times globally-that has received far less attention: It exists outside of time. It has birthed chart-topping hits like “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X, incubated new subcultures like VSCO girls, and become the default way to goof off at work. TikTok, the wildly popular social media app that revolves round 15-second video clips, has become a major cultural force.
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