The Ethics of TikTok Recommendations
Should we be trusting strangers on the internet for stock advice?
The online universe has allowed misinformation to flourish, especially when it comes to things like recommendations, advertisements, or a blend of both. Suspicion is a necessary trait for our generation, which grew up as advertisements shifted from the obvious messaging — celebrities, Super Bowl commercials, and literal print ads for milk cartons — to more subtle, covert methods of marketing. Influencing is its own, separate industry from advertising, and it’s predicated on the ability of people to sell things while making you think they aren’t actually selling anything to you at all. It’s a micro-level, personal way of creating a product base, and we have to either be critical of everything we consume or lose all our money.
So there’s been an understandable backlash towards the rich and famous for failing to disclose when a post on social media is an ad. Pretending to like something and being paid to like something publicly don’t necessarily go hand in hand, but you can definitely be paid to like something.
And while a pair of Wellington boots probably seem a lot nicer and faultless when attached to a sponsorship deal in the thousands, not revealing the genuine intent of a post can lead to people en masse either (1) purchasing a faulty product or (2) just getting really annoyed with public figures for breaking their trust.
Undisclosed sponsorships on social media still abound despite the reputation hits that are constantly in the news when said partnerships are discovered. But if someone isn’t getting paid to promote an insert-your-favorite-consumable-here, does that mean their recommendation is genuine?
Enter TikTok, where everything feels a little bit too real and a little bit too fake, all the time. A lot of micro-spaces on the app can reveal the positives and pitfalls with social media recommenders.
DC TikTok
My personal guilty pleasure is definitely DC TikTok. As a new resident in one of the most expensive cities in the country, I want to find good eats, bookstores, and bars -- and I want it all to be as cheap as possible. #DCTikTok popped up on my feed about two days after I started looking for an apartment online. We can get into my fear of all things algorithm another time, but one thing that cannot be denied about TikTok is that the platform can get specific. Tik Tok’s algorithm will be like, Oh, you’re looking at apartments in X neighborhood? Here’s a bar two blocks over with cheap happy hours. Here’s a bookstore for rainy days. Here’s the best place to get dim sum in the city.
One girl would pop up in the DC TikTok tag repeatedly, so I followed her and started rifling through content, eager to find local treasures from an actual local and not solely from the advice of Yelp.com.
“This is free for us,” said TikToker mentions, right at the end of one of their videos, like an afterthought. “But we’re longtime customers.”
Here’s the thing, though. I could have denounced the recommendation, and the entire account, on the half-chance that this was actually an ad. This TikToker could have gotten free food in either implied or explicit exchange for the recommendation….but I have eyes. The food did look good.
Actually, I’ve been to several places this TikToker has recommended since, including the place the video mentioned above. “Ad” or not, that was genuine and genuinely good content, and it provided me with some really incredible finds after I moved to the city.
In a lot of cases, especially on platforms like TikTok where there are actual videos showing a certain minimum level of context (like the view of the restaurant which is verifiable, prices, and titles that you can Google, etc.), it’s probably okay to take someone’s word as genuine advice. Videos showing attractions in your city, or even #FoodTikTok’s easily replicable recipes probably won’t lead to you making a weighty purchase on something that sucks and is permanent. And in my case, and in a lot of other cases, they can lead to some really great finds you wouldn’t have found anywhere else.
But, as in all things, context matters. I have to go to X restaurant knowing that Y TikToker’s best friend is the manager — she’s not going to post content that says her best friend’s food is trash even if it’s honest. I’m not going to rent an apartment I find on TikTok shown by the real estate agent without touring it in-person, because the person trying to sell the home obviously thinks it’s a once-in-a-lifetime find.
In an increasingly saturated and covert marketing landscape, we have to be critical about underlying motives on the internet.
Personal Finance TikTok
For example, Personal Finance TikTok is hugely popular, in part because it has an abundance of content aimed at explaining finances in an accessible way. It feels like an online “Investing for dummies.”
I’m going to throw this out there as a disclaimer from someone who almost did exactly this: Do not invest on the basis of a TikTok video. Scams abound, but even then, just because Chad in Florida as of three weeks ago made $200 off a stock does not mean the same holds true for the market today. Investment advice on the app — whose whole niche is that you only have a limited time to film/view videos before swiping to the next — is often outdated, selective, or misinformed. If you don't believe me, I point you to Vox’s archive of stupid myths perpetuated on TikTok by people who really don't know anything about the stock market.
Even at its best, influencers making their own investments go viral is a sure-fire way to drive up the price of their stocks. It’s rarely malicious and probably not even intentional — but if you aren’t conscious of the potential benefits someone can gain from promoting a product or service on social media, then you aren’t getting the genuine advice you think you are.
Nuance is important, and it’s incredibly difficult on social media apps who often thrive because they’re short, sweet, and a little stupid. Our generation knows how to be wary when we see #ad on a post. It doesn’t mean the product isn’t cool as hell, it just means we have to do a little bit more digging first. But that should remain true even if someone isn’t being paid to promote something, because influencing is by definition a subtle act.
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