A new study by the Centre for Digital Youth Care and analysts Analyse & Tal has shown that young men in Denmark are often presented with misogynist content after just minutes scrolling TikTok, even if they are not actively looking for it.
The study, ordered last year by then-Equality Minister Magnus Heunicke and Digitalisation Minister Caroline Stage, aimed to map to what extent young boys and men in the country are exposed to misogynist content, including so-called "manosphere content" and certain masculine ideals.
The manosphere is a general term used for online communities and content which demeans women or promotes limiting women's freedom and opportunities.
Researchers set up eight fake profiles pretending to be young men aged 16 and 19, listing interests like fitness, dating, investing and gaming.
After searching and interacting with videos to do with those interests, the profiles were set to scroll automatically through content for an hour. In one case, content to do with the manosphere appeared after just 21 seconds, with it on average taking three minutes for the profiles to be exposed to misogynist content.
Researchers also analysed the viewing history of 29 young men aged between 15 and 22 for a full year, and were able to identify on average between five and six misogynist videos in their feeds per week. According to those behind the study, this is a conservative estimate. They also added that the 29 men in this part of the study were not a representative sample of the population which therefore means their experiences cannot be generalised.
Denmark's Equality and Employment Minister Ane Halsboe-Jørgensen called for further regulation of social media to mitigate the issue, as well as more discussions about the content in question in schools and at home.
"These are very serious figures and some very serious content our young men are being exposed to," she said. "They're using a lot of hours on social media, and this is coming onto their feeds even if they're not looking for it."
She said it could give them a "twisted" view of gender, adding that she is concerned young men could self-harm in order to live up to the male ideals presented in their feeds.
"We need to regulate this better, but we also need to have conversations about this at home, so the parent generation is made aware of the fact that this is flowing in on their phones and into their bedrooms."
Social media app TikTok said in a written comment to newswire Ritzau that they "take concerns about youths' exposure to such content very seriously".
"We proactively remove 98.1 percent of videos which break our rules on hate and hateful behaviour, and are constantly working to improve our moderation, make recommendations more varied and break repeating patterns in the 'for you' feed," the company's head of communications in the Nordic region, Lukasz Lindell, told Ritzau.