This article is an observation of my findings digging into TikTok's anti-Latino bias; We'll be discussing how TikTok manipulates and suppresses videos with a certain hashtag in the Latino community. TikTok has gotten the attention of many youthful users, but it seems that the development team may allegedly be silencing Latino creators who use the hashtag '#Latino'. This comes from something that I found when I was making a video on TikTok about Latinos and Latinx.
On TikTok, you can add a caption when you finish recording and editing a video. The caption box allows you to use hashtags and lists the number of posts that that hashtag has garnered within an unspecified time. However, when I use the hashtag 'Latino', it reveals to me that there are "0 posts" when I regularly use the hashtag. Compared to the other variations of Latino and the insulting term, Latinx, they all are registered and have a post count. Now, this coincides with something else I found interesting.
When I use the hashtag "Latino" in any of my videos, those videos get significantly fewer viewers than the others. I've noticed this on multiple previous accounts that were banned by TikTok's pro-censorship community guideline moderators that clearly have an anti-Latino and an anti-Catholic or Christian bias; these accounts include LuchiCholito and Esecholito. To add, when I don't use the hashtag Latino, but use any other Latino-related hashtag, the videos perform much better by a ratio of 3:1 to 5:1 views.
I will continue to observe these seemingly deliberate acts to suppress Latino and Latino conservatives. What do you think about my findings regarding this troublesome ordeal? Should TikTok publicly announce why they have #Latino at zero posts and why people who use the hashtag #Latino are being suppressed?
