Support in Short Form: Investigating TikTok Comments on Videos with #Harassment
Atieh Armin, Joseph J Trybala, Jordyn Young, Afsaneh Razi · 2024
Exploring the dynamics of public discourse on social media reveals critical insights into how topics like harassment are perceived, discussed, and handled within online communities. To understand these dynamics within multimodal short-form video-based communities, we conducted topic modeling on 145,515 comments of videos tagged with #harassment on TikTok. We identified nine topics, including community responses to harassment and threats, law enforcement responses to harassment, and discussions around self-defense strategies. Our findings revealed the diverse nature of online discussions about harassment, containing empathy, polarization, frustration, and humor. These various topics underscore the significant role of TikTok as a platform for shaping public opinions on critical social issues and amplifying the voices of victims. This paper contributes to understanding how public discourse on harassment unfolds in TikTok to inform future research and policy-making to ensure safer online communities. Content Warning: This paper includes sensitive topics such as harassment, reader discretion is advised.