TikTok in Malaysia is often associated with negative implications – meaningless dance moves, sexual content, users making fools of themselves, and the list of disapprovals from netizens just seem to be never-ending.

On May 19, 2020, Thivyaanayagi Rajendran, a 20-year-old woman, was found dead after committing suicide at her home in Bukit Mertajam, Penang. And the cause of her unfortunate death? A TikTok video.

A fake Facebook user, Joker Oruvan, shared a TikTok video of her and a Bangladeshi colleague who worked with her as a cashier at a 7-Eleven store. The video was filmed while both of them appeared to be sitting behind a cashier counter, trying to act out a scene from a Hindi song. While both of them were just having fun and creating silly, harmless content, Joker Oruvan proceeded to caption the video, “How did this girl fall in love with a Bangla ... everyone would surely bless you”, implying that both of them were in a romantic relationship. The post on Facebook attracted more than 300 comments jeering her for dating a Bangladeshi.

Family members are still fighting for justice, and demand that cyberbullying cases should be handled promptly before another life is lost.

Creating interesting but ethical contentMany youths have spoken openly and avidly about this issue. One of the most interesting and important points they debated was about creating ethical and beneficial content on TikTok. As mentioned before, TikTok users in Malaysia mainly use the platform for entertainment purposes, and much of the content is perceived as immoral, damaging, and not befitting of the religious and cultural landscape in Malaysia.

TikTok users should be responsible for the content they create, and they should also be prepared for any kind of feedback they receive from netizens who consume them. Some content might seem harmless to the creator but could create bigger and harmful problems later on because of the diversity of opinions among netizens. This is the reality that we have to face – haters and bullies exist, and are everywhere on the Internet, especially when it is so easy to hide behind a fake name.

The number one piece of advice I would like to stress to content creators on all social media platforms is to create content that will be beneficial to other media consumers, and that which will not create any space or opportunity for hate and cyberbullying to take place at all, especially when the content is made for public viewing.

Although a majority of netizens perceive TikTok as a negative influence on youth, there is actually much educational content that can be found on the platform which has gone unnoticed and unappreciated.

A motivating edutainment tool

Many countries in the West have started using TikTok as a teaching and learning tool which allows both teachers and students (peer-to-peer learning) to be creative, especially in explaining complex and boring topics. They take advantage of its nature – a short-form video that includes cool video editing and popular music which are appealing to students and their peers, making learning more enjoyable.

Commonly, religious topics are also seen as dry and boring among teens. Therefore, in other parts of the world, some use it to create religious videos for dakwah or preaching – to make learning religion exciting! This is a trend I observed in the past month during Ramadan, the fasting month. And nearing Eid, educators and students alike used TikTok to wish Eid Mubarak to their students and peers.

TikTok educators, as well as students, use the #TikTokClassroom hashtag so that other educators and students all over the world will be able to watch their videos too. And right now, due to the pandemic, many educators globally have also opted for TikTok as a supplementary teaching tool to make education entertaining.

Self-regulation

Now, let’s look at TikTok as just another medium – like the print media, radio, and television. In the Golden Ages of all these “old and traditional” media, they too were criticised for being a negative influence on their readers, listeners and viewers. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, television content was seen as a negative influence on children as they imitated the violent acts of superheroes like Batman, Spiderman, and Superman. Various researches and theories thrived as a result of this phenomenon.

So, what about TikTok? In my honest opinion, it is just another medium – but now, the content creators are the netizens themselves – not the media. Therefore, the challenge here is in educating netizens to understand the importance of media literacy and how to use the platform ethically – for instance, like how we deal with Facebook and fake news, Instagram and soft-pornographic posts, and Twitter with its slanderous content.

The problem is not the media or the platform, it is the netizens that we need to educate – both creators and consumers – especially on media literacy, ethics, and self-regulation. And how do we achieve this? Definitely through continuous long-term campaigns and the implementation of existing Acts and regulations, which so far have been very effective since the start of the Movement Control Order.

So, is TikTok a digital terror or edutainment tool? It depends on you to make the best of the social media platform.

-- BERNAMA

Adlene Aris is a lecturer at the Faculty of Applied Communication, Multimedia University, Cyberjaya, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Communication student at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM).