TikTok took in millions of dollars worth of advertisements that were called out for selling damaging products for weight loss.
These products promised to produce some extreme results but that was far from the truth, misleading thousands of customers across the board. Moreover, the company was bashed for going against its own policies as it was called into question its commitment toward the likes of body positivity.
This platform ended up selling advertisements that were worth a staggering $4 million to firms under the ownership of another digital wellness organization called Kilo Group as per a recent analysis that was shared with the likes of Insider by another group called Media Matters.
According to them, this type of spending arose between the likes of November 1 and January 7 and there were plenty of digital ad research endeavors involved and more tools like Pathmatics. As a whole, the posts received views of around 415 million, it confirmed.
This particular promotion was linked to two specific brands called Kilo’s and the first of them promised to sell laxatives that allowed for weight loss. The figure calculated was 90 pounds in 14 days. Moreover, the second one was Beyond Body which sells advice and some nutrition plans that were aimed to target problematic body parts and those who wished to shed those extra pounds.
Both these massive claims were made by experts speaking to Insider and were deemed to be unrealistic for obvious reasons and very dangerous to one’s health.
After a few queries conducted by Insider, the platform says a few posts had to be hidden from some people and others were deleted but they failed to go into detail as to when this all happened. Both the firms did agree that there were some problems with the actual campaign but the products themselves were authentic, leaving doubts in plenty of people’s minds.
A breakdown of such promoted posts by the likes of Insider proved how it was troublesome and different from what TikTok was claiming in terms of promoting body positivity.
It also goes into conflict with what the app spoke to Insider about and how it was a major blanket ban on goods promoting weight loss via the platform. For now, there is no response generated in this regard when the firm was requested to step and confirm the posts and whether or not it would be preaching the regulations in place.
Meanwhile, we witnessed in the likes of September of 2020, the platform really showed a lot of body-positive credentials and claimed that banning advertisements that marketed weight loss supplements and starvation was the way to go. Moreover, one spokesperson mentioned how the goal here was to safeguard the entire community from all sorts of harmful ordeal and actions while adding support for environments supporting inclusivity and body positivity.
The issue here is that unrealistic ideas are not the direction to head toward. They are not only dangerous but also stats proved how influencers are promoting such ordeals and even giving discounts as incentives to make a purchase.
As it is, the brands listed above have very little organic reach so this appears to be the next best strategy in place.
After the news started going viral online, we saw media outlets directly asking TikTok about the news and how much truth there was.
The app replied by mentioning how they have limited such ads and have gone about claiming that they take their users very seriously and have always put their security at the top of the list.
Read next: 65% of the world’s biggest online creators leverage TikTok as their main platform as of 2023.
These products promised to produce some extreme results but that was far from the truth, misleading thousands of customers across the board. Moreover, the company was bashed for going against its own policies as it was called into question its commitment toward the likes of body positivity.
This platform ended up selling advertisements that were worth a staggering $4 million to firms under the ownership of another digital wellness organization called Kilo Group as per a recent analysis that was shared with the likes of Insider by another group called Media Matters.
According to them, this type of spending arose between the likes of November 1 and January 7 and there were plenty of digital ad research endeavors involved and more tools like Pathmatics. As a whole, the posts received views of around 415 million, it confirmed.
This particular promotion was linked to two specific brands called Kilo’s and the first of them promised to sell laxatives that allowed for weight loss. The figure calculated was 90 pounds in 14 days. Moreover, the second one was Beyond Body which sells advice and some nutrition plans that were aimed to target problematic body parts and those who wished to shed those extra pounds.
Both these massive claims were made by experts speaking to Insider and were deemed to be unrealistic for obvious reasons and very dangerous to one’s health.
After a few queries conducted by Insider, the platform says a few posts had to be hidden from some people and others were deleted but they failed to go into detail as to when this all happened. Both the firms did agree that there were some problems with the actual campaign but the products themselves were authentic, leaving doubts in plenty of people’s minds.
A breakdown of such promoted posts by the likes of Insider proved how it was troublesome and different from what TikTok was claiming in terms of promoting body positivity.
It also goes into conflict with what the app spoke to Insider about and how it was a major blanket ban on goods promoting weight loss via the platform. For now, there is no response generated in this regard when the firm was requested to step and confirm the posts and whether or not it would be preaching the regulations in place.
Meanwhile, we witnessed in the likes of September of 2020, the platform really showed a lot of body-positive credentials and claimed that banning advertisements that marketed weight loss supplements and starvation was the way to go. Moreover, one spokesperson mentioned how the goal here was to safeguard the entire community from all sorts of harmful ordeal and actions while adding support for environments supporting inclusivity and body positivity.
The issue here is that unrealistic ideas are not the direction to head toward. They are not only dangerous but also stats proved how influencers are promoting such ordeals and even giving discounts as incentives to make a purchase.
As it is, the brands listed above have very little organic reach so this appears to be the next best strategy in place.
After the news started going viral online, we saw media outlets directly asking TikTok about the news and how much truth there was.
The app replied by mentioning how they have limited such ads and have gone about claiming that they take their users very seriously and have always put their security at the top of the list.
Read next: 65% of the world’s biggest online creators leverage TikTok as their main platform as of 2023.
