With #Balancetontiktokeur, teens are chasing their new demons on social networks

He is sixteen, with perfect make-up and large earrings in the shape of Latin crosses. We meet her during a video call. " I had been contacted by girls who said that TikTokers had abused their notoriety to ask them for naked photos ," she says. That's why I created the hashtag #balancetontiktokeur ”. Like many other digital blast stories, it all starts with a girl, and a hashtag.

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Last Wednesday, the teenager caused a little storm on the TikTok network which has, in France, 9 million unique visitors and allows to make short and viral videos. In less than a day, his messages are shared thousands of times, causing a strong reaction from the Secretary of State for Gender Equality Marlène Schiappa, worried to see this popular social network of young adolescents reported as a place of sexual predation.

Dil claims to have been directly inspired by the hashtag #balancetonyoutubeur, launched in 2018 and which denounced the actions of influential videographers who took advantage of their notoriety to solicit naked images of minors. Where #balancetontiktokeur differs radically from previous movements, it is by its desire to denounce, beyond sexual abuse, all of the " problematic " behaviors .

And the list is long. In a series of tweets, Dil pins sadfreedom, who asked for naked photos of a girl of " 13 years old at the time ", but also " valentyndetry who believes in anti white racism, makes grossophobic jokes ", " Alois36 , who trivializes rape [is] homophobic, racist, believes in anti-white racism and defends it, [is] mysogin (sic) "or" Moncef_heisenberg.94 [who] openly makes fun of women ".

The charges therefore relate indiscriminately to acts of sexual abuse, and to words deemed inappropriate.

"It can lead to depression, but the goal is to dialogue"

Since the launch of the hashtag, another TikTokeur, for its part, has given itself the mission of carrying out parodies of video trials of accused persons. “ Court number six, let's go. I call to the bar Clemence. She is accused of cultural appropriation. He is then accused of having defended his friend Ariane, who did not support the #blacklivesmatter cause. She would also have said derogatory remarks towards the Maghreb community ”.

During another "trial", he examines Esther's case: " He is accused of not taking photos with his subscribers. I'll let you screener ( proof of) proof number one. (...) So, Esther, guilty or not guilty? Personally, I have my opinion. Response in the comments ”. Good news for Esther: this time the majority of comments judge her “not guilty”. Nine " trials " have been published to date, and each has been viewed between 40,000 and 200,000 times.

The hashtag has generated a continuous, non-hierarchical stream of accusations. Luca, 19 years old and 580,000 subscribers on TikTok, saw it as an opportunity to denounce the behaviors he deems inappropriate for another user: " I present to you the charo [scavenger, editor's note] number 1 of TikTok, all my friends there have passed! " Luca personally knows the young man he has accused, but admits having " never told " him that his behavior with women bothered him. " [The hashtag] emerged like this and I followed, " he explains. " It's true that it can push people into depression. But the goal is to debate. "

Dil indicates for his part having received death threats for having implicated particularly popular figures of the social network.

The number of occurrences of the hashtag on TikTok. Screenshot

Last name, first name, number, address

In filigree, the denunciations made under the hashtag #balancetontiktokeur draws a particularly clear vision of what is authorized, or prohibited. For this generation which wants to be particularly awake concerning the question of discrimination, what is racism? " It is for example the use of" n-word " ", answers Dil duck to tack, namely the word " nigga " in English or " negro " in French. On TikTok, the use, or not, of the "n-word" allows her to distinguish racist people from those who are not.

Because on this platform, lipsync is one of the most common content - however, the " n-word " is very common in many songs, including rap. The TikTok convention requires the user, if he is white, to mimic the whole song, except this word.

" For me, white people do not have to use the n-word because it is quite simply a huge lack of respect for the ancestors of black people " explains Lana, 13, by messages, because " not very 'comfortable on the phone '.

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Last Wednesday, she denounced another user on Twitter for mimicking the " n-word " during a lip sync. In the process, Lana finds the real name of the girl, her address, the name of her college, her parents, her brothers and sisters. Lana posts it all on Twitter and writes to her mother to report the use of the “n-word”. " I would not have done it if it was the first time that she made a TikTok by provoking, but that made several times ... " now explains Lana, before adding: " I regret having done it because it was very intrusive ”. She has since deleted the tweet.

For Dil as for Lana, there is no innocent or ill-informed use of the "n-word". “ Before, people let racist phrases pass by on the pretext that the person who said them was young. Now we no longer make the mistake, ”explains the initiator of the hashtag with detachment. " I never said anything that could offend someone ."