Live streams from Syrian refugee families keep ending up on TikTok – directly from tents in refugee camps. In the videos, they ask for gifts of money, often together with their children, sometimes for hours at a time like a prayer wheel. Users who watch the stream can also do this for them. They exchange real money for virtual coins, which they then send in the live stream in the form of a virtual rose or a lion. In the end, the recipients can exchange these virtual gifts for real money. Depending on how many people participate in the stream, large sums of money can be accumulated in a short time. According to research by the “BBC”, the majority of the gifts of money should not reach the families at all, but rather end up on TikTok – with high commissions of up to 70 percent.
For this purpose, the “BBC” observed 30 TikTok accounts over a period of five months, on which Syrian families streamed live from refugee camps. In some cases, they would have generated cash gifts worth 1,000 US dollars within an hour. However, the local families affected said they only received a fraction of the money.
When asked by the “BBC” and the stern, TikTok denied collecting a commission of 70 percent for the live streams, but did not want to give any information on the exact amount. In a self-experiment in which the “BBC” sent its own reporter in Syria gifts of money from another account via his TikTok live stream, the broadcaster found that in the end exactly 69 percent less than the value sent remained.
To start a live stream on TikTok, you need 1,000 followers. The refugees are said to have had access to such an account through agencies in China and the Middle East that are in contact with intermediaries in the refugee camps. These agencies work with TikTok and are paid by the company in commissions based on the duration of the live streams and the monetary value generated through them. The “BBC” reporter also contacted one of these agencies directly for his self-experiment, and they activated an account from which he could start the live stream.
The families are provided with mobile phones and SIM cards by the mediators in the refugee camps. According to their own statements, the brokers prefer to use British SIM cards because people in Great Britain would donate most generously. In some cases, the intermediaries also help the families with the live streams – one of them, with whom the “BBC” spoke, does this with twelve different families for several hours a day.
A TikTok spokeswoman told Stern that the company was “deeply concerned” about the information from the “BBC” research. “We took immediate and rigorous action to remove the accounts that violated our Community Guidelines, sever our relationship with the agency in question, and wrote to all of our LIVE agencies to remind them of their contractual agreement, themselves to adhere to our strict guidelines.”
Officially, direct calls for digital gifts of money are prohibited on TikTok, as is the exploitation of minors. In his statement, the TikTok spokeswoman tells stern: “This type of content is not allowed on our platform and we will continue to expand our global guidelines against exploitative begging.” However, TikTok only blocked the accounts in question as a reaction to the “BBC” research – when they reported the posts in the app, nothing happened at first because no violation of the guidelines could be found.
Sources: BBC, Statement TikTok
