TikTok withholds 70 percent of donations to Syrian refugees

Hundreds of families in Syrian refugee camps beg for donations via TikTok every day. An experiment of BBC now showed that people only receive a fraction of the funds. TikTok apparently keeps more than 70 percent of the revenue itself.

TikTok proves these days that the loss of one is the gain of the other. Since the beginning of the year, hundreds of families of Syrian refugees have been asking for digital gifts on the short video platform.

App users can send digital roses or virtual lions, for example. These are worth anywhere from a few cents to several hundred dollars.

TikTok keeps donations for Syrian refugees itself

Children and widowed women in refugee camps live stream for hours to receive such digital gifts and convert them into cash via the app. Among other things, they use it to pay for operations performed by their family members.

But investigations of BBC revealed that the social media service appears to keep up to 70 percent of digital gifts for itself.

Mediators help people in Syria with live stream setup

So-called TikTok facilitators also help people in the camps to set up their live streams by providing them with the equipment and SIM cards.

The agents work with agencies in China and the Middle East. Noisy BBC be part of TikTok’s global strategy to recruit live streamers and get users to spend more time on the app.

BBC is monitoring 30 accounts in donation experiment

For five months the BBC a total of 30 TikTok accounts broadcasting live from Syrian refugee camps. Using a computer program, the journalists found out that viewers of the streams often donated digital gifts worth up to 1,000 US dollars per hour.

However, when reporters on the ground spoke to the relevant families, it turned out that they had received only a tiny fraction of the amounts.

Almost 70 percent of donations go to TikTok

Because TikTok refused to make a statement, the BBC an experiment through. A correspondent in Syria contacted the intermediaries and explained that he lived in one of the camps.

He then got an account and started his live stream. Colleagues in the London editorial team meanwhile sent him TikTok gifts worth 106 US dollars.

However, at the end of the live stream, the Syrian test account balance was only $33. So TikTok had retained 69 percent of the value of the gift itself.

The BBC correspondent lost another ten percent when he had the donations paid out. In addition, the TikTok agents keep 35 percent of the remaining amount. That ended up being just $19 left over from the original $106.

TikTok did not ban reported accounts for the time being

TikTok want loud BBC Take immediate action to stop exploitative begging. The company stated that this type of content is not allowed on the platform. In addition, the commission for digital gifts is said to be well below 70 percent. However, the social media service did not confirm an exact amount.

The BBC reported the observed accounts after the experiment. However, the social media platform did not classify them as violating the guidelines. It was only when the British journalists asked for an opinion that the social media service blocked the accounts.

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