TikTok decides whether or not you're attractive enough for the app

There is often this idea about online spaces -- social media in particular -- suggesting that anyone can "make it" with the right skills, resources, and drive. But at least in terms of TikTok, you may not be so lucky if the app does not consider you "attractive."

According to a recent NPR report, the app allegedly specifically favors the accounts of people whose faces are considered "attractive." What determines exactly who is attractive and who isn't does not seem clear. But internal reports state that the algorithm has been set up to limit viewership of anyone who does not fall into the so-called "attractive" category.

The main concern about this among investigators is that TikTok has done this knowing it could have a negative impact on younger users who spent significant amounts of time on the app. If you're not considered "pretty enough" for TikTok, your chances of having your content seen by more people are, allegedly, automatically reduced.

Imagine being a teenager on social media without the intense pressures of TikTok. Now imagine adding TikTok into that toxic mix, where you're either considered attractive enough to be seen or you aren't. And as a teenager, what lengths do you think you might go to in order to go from "not attractive" to "attractive"?

And it's not even your peers deciding who is pretty and who isn't in this case. It's an algorithm. Tweaked by human beings, sure. Determined possibly by user data, maybe. It feels very Black Mirror that we first have to please a machine with our looks before our faces even make it in front of real human beings who can judge our level of attractiveness for themselves.

This wouldn't be the first time we realized in sync that we are living in a Black Mirror episode that never actually ends.