In social networks users are not equal. According to an investigation by 'Forbes', TikTok, a digital monster that, based on videos and viralization, has surpassed one billion users, is more permissive with the content shared by the most popular internet users than with the content uploaded by the majority. In other words, if you make a post that, for whatever reason, is at the limit of what is permissible in the application based on its internal policies, it is more likely to be deleted from you than from an account with five million followers.

Precisely, when a user has that number of people paying attention to each video he publishes -a number that is easier to achieve in the Chinese 'app' than in competing tools, such as Instagram- he is catalogued within the TikTok systems with a 'creator tag', which differentiates him from the rest of the Internet users in terms of moderation.

"We don't want to treat these users like any other account. There should be a little more leniency, I would say," said a social network worker during a meeting dated September 2021.

Another attendee mentioned by 'Forbes', in this case as a consultant for Booz Allen Hamilton, acknowledged to 'Forbes' that he had heard similar words from another TikTok worker in the past: "he was quite direct in saying that a famous person could post content and I could post content, and if both were inappropriate, the famous person could stay awake".

It is worth remembering that, as with Facebook, Instagram or any digital tool dedicated to communication, TikTok has mandatory rules of use in terms of content considered harmful: from incitement to violence to suicidal behavior, through so many other categories. In the event that a user violates the rules, according to the application's position, he or she may be punished with temporary or permanent account suspension.

TechNews has contacted the social network to find out if it does indeed moderate the content that is published in its interior depending on the number of followers that the user on duty has. This indicates that in TikTok the rules "apply equally to all content and accounts, and we are committed to applying them fairly, consistently and equitably. More followers does not mean more permissive moderation".

However, the app did not answer 'Forbes' question about whether accounts with many followers have had privileges at some point in the past.

This isn't the first social network that it's been rumored to be rewarding its most popular creators. A year ago, thanks to the leak of thousands of internal Facebook documents, it emerged that the crown jewel of the Zuckerberg emporium had been doing exactly the same thing.

Specifically, 'Wall Street Journal' shared that Facebook had a system called XCheck that allowed high-profile users of the social network to bypass some of its internal rules. According to this media outlet, thanks to this system, in 2019, Brazilian soccer star Neymar was able to show photos of a naked woman, who had accused him of rape, to tens of millions of his followers before Facebook removed the content.

In conversation with ABC, Ferran Lalueza, professor of Communication at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) and expert in social networks, is not surprised by the possibility that TikTok, as before Facebook, may be having a softer hand with the accounts that have more followers. Although he points out that, obviously, this is not the most desirable thing to do.

"The rules are to be followed, and most of them in social networks are also very reasonable. They should be applied equally to everyone," says the teacher.

Lalueza points out, in turn, that if social networks were to be more lax with the offenses committed by some accounts, this should not happen, in particular, with those who have more followers: "Applications should focus on the most popular creators, since the impact of the publications shared by them is much greater than in the case of anonymous users.