Two weeks ago, I made a batch of videos for Tik Tok that were supposed to be going up over the next month or so. However, out of the 5 uploaded and queued, 3 were flagged as needing manual review for potentially breaking community guidelines. The only thing about these videos that was any different from the other content I’d made in the past, or the two new videos that didn’t get flagged, was that they featured either images of myself where my legs and wheelchair were visible, or images of my fursona Nix (who has the same disability) where their legs and wheelchair were visible. I took all the videos down, since the later ones wouldn’t have made much sense in isolation and made a quick crop to the earlier ones so my/Nix’s legs were out-of-frame and low-and-behold, they didn’t get flagged.
This isn’t new. In the past, Tik Tok has removed or hidden my videos (meaning they were stuck on 0 views and people visiting my page couldn’t see them) when my legs and scars weren’t entirely covered. I kind of expected it to happen to the video that used IRL footage of me and I had a backup plan, but censoring Nix in particular just felt… petty and uncalled for. It’s bad enough to do this to real disabled people’s bodies and that I even had to have a backup plan for it at all, but the other videos? They were stylised drawings of a purple dragon with simplified scars. A drawing I’ve used on other platforms with no issue by the way; I’ve uploaded videos with those same images to both Youtube (shorts and youtube proper) and Red Note. It’s only Tik Tok that has an issue with it consistently.
Despite the vent I had about it all on Tumblr when it first happened, I will eventually re-upload the videos, as well as upload them to other platforms, but I have to figure out how to get around whatever is flagging them first. I won’t be hiding or censoring my/nix’s stumps or scars if I can avoid it. I know it seems petty and it’s going to make things harder in the long run, but I started my tik tok account to share my art, the vast majority of which has disability as a central theme in some way, shape or form, and to educate about disability, and I can’t do that If I have to hide mine. My body and my disability (whether depicted on me or on my characters) isn’t gore and it doesn’t need to be censored.
[ID: An image of a purple dragon with yellow wings and a yellow underbelly, flying in front of the 2021 disability pride flag. The dragon is missing most of it’s tail and it’s hind legs, with the right leg gone from above the knee, the left from just below it. Both the tail and legs are covered in very visible scarring, and there are a few smaller scars on the arms. There is white text with a black outline on the image which reads “Disability just being visible isn’t “Graphic and Disturbing Imagery”“. /End ID]
