In all the battles observed by WIRED, some of the participants appear to have no ties to the organizations they claim to represent, and to invest the money they earn into those directly affected by the current crisis. No one indicated they intended to donate to those in need. .
Battles between online influencers have been a feature of streaming services since at least 2016, especially in China, but on most other platforms participants have to complete tasks or demonstrate skills to win the battle. need to be shown off. On TikTok, most people just scream.
Live matches, also known as player knockouts or penalty battles, have been a feature on TikTok since at least 2021, but TikTok does not mention the feature on its webpage explaining how live streaming works. Even though this feature has been available for over two years, it's not well known and for the uninitiated, it ends up with a viewer counter, stickers, and a screen while the two creators scream. TikTok battles can be almost meaningless when random comments flood the screen. Then shout out to your followers to donate more gifts.
In this crisis, instead of having a coherent discussion about the rights of Israelis and Palestinians, streamers are instead shouting their own faction's name and making comments like “like, love, love” and “follow me”. I'm screaming.
The stream observed by WIRED was watched live by thousands of TikTok users. Today, just before this article was published, a push notification indicated that the streamer was going live again.
The two streamers did not respond to WIRED's messages regarding their fight.
The rise of TikTok live matches related to the Israel-Hamas war was first highlighted by Abby Richards, a researcher at the Accelerationism Research Consortium, which specializes in tracking misinformation on TikTok. “It's a terrible thing to disguise an atrocity,” Richards said.
“This is real people sending real money to TikTokkers to show their support for the idea of Israel and Palestine,” Richards said in a video posted to Instagram this week. “But do you know who's really making money off of these things? Because TikTok receives about half of the money creators make from going live. This literally means that other than these scammers and TikTok It doesn’t help anyone. It’s fucking disgusting.”
TikTok did not respond to WIRED's request for comment.
Many TikTok creators use the app's livestream feature to make money, and some streamers broadcast their entire lives on the platform. There's a little-known “Live Match” feature on the popular video-sharing app that allows two people to “play against” each other for five minutes at a time. The winner is the one who gets the most likes and gifts from their followers.
This strange phenomenon means that participating TikTokkers must encourage their followers to donate as many gifts as possible in order to “win.”
Virtual gifts are purchased using TikTok's in-app currency known as Coins. Coin prices vary depending on how many you buy, but you can buy 70 coins for less than $1.
