Tech giants struggle to censor graphic videos of Perez Hilton appearing to harm himself
Major social media platforms are once again under fire for their flawed approach to content moderation after a disturbing livestream from Perez Hilton, in which the celebrity blogger appeared to be committing acts of self harm, flooded into people’s news feeds.
The graphic video appeared to go on for several minutes before TikTok, where it originally appeared, eventually took it down, with many users in the comments pleading for Hilton to stop, asking him to get help, and saying they were contacting the police.
According to a TikTok U.S. spokesperson, the livestream was flagged by an automated moderation system routing, which routed the incident to the U.S. moderation team for further review, yet a “moderator error” led to a delay in the removal.
TikTok also says it alerted law enforcement of the incident, and went on to close subsequent streams and banned the account.
The live video showed Hilton completely naked as he appeared to repeatedly cut himself while on camera with a knife, until eventually becoming fully covered in blood. For the minutes the video remained up, users on the platform were exposed to violent content, raising concerns among users on social media.
“TikTok should be fined [for] how many kids saw Perez Hilton doing that shit for 10 minutes,” a user said on X.
Another added, “tik tok it took yall far too fucking long to ban Perez Hilton off live.”
Despite being taken down, clips and screen recordings of the video spread to other social networks and circulated widely.
Hilton’s family later posted an update saying that he is receiving medical care.
“Part of a broader issue”
Such rapid proliferation of graphic content is not new. Last year, a viral video of Charlie Kirk’s assassination circled social media platforms for days, with many users coming across the graphic content unwittingly on their timelines.
Experts say the incidents are symptomatic of lax moderation on the part of tech giants.
“All of this is part of a broader issue of multi-billion-dollar tech platforms cutting their investment in moderation and trust and safety teams over the years,” Katie Paul, director of the Tech Transparency Project (TTP), tells Fast Company. “Their products in turn have become bastions for some of the most grotesque content on the internet.”
It is worth noting, however, according to TTP, that Instagram accounts with the “Teen Account” setting turned on did not appear to be shown the graphic Hilton content. Last year, the same accounts were shown Kirk’s video.
While Hilton’s video can still be found online, it appears to be slightly harder to inadvertently see the content, coming up only upon searching for a related term.
When searching for the phrase “Perez Hilton” on platforms including Threads, X, Instagram, and TikTok, initially blurred versions of the video appeared to come up instantly, with more graphic content often behind content warning. According to a review by Fast Company, graphic content was more likely to be found on Instagram.
Fast Company reached out to Meta (Instagram’s owner) and X for comment but did not receive a response at the time of publishing.
Users fill the void with content warnings
Those seeking out the video are being urged by other users on social media to stay away from the content, as it contains sensitive imagery that may be triggering to users.
“Dear friends. Please do not watch the Perez Hilton video. I’m begging you. Don’t do it to yourself. I would give anything to unsee it,” a user said on X.
Additionally, many who watched the video shared regret about seeing it afterwards.
“I wish I never looked up what was going on with Perez Hilton. My god. I’m not gonna sleep tonight,” one user wrote.
Exposure to graphic content has been linked to emotional distress and can even be traumatizing for sensitive users.
“We have found over the years . . . that repeated exposure to graphic images can have negative psychological and physical health consequences,” Roxane Cohen Silver, professor of psychology, medicine, and public health at the University of California, Irvine, told Fast Company last year.
The stress caused by consuming such content may lead to insomnia, nightmares, and acute stress that eventually manifests in physical ways.
But for many users, the fact that situations like this continue to happen are part of a bigger problem for the tech companies that operate social media platforms.
While various safeguards exist across all platforms—including explicit guidelines and AI moderator programs, as well as human moderators—companies like X and Meta have shifted in recent years to less strict moderation in the name of free expression, a stance that ends up being better for their business model, critics say.
“[Algorithms] are keyed to amplify increasingly extreme content to keep users on the platforms as long as possible and maximize the number of ads they may encounter,” Paul says, adding that “until tech companies face accountability for failing to keep their platforms safe, we are likely to see more incidents like this spread online in the future.”