According to a BBC investigation, families in Syrian displacement camps that ask for donations on TikTok only receive less than 30% of the money given for them. However, according to TikTok, the company’s commission is smaller than the 70 per cent the refugees do not receive, the BBC was told.
According to the BBC, streams were apparently making up to $1,000 each hour, which is a small portion of what the family in front of the camera makes.
Many of these live streams have children who spend hours saying, “Please like, share, and please give a gift.”
The BBC discovered that the “TikTok middlemen” who gave families the phones and equipment to go live were facilitating the trend in the camps in north-western Syria.
The middlemen claimed to have relationships with TikTok-related organisations in China and the Middle East who provided the families with access to their TikTok accounts. These firms are a part of TikTok’s global recruitment campaign for live streamers, which aims to increase app usage.
The BBC constructed a computer software to collect data from 30 TikTok accounts broadcasting live from Syrian refugee camps for five months. The software revealed that viewers were frequently giving each account digital gifts valued up to $1,000 per hour.
However, families in the camps claimed they were only getting a small portion of these sums.
