The video is here: https://www.tiktok.com/foryou?lang=en&is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1&item_id=6988270489290411269#/@sarahndom/video/6988270489290411269

Thousands of scientific studies had to toss out weeks of data because of a 56-second TikTok video by a teenager.

The July 23rd video is short and simple. It opens with recent Florida high school graduate and self-described “teen author” Sarah Frank sitting in her bedroom and smiling at the camera.

“Welcome to side hustles I recommend trying — part one,” she says in the video, pointing users to the website Prolific.co. “Basically, it’s a bunch of surveys for different amounts of money and different amounts of time.”

Source: TikTok and The Verge

Date: October 5th, 2021

Link to article:https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/24/22688278/tiktok-science-study-survey-prolific

Discussion

1. How might this issue have been detected earlier by the platform, and not instead by a researcher: “We have noticed a huge leap in the number of participants on the platform in the US Pool, from 40k to 80k. Which is great, however, now a lot of our studies have a gender skew where maybe 85% of participants are women. Plus the age has been averaging around 21.” ?
2. In what others ways could you use a platform like the Prolific Platform?