Mapping Platform-Mediated Proximities With the TikTok Global Observatory

Considering TikTok’s increasing geopolitical influence, this article presents the TikTok Global Observatory (TKGO) as a case of data-reappropriation and introduces the concept of platform-mediated proximity as a counter-data mapping framework for data activist research. While TikTok enables global connection beyond local and cultural boundaries, its content is sensitive to locally specific conditions to which the platform provides no public insight. To counter this lack of transparency, the TKGO makes data for global and cross-national analysis of TikTok feeds available and navigable to the research community. The TKGO is an archive, updated daily, that collects the metadata of videos scraped from the non-logged-in web version of TikTok’s for you page (FYP) across 197 countries and territories. The tool’s main feature is a geographic map that allows users to view, filter, sort, and extrapolate the FYP data as prioritized in different geographical locations. This offers a unique access point for researchers, journalists, and activists investigating cross-national trends, content moderation, and content promotion. In this article, we firstly present the TKGO and contextually position its development in the contentious politics of data access, archiving, and mapping practices. Secondly, we elaborate on the notion of platform-mediated proximities, a conceptual lens that highlights how TikTok remediates geographical proximities through algorithmic content recommendation. Lastly, we apply this framework to the mapping of a three-month sample of the TKGO data, showing how TikTok’s cross-national content prioritization patterns generate new geographical boundaries, observing regional and geopolitical clustering as well as notable exceptions.