Cosplayers have been the backbone of tiktok for a long time. In fact, when tiktok was first being announced, they advertised the app using homestuck cosplayers. During con season in 2019, cosplay was one of the featured hashtags.

As tiktok user ceilingofthesistine pointed out, tiktok has shadowbanned the word cosplay. It has shadowbanned the word in videos, in comments, and even as a tag. This is supposedly to “prevent bullying of cosplayers”, however, such a goal can be achieved with easier means like banning the perpetrators. 

The user mentioned previously also found that videos with the cosplay tag got an average of 14 less likes. Tiktok has also shadowbanned cosplayers for no reason in the past, making this decision prove that tiktok is trying to get rid of cosplayers.

Furthermore, this decision is likely to make bullying amongst cosplayers even more common. If people aren’t having cosplayers pop up on their for you page as often, they are likely to become weirded out by cosplayers. This is not okay. Cosplayers are human and deserve to be treated as such, however, our recent treatment from tiktok has not reflected this.

This petition is started on behalf of cosplayers. Tiktok is an app where we can express ourselves and find people with similar interests. It’s not fair that tiktok is taking that away.