Can SkinnyTok be beat?

It’s going to take more than banning hashtags.

Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.

TW: This post is about disordered eating and weight loss. — Kate

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If you’ve ever taken advice from a TikTok “relationship expert,” you may be owed compensation.

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Liv Schmidt

Every time controversial weight-loss influencer Liv Schmidt lands a magazine feature, her online presence takes a hit. When the Wall Street Journal asked a TikTok rep for comment on their profile of the creator in 2024, for instance, TikTok responded by banning her account because it violated their rules against the promotion of eating disorders.

And yet, Schmidt continued to thrive on Instagram, where she charges users $20 a month for access to her subscription-only Instagram group, Skinni Société. Or rather, she did. After EJ Dickson at The Cut wrote an exposé on the group’s underage members and promotion of disordered eating last month, Meta demonetized her account, and restricted it to only those over 18 years old.

It’s not just Schmidt—last week, following an investigation from European Union regulators, TikTok banned the “#SkinnyTok” hashtag, which is known for accompanying videos that promote eating disorders. This is all part of social media’s slow march towards accountability after decades of this content proliferating online. Unfortunately, it’s not going to work.