Hello,

TikTok tells you what you want to see — not the other way around. We don't know how it recommends videos to its users, and TikTok hasn't made it easy for us to learn. That’s concerning when we’ve already seen evidence that video recommendation algorithms like YouTube's can send users into echo chambers of dangerous, harmful, and even radicalizing content.

Mozilla has been scrutinizing TikTok for years, but we still need more answers about the content the platform recommends to users. That's why we are taking matters into our own hands by building an open-source app for TikTok users to volunteer their data for researchers to study.

Researchers around the world will begin to crack the code on how TikTok's algorithm works thanks to huge amounts of donated data from this open source app, and our goal is to raise $100,000 in the next few weeks to get started on building it.

Can you contribute just $25 – or any amount that feels right for you – to Mozilla today? Your donation will help build the TikTok Reporter app, giving researchers the tools they need to uncover the truth behind TikTok's content engine.

The road ahead to find out how TikTok's video recommendations work will not be straightforward or easy, but there are many reasons to be hopeful:

Hundreds of people have already made donations and added their voices to our repeated calls for TikTok to be more transparent. The reality is that most of us — maybe even all of us — already know at least one person who’s gotten stuck in virtual echo chambers and didn’t come out the same. And as TikTok has entrenched itself as the most popular app in the world over the last few years, it’s become extremely sophisticated at shaping opinions and behaviors.

Mozilla's open source tools compelled YouTube to be more transparent about their recommendation algorithms as a result of our YouTube Regrets campaign, and we know we can do it again. We exist as a community that works to improve the internet and our digital world in tangible ways, and we urgently need to understand how and why TikTok’s algorithm works. We know that YouTube's algorithm perpetuated misinformation, offline violence, and even negative mental health outcomes, and now we want to know what TikTok does.

The tool we are building will be a game-changer. Not only will the collection of crowdsourced data through this tool allow us to further scrutinize TikTok, it will also allow other experts to conduct their own research into app-based platforms.

Your donation will have an immediate impact as we dive headfirst into our research and advocacy efforts. Together, we can start to shed light on TikTok’s impact on our society, and hold TikTok accountable to its users.

Can you contribute $25 today to our ambitious goal of $100,000 so that we can build a groundbreaking tool to uncover how TikTok’s algorithm works?

Thank you for all you do for an open Internet.

Your friends at the Mozilla Foundation