Glitch That Let Trolls Create 'Unscrollable' Videos On TikTok Has Been Patched

A glitch on the TikTok app's interface, which users exploited to create videos that people couldn't scroll past, appears to have been patched.

Posts in the "Unfortunately I have to stop you from scrolling" trend surfaced over the weekend and circulated widely, frustrating many viewers. But it appears that now TikTok has fixed the issue.

The posts seemed to work by filling the screen with tags to other pages so that trying to touch the screen and scroll would only result in selecting the tags. The density of tags gave these videos a distinct whitish tint.

The bug seems to be fixed now and scrolling works again, despite the best attempts of the trolls to mess with users on the app. While the bug was active, however, posters on TikTok made a variety of videos participating in the trend, some of them bordering on the diabolical.

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7351922694708825390

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7351933286656085279

Since TikTok's algorithm promotes videos that users spend more time on and don't scroll away from, some posts in the trend appeared to do very well. As unscrollable videos proliferated on the platform, content creators offered advice on how to get around the exploit by scrolling in the lower left or lower right corners of the screen.

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7352308894988832042

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7351931217064922414

While social media interfaces and content moderation seek to be airtight, humans always find a way to break or bend the rules. The "Unfortunately I have to stop you from scrolling trend" wasn't very destructive since it only forced people to exit TikTok and open it again on a fresh For You Page where their scrolling could continue, but other online exploits and pranks on platforms can have more extreme consequences.

Of course, for every person inconvenienced by a video that stopped their scrolling, there are at least a dozen who wish they could actually stop themselves from scrolling TikTok.