INSIDE TIKTOK'S TOXIC CULTURE

Employees at the video-sharing app reveal their shocking working conditions

- NASIFA SULAIMAN

IT'S a bottomless well of fun and frivolity, filled with videos of pranks, beauty hacks and trends, dance routines and pet reels adorable enough to make you forget the woes of the world.

And TikTok's brand of light-hearted entertainment has made it one of the most successful social media apps in the world with more than 50 million active users a day and more than one billion monthly users.

But it's not all fun and games for many of those working behind the scenes of an app sometimes described as "the happiest place on Earth".

Former employees have been speaking out about suffering burnout and severe mental distress because of the almost round-the-clock workplace demands.

In an exposé by the Wall Street Journal, ex-staffers based in the US claim that behind the frothy facade of TikTok lies a toxic culture that has a "confusing" corporate structure with "incompetent management" and a "996 culture" - a system adopted by some companies in China where workers are expected to toil from 9am to 9pm, six days a week.

One woman tells how she felt so much pressure to perform she didn't even feel comfortable going to the bathroom and bled through her clothes instead of changing her tampon.

Former employees describe how stress caused their weight to fluctuate and affected their mental health to such an extent they needed therapy. One woman says she needed marriage counselling because of the strain the working conditions placed on her personal life.

Chloe Shih, a former project manager, recounts how she regularly worked up to 16 hours a day and had to attend mandatory meetings with colleagues in the UK and China, causing her to work from 8am to midnight some days.