What is the December 22 incident on TikTok?

Videos referencing an incident that took place on December 22 are making the rounds on TikTok. Here’s everything you need to know.

TikTok has become the prime destination for all the latest viral trends and memes, with new videos constantly being created and shared across the platform.

Over the years, a number of different dates have ended up trending on the social media app. For example, the date ‘April 24’ went viral this year due to a disturbing hoax about the day, and last year, ‘October 1st’ blew up thanks to a popular song by Girl in Red.

Now, several videos referencing to a ‘December 22 incident’ or ‘TikTok slideshow incident’ are popping up on people’s For You Pages, and it’s become the subject of ongoing speculation among users.

What happened on December 22 on TikTok?

The December 22 incident, or the TikTok slideshow incident, refers to the date when TikTok slideshows sharing adult content hidden in the slides were posted without moderators taking them down.

Noah Glenn Carter made a video explaining why this date is the “most infamous day in TikTok history.”

“On that day, many TikTok users found out they could post [adult content] if they posted [it] using TikTok’s slideshow effect,” he said. “The [adult content] went mega, mega, viral,” he continued.

“For some reason, TikTok’s algorithm started recommending it to everyone on the app, and videos that were just straight [adult content] were getting millions upon millions of views and many of them weren’t even getting taken down.”

Per Know Your Meme, several slideshow videos containing graphic content and nudity, especially hentai images, began circulating on December 22, 2022, before they all got taken down by December 2025.

While there’s no official explanation as to how this incident happened, Noah believes that the moderation team was off for Christmas at the time, and could’t take down the posts until they were back in office.

Noah also pointed out that TikTok hasn’t completely resolved this graphic content issue, as similar incidents have continued to occur. One popular example is the now-deleted Pokémon 777 filter which would flash a NSFW image to users when applied.