TikTok just published its latest transparency report which reveals that over 104.5 million videos were taken down from its platform and it received about 1,800 legal requests and 10,600 copyright takedown notices within the first half of 2020. In addition to that, the company has announced a new initiative against harmful content, for which it has collaborated with other social media apps.
TikTok has already been banned in the U.S. and India, and on top of that, the rise in illegal and harmful content on its platform is becoming a problem for the app as it is gaining more and more popularity with time; the rise in the number of users of TikTok is only contributing to more harmful content.
Earlier this year, the company also launched a transparency center in the U.S. to help experts monitor and evaluate the ways that the content on the app is moderated.
According to TikTok, the 104,543,719 videos that were removed from the app as a result of policy violation made up less than 1% of the total number of videos on TikTok, which indicates the magnitude of the app's usage. Moreover, data reveals that the number of videos taken down recently has doubled over the last six months.
As far as the content moderation is concerned, TikTok revealed that it is relying more on machine learning technology in markets like Pakistan, Brazil, and India.
The videos that violated TikTok's policy mainly contained of adult nudity and sexual content (30.9%), followed by minor safety (22.3%), and lastly, illegal activities (19.6%). Other harmful content contained suicide/self harm, violent activities, and hate speech.
The two largest markets that have contributed to the harmful content are the ones where TikTok has been banned: India and America.
TikTok's initiative against harmful content is based on a proposal that the company sent out to the executives of nine other social media platforms. TikTok hasn't shared any details about which companies are included or the response it has received from them.
The proposal states the importance of social media companies communicating and notifying each other about the content, which is a wise step conisdering how a lot of the content is shared across multiple social media platforms.
