Chinese owned video-sharing social media app TikTok took down more than 380,000 videos this year for allegedly violating the company’s hate speech policies, according to a statement the company released on Thursday.
The app reportedly banned around 1,300 accounts for allegedly posting content against the community guidelines TikTok Head of Safety Eric Han said in a statement. The removed content reportedly included race-based harassment.
TikTok defines hate speech as “content that intends to or does attack, threaten, incite violence against, or dehumanize an individual or group of individuals on the basis of protected attributes like race, religion, gender, gender identity, national origin, and more,” according to the company’s community guidelines.
TikTok says they removed 38K videos & 1.3K accounts for hate speech violations. While notable, our experts highlighted tricks extremists use to evade detection. Without more transparency from TikTok, it’s impossible to gauge the impact of these efforts. https://t.co/UDIDKT0BCs
— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) August 20, 2020
The company’s statement reiterated its content policy and emphasized its “zero-tolerance” policy for organized hate groups or content that denies “violent tragedies” after videos directed at slavery and the Holocaust went viral, the statement said.
TikTok started a content advisory council in March after criticism over content moderation, the New York Post reported.
Officials worry that sensitive user information could be accessed by the Chinese government through the social media application, the Post reported. ByteDance was given 90 days to dismantle TikTok’s U.S. operations by President Donald Trump.
The social media company is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, though it reportedly said it has not given user data to China, the Post reported.
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