More than 50 percent of videos removed by short-form video destination, TikTok over the last six months had adult nudes, sexual activities and were not safe for children, a new report shows.
Adult nudity and sexual activities accounted for 30.9 percent of over 104 million explicit content deleted from the platform, while videos that threatened safety of minors (22.3 percent) were flagged and removed between January and June 2020, according to latest TikTok Transparency Report.
The report provides insight into content removed from the global short video platform for violating its Community Guidelines or Terms of Service.
It also shows how TikTok responded to copyright content take-down requests, law enforcement, and government agencies.
“As the home for entertainment, self-expression, and connection for hundreds of millions of people around the world, TikTok wants everyone to feel welcome on the platform,” said TikTok in a press statement.
A total of 104,543,719 videos were removed globally for violating the platform’s Community Guidelines or Terms of Service, which is less than 1 percent of all videos uploaded on TikTok.
Of those videos, TikTok found and removed 96.4 percent of videos before they were reported by users, and 90.3 percent were removed before they received any views.
“There is no higher priority than promoting a safe app experience that fosters a sense of belonging and joy among its diverse and growing global community which is why TikTok releases these reports to hold themselves accountable to its community and provide transparency into the actions they take to help keep TikTok safe for everyone,” said TikTok.
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Over the period under review, TikTok has made numerous improvements to enhance safety and promote positivity on the platform.
This includes expanded Community Guidelines; fact-checking programs; in-app educational PSAs on hashtags related to important topics in the public discourse such as COVID-19; and industry-leading youth safety features Family Pairing that allows parents and teens to customize their safety settings based on individual needs.
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Videos with illegal activities like promotion of crime, goods prohibited in certain regions of the world accounted for 19.6 percent of content deleted and hate speech(0.8 percent).
Some 13.4 percent of content promoted self-harm, suicide and people engaging in dangerous activities.
Other videos had violent and graphic content(8.7 percent), harassment and bullying(2.5 percent),Integrity and authenticity(1.2 percent).
To protect infringement of intellectual property rights, 10, 625 copyrighted content were removed following takedown notices.
India, USA and Pakistan had the highest volume of explicit videos removed from the platform with 37.6 Million, 9.8 million and 6.4 million respectively. Brazil and UK filled the top five countries list with 5.5 million and 2.9 million videos respectively.
