Tiktok removed more than 49m videos for content violations in six months
Tiktok took down more than 49m videos worldwide in the second half of 2019, it said today in a transparency report, as scrutiny of the platform ramps up.
The removed videos represented less than one per cent of all posts on the app in that time.
Tiktok said the videos were taken down for violations of either its community guidelines or terms of service, with a quarter of the posts being removed for displaying adult nudity or sexual activity.
It comes as Tiktok has faced backlash in recent weeks for a series of far-right memes that have proliferated on the platform, featuring racially motivated hate speech and garnering millions of views.
Tiktok also revealed it received 500 legal requests to remove videos in the time period, including 45 requests from governments.
More than 16m of the pulled videos came from users in India, its largest overseas market, where Tiktok was banned last month along with 58 other Chinese apps by the government due to concerns over national security.
The second biggest market for pulled videos was the US, with 4.6m videos taken down.
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo this week said the country was also considering banning Tiktok, suggesting it shared information with the Chinese government.
Tiktok, which is owned by Chinese tech giant Bytedance, has consistently denied it holds any data in China or shares any information with the government.
Tiktok said its systems proactively caught and removed 98.2 per cent of the 49m total videos before a user reported them to the app’s content moderators. Of the videos removed, 89.4 per cent were taken down before they received any views.
“As our young company continues to grow, we’re committed to taking a responsible approach to building our platform and moderating content,” said Tiktok Europe executives Theo Bertram and Cormac Keenan.
“We’re working every day to be more transparent about the violating content we take down and offer our users meaningful ways to have more control over their experience, including the option to appeal if we get something wrong.”