TikTok has unveiled its updated Community Rules. The guidelines, which apply to everyone and everything on the app, are the platform’s policies and expectations for participating in the TikTok community. In addition, TikTok is announcing its Community Guidelines, which serve as a framework for the platform’s decisions about the moderation of content and strike a balance between freedom of speech and avoiding harm.
Their input helped TikTok to strengthen their rules and respond to new threats and potential harms. Some of the key changes are:
- TikTok is advancing their rules for how they treat synthetic media, which is content created or modified by AI technology;
- TikTok is adding ‘tribe’ as a protected attribute in their hate speech and hateful behaviour policies;
- The platform will provide more detail about their work to protect civic and election integrity, including their approach to government, politician and political party accounts.
In order to tighten its policies and address fresh dangers and potential damages, TikTok consulted more than 100 international organisations, including the International Association for Suicide Prevention, as well as solicited input from its community. Updated regulations for synthetic media, adding “tribe” as a protected attribute in its hate speech policies, and providing more information about its efforts to safeguard civic and electoral integrity are some of the major changes.
On April 21, the amended Community Rules will go into effect, and TikTok will train its moderators further to successfully implement the new guidelines. The rules and guidelines have been divided into many issue areas that have been grouped topically, with each topic providing a quick description of what is prohibited before going into further detail.
TikTok have also laid out the four pillars for their approach to moderation:
- Remove violative content;
- Age-restrict mature content, so it is only viewed by adults (18 years or older). However, the content must still abide by TikTok’s Community Guidelines;
- Make content ineligible for recommendation in the For You feed that isn’t appropriate for a broad audience;
- Empower TikTok’s community with information tools and resources to stay in control of their experience.
Today’s update to TikTok’s Community Guidelines also expands on their enforcement strategy by:
- Sharing more information about the actions that the platform takes against accounts that violate their rules, following their update earlier this year, and clarifying that they do not allow the use of multiple accounts to intentionally bypass the platform’s rules or their enforcement.
- Explaining the considerations that TikTok takes into account when they enforce their rules based on public interests, and the platform’s approach to content that critiques public figures.
- Including more detail about how TikTok uses informational labels, warnings, and opt-in screens.
The four pillars that support TikTok’s approach to moderation are the removal of objectionable content, age restrictions on adult content, disqualification of objectionable content from recommendation, and equipping the community with knowledge and tools to maintain control over their experience.
Under the updated Community Guidelines, TikTok provides additional clarity regarding its policies and the manner in which they are applied. The platform invests in keeping the app a secure, inclusive, and authentic space for the global community to create, explore, and connect because it thinks that everyone deserves to feel safe online.
