Building Trust Through Transparency and Accountability

At TikTok, we prioritize accountability and transparency in order to build trust with our community. We are committed to being transparent in our operations, content moderation, content recommendation, and platform security. To demonstrate this commitment, we have established global Transparency and Accountability Centers where experts and lawmakers can witness firsthand how we are working to create a safe and secure platform for our diverse and growing community.

Due to the physical constraints imposed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we have adapted our original plans and currently offer a virtual experience at our centers. This virtual experience allows experts and Congressional offices to learn about and inquire about our safety and security practices. To date, nearly two dozen experts and Congressional offices have participated in the virtual tours.

During the virtual experience, we provide detailed information on how our content moderators review escalated content and accounts. We explain the use of user reports and technology-based flagging, as well as our safety classifiers, deep learning models, and decision engine. These tools help us proactively identify harmful content and prioritize the review of potentially violating content. We also demonstrate our object detection models that flag hate symbols for further review by our human moderators. At our physical centers, guests will have the opportunity to experience the role of a content moderator, use our moderation platform, review and label sample content, and experiment with various detection models.

In addition to content moderation, we also share insights into how our recommendation system operates and how we prioritize user experience and safety. We explain how our systems work to diversify content in the For You feed and tailor content to the preferences of each user. We also address the challenges commonly associated with recommendation engines.

Under the leadership of our Chief Security Officer, Roland Cloutier, who has extensive experience in law enforcement and the financial services industry, our teams work diligently to protect the information of our community and stay ahead of evolving security challenges. During the virtual experience, we showcase how we store TikTok user data in the US and safeguard it from hackers and other threats through encryption and the latest technology. We also highlight our collaboration with industry-leading third-party experts, who test and validate our security processes, similar to those used by the federal government. At our physical centers, experts will have the opportunity to witness firsthand how we ensure the safety of our platform 24/7 through our cutting-edge fusion center.

Our virtual Transparency and Accountability Center builds upon our existing efforts to increase visibility into our platform's operations. These efforts include publishing Transparency Reports, launching a Transparency hub, sharing more information about our content recommendation process, and more.

We strongly believe that all companies should disclose their algorithms, moderation policies, and data flows to regulators. We have heard from lawmakers that they share this belief. As the first company to take this important step towards an unprecedented level of accountability and transparency, we are proud of our efforts.

If you are a lawmaker or an expert in policy, content safety, or security and would like more information about our virtual tours, please email transparency [at] tiktok [dot] com.