TikTok Proposes Collaboration Among Social and Content Platforms to Address Harmful Content

TikTok has released its global Transparency Report for the first half of 2020, providing insight into its efforts to ensure the safety and positivity of the platform for all users. The report highlights TikTok's commitment to transparency and accountability by regularly sharing information about the content they remove, including hate speech, misinformation, and other violations of their Community Guidelines and Terms of Service.

TikTok's dedication to user safety goes beyond content removal. They have implemented features like Family Pairing to enhance coordination between parents and teenagers, and they provide resources and education through their Youth Portal and safety videos. Additionally, TikTok collaborates with industry partners, such as the WePROTECT Global Alliance, to learn from others and improve their safety measures.

Content platforms face ongoing challenges with the posting and cross-posting of harmful content. This not only affects the platforms themselves but also their users and the wider community. Technology can help detect and limit such content, but human moderators and collaborative teams play a crucial role in addressing these issues. However, a more effective approach would involve formal collaboration among companies to identify and notify each other of unsafe content at an early stage.

While collaboration already exists for certain types of dangerous content, such as child sexual abuse material, there is a critical need to work together to protect people from extremely violent and graphic content, including suicide. To address this, TikTok's interim head, Vanessa Pappas, has proposed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to nine social and content platforms. This MOU would encourage companies to warn each other about violent and graphic content on their respective platforms. By creating a hashbank for such content and working together, the chances of people encountering and being emotionally harmed by it could be significantly reduced, regardless of the app they use.

TikTok prioritizes the safety of its community above all else. Their ultimate goal is to bring joy and connection to their global community, and ensuring the well-being of their users is paramount. TikTok believes that other platforms share this goal and is committed to collaborating with industry peers, experts, academics, and non-profit organizations to develop a framework and plan for this collaborative effort. They believe that their users deserve this level of protection.