Community Guidelines Enforcement Report
January 1, 2022 – March 31, 2022
Published June 30, 2022
About this report
TikTok is a global entertainment platform fueled by the creativity of our diverse community. We strive to foster a fun and inclusive environment where people can create, find community, and be entertained. To maintain that environment, we take action upon content and accounts that violate our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service and regularly publish information about these actions to hold ourselves accountable to our community.TikTok uses a combination of innovative technology and people to identify, review, and action content that violates our policies. This report provides quarterly insights into the volume and nature of content and accounts removed from our platform.
Analysis
TikTok’s Community Guidelines are designed to foster an entertaining experience that prioritizes safety, inclusion, and authenticity. Our policies apply to everyone and all content, and we strive to be consistent and equitable in our enforcement.
Responding to the war in Ukraine
As a platform, we’ve responded to the war in Ukraine with increased safety and security measures to help ensure people can express themselves and share their experiences while we work aggressively to counter harmful misinformation and other violations of our policies. The war has challenged us to confront a complex and rapidly changing environment. We’ve increased investments with our fact-checking partners who help assess the accuracy of content. We’ve continued to evolve our detection methods to help take swifter action against accounts that attempt to scam or mislead our community through unoriginal livestreams and video content. And we began a pilot of our state-controlled media policy by labeling content from some accounts in order to bring important context to viewers. In response to Russia’s ‘fake news’ law, from March 6 we suspended livestreaming and new content to our video service in Russia given the safety implications of this law. Content posted by accounts based outside of Russia is not currently available for distribution in Russia.
From February 24 through the end of the first quarter, March 31, 2022, we took the following steps to safeguard our community:
- Our safety team focused on the Ukraine war removed 41,191 videos, 87% of which violated our policies against harmful misinformation. The vast majority (78%) were identified proactively.
- Our fact-checking partners helped assess 13,738 videos globally.
- We added prompts on 5,600 videos informing viewers that content could not be verified by fact checkers.
- We labeled content from 49 Russian state-controlled media accounts.
- We identified and removed 6 networks and 204 accounts globally for coordinated efforts to influence public opinion and mislead users about their identities.
Ads
TikTok has strict policies to protect users from fake, fraudulent, or misleading content, including ads. Advertiser accounts and ad content are held to these policies and must follow our Community Guidelines, Advertising Guidelines, and Terms of Service. In the first quarter of 2022, the total volume of ads removed for violating our advertising policies and guidelines increased. This is due to a change in our approach to ad violation enforcement and a strengthening of our account-level enforcement capabilities. Previously, when an account was found to be in violation of our policies, all ad traffic associated with that account was blocked. With this change, we are able to remove all ads associated with these accounts from our internal systems. While the end-result is the same for our viewers, we believe this improves the ads ecosystem and reinforces our commitment to creating a safe and positive environment for our users.
Latest data
DownloadTotal videos removed/total videos published by quarter
NOTE: Total videos removed represents about 1% of all videos uploaded to TikTok.
Total videos removed/restored, by type and quarter
NOTE: Restored videos are reflected in both the removal volumes and restore volumes in the above chart.
Total video removal, by policy
NOTE: This chart shows the volume of videos removed by policy violation. A video may violate multiple policies and each violation is reflected. In certain rare circumstances, such as emergency situations or hardware outages, we may not always capture the exact video violation category. These videos are not represented in the above chart but are accounted for in absolute numbers throughout this report. Only videos that have been reviewed by moderators are included in the sub-policy dashboard.
Video removals and rates, by sub-policy
NOTE: Only videos that have been reviewed by moderators are included in the sub-policy dashboard. Our minor safety policies aim to promote the highest standard of safety and well-being for teens. The “nudity and sexual activity involving minors” sub-policy prohibits a broad range of content, including “minors in minimal clothing” and “sexually explicit dancing”; these two categories represent the majority of content removed under that sub-policy. Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) is reported separately.
Removal rate, by quarter/policy
NOTE: Proactive removal means identifying and removing a video before it’s reported. Removal within 24 hours means removing the video within 24 hours of it being posted on our platform.
Removal volume and rates, by country
NOTE: This chart shows the thirty markets with the largest volumes of removed videos and represents approximately 80% of overall removal volume.
Total account removal, by quarter and reason
NOTE: In addition to removing accounts for violating our Community Guidelines, we remove accounts determined to be spam, along with spam videos posted by those accounts. We also take proactive measures to prevent spam accounts from being created through automated means.
Fake engagement
NOTE: We take action to both remove and prevent likes, followers, and follow requests when we deem the activity to come through automated or inauthentic mechanisms.
Spam account activity
NOTE: When we remove accounts for spam, we also remove videos created by those accounts under our spam policies.
Ads policy enforcement
NOTE: Total ad removals increased in 2022 due to a change in our approach to ad violation enforcement and a strengthening of our account-level enforcement capabilities. Ads may be removed either at the individual ad level or in bulk by taking action against an entire advertiser account.
Yes
No