TikTok has deleted over 380,000 videos in the United States for breaching its hate speech policy this year, said Thursday’s short form video app. The app, owned by ByteDance, also says that it prohibits the posting of hateful content on more than 1300 accounts. In its news blog, TikTok claimed that it was focused on content such as racial abuse, as well as on content that denied “violent tragedies” such as holocaust and slavery, that it had a zero tolerance policy for organized hate groups.
The app, which is very popular for its dance and lip-syncing routines and viral competitions for teens, was used to spread white supremacists and anti-semitical hatreds in a study by the anti-difamatory league at the beginning of this month. In March the first members of a Content Advisory Board appointed TikTok, which had been under consideration in its Content Moderation Practices, to advise on its policies and to evaluate the actions of the firm.
In the latter effort to raised pressures on the Chinese company for concerns about the security of the personal data it handles, President Trump also ordered ByteDance last week to discard US operations by TikTok in 90 days. American officials have expressed concern that the government of China may collect information on users. TikTok said it did not supply China with user data and that if asked, it would not.