Judge us on our actions: Tiktok Australia

OPERATING in Australia is a privilege that Tiktok takes seriously. Our community’s safety and privacy is our top priority and we continue to be diligent in ensuring we meet, or exceed, the data security standards applied to companies that operate here.

In the relatively short time we have been in Australia, Tiktok has been working hard to engage proactively with government, civil society, non-government organisations, including in health and wellbeing and digital safety, as well as the media and other important stakeholders. In addition to our extensive trust and safety work, which removed more than 660,000 videos in the last quarter for violating our policies, we also work with law enforcement, educators and safety regulators to identify and remove videos of concern.

And we engage with authorities like the Australian Electoral Commission to identify and remove disinformation that could damage our democracy.

At Tiktok, the safety and security of our community’s data is at the forefront of our work and we are committed to having constructive engagements with the Australian Government about what we do, how we do it, and what more we can do.

To engage effectively, we need to operate from a foundation of fact.

Unfortunately, some of the public criticism Tiktok has faced recently has not been based on fact but exaggeration, speculation and sometimes pure fabrication.

Take for example a recent report that suggested “Tiktok parent Bytedance planned to use Tiktok to monitor the physical location of specific American citizens”.

The report, originating in the US, prompted Australia’s Opposition’s cyber security spokesperson James Paterson to renew his call for a review of Tiktok’s right to operate in Australia.

The fact is, contrary to the article that Senator Paterson relied on, Tiktok has never been used to “target” any members of the US government, activists, public figures or journalists, nor do we serve them a different content experience than other users.

It’s important to note that Australian user data is stored in the United States and Singapore and access to that data is subject to a series of robust controls, safeguards like encryption for certain data and authorisation approval protocols overseen by our Us-based security team. Once a job is completed, permissions to access are removed.

Important in this discussion is the fact hundreds of leading Australian companies and organisations do exactly the same thing.

Tiktok Australia will continue to build on our efforts to be trusted and reliable partners, through transparency and cooperation with the Australian Government. And as we continue to entertain Australians, we ask to be judged on our actions.