Tiktok deletes 60 lakh clips over rule violations

Short video platform Tiktok has removed over 60 lakh videos for violating content guidelines in India as it works to strengthen mechanisms to guard against the carriage of unlawful and obscene content on the platform. The move comes at a time when the company is facing regulatory heat in India, and has been served with a notice by the government, seeking answers to two dozen questions that centre around unlawful usage by children to carriage of content which is obscene and allegedly anti-national. “At Tiktok, we are committed to maintaining a

safe and positive in-app environment for our users to showcase their creativity and talent. Tiktok in no way endorses or promotes content that is in violation of our community guidelines,” said reports quoting Sachin Sharma, Director (Sales and Partnerships) at Tiktok India, as saying.

The Chinese video app’s parent company Bytedance has said the platform has over 20 crore users (downloads) in India, and is growing - both in terms of new user addition and the contenttraffic that they generate. Sharma said that Tiktok, which is available in 10 major Indian languages, is taking steps to ensure that unlawful content gets blocked before being released on the app. “As part of commitment towards providing a positive in-app environment, we have removed over 60 lakh videos since July 2018 for violating our community guidelines,” he said. The community guidelines of the company claim to check the transmission of content which is harmful or dangerous; contains shocking information; leads to discrimination or has hate speech; sexually exploits, targets, or endangers children; or promotes nudity or sexual activity. Tiktok features memes and short-format music videos with some clips showing youngsters, some scantily clad, lip-syncing and dancing to popular tunes. ■