TikTok takes steps to combat extremism, hate speech and misinformation amid Hamas war

Published: APRIL 7, 2024 22:28

A view shows the office of TikTok after the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that would give TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance about six months to divest the U.S. assets of the short-video app or face a ban, in Culver City, California, March 13, 2024. (photo credit: REUTERS/MIKE BLAKE) — A view shows the office of TikTok after the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that would give TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance about six months to divest the U.S. assets of the short-video app or face a ban, in Culver City, California, March 13, 2024.

(photo credit: REUTERS/MIKE BLAKE)

The tech giant includes implicit bias training for moderation teams and provides refreshers on their hate policy focused on antisemitism and Islamophobia.

Since October 7, 2023, TikTok has removed over 3.1 million videos and suspended over 140,000 livestreams in Israel and the Palestinian territories for violating community guidelines, the social media giant announced.

The content removed included content promoting Hamas, hate speech, violent extremism, and misinformation.

TikTok said that these steps were taken to maintain the safety and integrity of its platform.

The tech giant stated that in the same period, they removed tens of millions of pieces of content for reasons in several different categories, including dangerous information, violent behaviors, criminal activities, hate speech and hateful behavior, violent and hateful organizations and individuals, shocking and graphic content and harassment and bullying.

Categories with the most content removed

The category with the most content removed was harassment and bullying, with 31.5 million pieces of content removed for that reason. 27.5 million pieces of content were removed for graphic content. 285,000 pieces of content were removed for containing dangerous misinformation, the lowest of the categories.

TikTok placed a warning label on the writer's video: 'This video was flagged for unverified content.' (credit: ZINA RAKHAMILOVA)

TikTok also said they are acting against deceptive behaviors, including removing over 320 million fake accounts internationally.

TikTok said that they made an improvement to their machine moderation models when the war between Israel and Hamas began, which was able to increase its removal of violative content in Israel and in the Palestinian territories by 234%.

The tech giant includes implicit bias training for moderation teams and provides refreshers on their hate policy focused on antisemitism and Islamophobia. According to the organization, there has been a 13% increase in moderator accuracy in North America in enforcing its rules against hate speech and hateful behavior.