TikTok's Approach to Combating Misinformation

TikTok is a platform that allows people to share their creativity, knowledge, and passion with others, bringing joy to our community. To ensure a welcoming and authentic environment for everyone, we have policies in place to remove content that violates our guidelines. We are committed to transparency and regularly publish Community Guidelines Enforcement Reports to keep creators informed about content removals.

Misinformation is a significant challenge, especially in the digital age. We understand the negative impact it can have on public health, electoral processes, facts, and science. That's why we take misinformation seriously and have implemented a multi-pronged approach to combat it. Our goal is to prevent its spread, promote authoritative information, and invest in digital literacy education.

Our integrity policies focus on promoting a trustworthy and authentic experience. Specifically, we prohibit content that misleads our community about civic processes, public health, or safety. For example, we do not allow medical misinformation about vaccines or abortion, and we do not tolerate misinformation about voting. These policies are designed to adapt to the ever-changing landscape of content.

In addition to removing inaccurate and harmful content, we also take action against accounts that seek to mislead or manipulate public opinion. This includes addressing inauthentic or fake account creation and more sophisticated attempts to undermine trust. We continuously update our policies to stay ahead of evolving tactics used by those spreading misinformation.

Enforcing our policies requires a combination of technology and human moderation. While we use machine learning models to detect potential misinformation, context and fact-checking are crucial for accurate enforcement. Our moderation team, including specialized misinformation moderators, assesses and confirms violations before taking action. We work closely with fact-checking partners accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network to ensure content accuracy.

To improve our ability to detect and remove misinformation, we have made significant investments. This includes continued investment in machine learning models, improved detection of misleading audio and imagery, a database of fact-checked claims, and a proactive detection program with our fact-checkers. Since implementing this program, we have identified and removed 33 new misinformation claims, resulting in the removal of 58,000 videos.

Collaboration with experts is essential in addressing this challenge. We regularly engage with our Content Advisory Council, researchers, civil society organizations, and media literacy experts. This collaboration strengthens our policies and knowledge of trends and issues. We also feature content from experts in our app, such as a digital literacy hub and Elections Centers to promote election integrity and provide authoritative information.

Our work to combat misinformation is ongoing, and we are committed to continuously improving our efforts. To learn more about our platform safeguards, please visit our Transparency Center.