TikTok - Afrikan Heroes

TikTok Launches Campaign on Digital Safety

July 3, 2023

As part of ongoing efforts aimed at tackling concerns over digital safety of its subscribers, global vlogging platform TikTok has hosted a series of workshops, recognizing that safety is a top priority for its community in Somalia and believes collaboration is the key to maintaining a safe app environment.

As part of numerous initiatives to ensure a safer platform, TikTok announced a comprehensive refresh of its Community Guidelines. These are the rules and standards for being part of the TikTok community, which apply to everyone and everything on the platform. Based on feedback from users and in consultation with over 100 expert organisations across the world, this update has advanced the platform’s commitment to transparency by giving everyone more information about safety policies and how TikTok enforces them.

Speaking on the development, Kevin Morgan, Head of Trust & Safety, EMEA, said that “We’re proud to have implemented the Community Guidelines refresh, offering our community much more transparency about our rules and how we enforce them. It takes a whole village to keep people safe online, so we’re grateful to everyone in the TikTok community and to all of the external experts who have contributed and continue to help us advance our rules and stay a step ahead of emerging threats.”

Ensuring consistent transparency, TikTok releases quarterly Community Guidelines Enforcement reports available on the Transparency Centre , which details actions that have been taken to tackle violative content.

In Q4 2022 (ReportPublished March 31, 2023), TikTok removed 85.68 million videos globally, which represents 0.6% of all videos uploaded on the platform. In the same period, TikTok removed over 280 000 violating videos in Somalia, and 98.7% of the violating videos were identified and removed before they were reported.

Safety work can not be achieved in isolation. Collaboration between digital platforms and local regulators is essential to ensuring that digital platforms are safe for users.

Emphasising the importance of collaboration in ensuring the community stays #SaferTogether, General Manager, Mustafa Y. Sheik of the National Communications Authority (NCA) in Somalia said: “National regulators such as the National Communications Authority of Somalia play a crucial role in ensuring that platforms such as TikTok are safe for all users. We value the collaboration between TikTok and NCA in ensuring users on the platform recognise and use the tools to help in preventing harmful content, particularly content that promotes terrorism and violence.

We recognise and applaud TikTok for initiating educational programs for users in Somalia with their #SaferTogether hashtag, safety features update and Community Guidelines refresh. Working together we can create and educate on effective safety measures for all age groups, protecting users from harm while maintaining educational and creative content that respects our community’s culture, values, and norms,”

TikTok is only for users over the age of 13 and the platform has made keeping teens safe possible with regularly updated features such as:

– Family Pairing which allows parents or guardians to link their TikTok account to their teens’ and customise various safety & privacy settings – including whether it’s a public or private account, who can comment on their videos, and how long they spend on TikTok each day.

– TikTok restricts teens from having access to certain features. For example, accounts aged 16 and under can’t use Direct Messaging, and accounts aged under 18 cannot go LIVE.

– To help teens develop positive digital habits, TikTok recently set a default 60-minute daily screen time limit for accounts aged under 18.

The wider TikTok community’s safety matters too and TikTok has made various features available to assist the community in managing their experience on the app with the following features:

Account privacy settings: With these features, users are able to decide who they approve to follow them and engage with their account; with accounts belonging to 13-15 year olds set to private by default.

Comment filters: TikTok’s wide range of comment filters enable users to choose which comments they want to see on their videos, set keywords they want to be filtered out of their comments, and report, delete or block up to 100 comments and accounts at once.

User report function: This feature allows users to confidentially report inappropriate content or behaviour they see on the platform, so that TikTok can review it and remove it if it violates our Community Guidelines. This further amplifies the importance of collaboration in ridding the platform of content that goes against Community Guidelines.

TikTok adheres to its commitment to fostering responsible navigation of its platform and providing a trustworthy experience to all its users. As a growing entertainment platform, TikTok pledges to dedicatedly work to improve the community’s digital experience.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

US Politicians Grill TikTok CEO, Says They’re Saving Their Children

March 28, 2023

The heat being mounted on TikTok by US politicians is getting hotter even after they battered TikTok’s CEO about potential Chinese influence over the platform and said its short videos were damaging children’s mental health, reflecting bipartisan concerns about the app’s power over Americans.

CEO Shou Zi Chew’s testimony before the US congress did little to assuage worries over TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance and added fresh momentum to lawmakers’ calls to ban the platform nationwide.

Over five hours of testimony, Chew repeatedly denied the app shares data or has connections with the Chinese Communist Party and argued the platform was doing everything to ensure safety for its 150 million American users.

Chew said TikTok for more than two years has been “building what amounts to a firewall to seal off protected US user data from unauthorised foreign access. The bottom line is this: American data stored on American soil, by an American company, overseen by American personnel,” Chew said.

But not a single lawmaker offered support for TikTok, as they deemed Chew’s answers on China evasive and aired concerns over the power the app holds over US children.

Others accused TikTok of promoting content that encourages eating disorders among children, illegal drug sales and sexual exploitation.

“TikTok could be designed to minimise the harm to kids, but a decision was made to aggressively addict kids in the name of profits,” said representative Kathy Castor, a Democrat, at the house of representatives energy & commerce committee hearing.

‘Complex’

Chew responded to many pointed questions by saying the issues were “complex” and not unique to TikTok.

The company says it has spent more than US$1.5-billion on data security efforts under the name “Project Texas” which currently has nearly 1 500 full-time employees and is contracted with Oracle to store TikTok’s US user data.

But critics were not appeased as the company failed to announce any new efforts to safeguard privacy.

Chew, who began his testimony by referring to his Singaporean roots, said: “We do not promote or remove content at the request of the Chinese government.”

He added: “It is our commitment to this committee and all our users that we will keep TikTok free from any manipulation by any government.” He said the app strictly screens content that could harm children.

It is not clear how US politicians will proceed after the hearing or how quickly they might move to pass legislation to strengthen the Joe Biden administration’s legal powers to ban TikTok.

Some 20 US senators — 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans — have backed bipartisan legislation giving President Biden’s administration a path to ban TikTok, and the app’s fate has added a new element to tensions between Washington and Beijing.

TikTok last week said the Biden administration demanded its Chinese owners divest their stakes or face a potential ban. When asked about a potential divestiture, Chew said the issue was “not about the ownership” and argued US concerns could be addressed by moving data to its US storage centres.

China’s commerce ministry said forcing TikTok’s sale “will seriously damage the confidence of investors from all over the world, including China, to invest in the US”, and that China would oppose any sale.

Some lawmakers cited China’s comments to reject TikTok’s contention that it is separate from the Chinese government.

At Thursday’s hearing, representative Neal Dunn asked Chew if ByteDance has spied on Americans at Beijing’s request. Chew answered, “No.”

You gave me only generalised statements that you’re investing, that you’re concerned, that you’re doing work.

Republican Dunn then asked about US media reports that a China-based team at ByteDance planned to use TikTok to monitor the location of specific US citizens, and repeated his question about whether ByteDance was spying.

“I don’t think that spying is the right way to describe it,” Chew said. He went on to describe the reports as involving an “internal investigation”, but was cut off by Dunn, who called TikTok’s widespread use “a cancer”.

Democratic lawmaker Tony Cardenas said Chew was a “good dancer with words” and accused him of avoiding tough questions on evidence that the app has harmed children’s mental health. Chew said the company was investing in content moderation and artificial intelligence to limit such content.

Representative Diana DeGette, a Democrat, said TikTok’s efforts to prevent the spread of misinformation on the platform were not working. “You gave me only generalised statements that you’re investing, that you’re concerned, that you’re doing work. That’s not enough for me. That’s not enough for the parents of America,” DeGette said.

Representative Gus Bilirakis showed the committee a collection of short TikTok videos that appeared to glorify self-harm and suicide, or outright tell viewers to kill themselves.

‘Leading to death’

“Your technology is literally leading to death,” Bilirakis said. “We must save our children from big tech companies like yours, who continue to abuse and manipulate them for your own gain.”

Chew told Bilirakis that TikTok takes the issue of suicide and self-harm “very, very seriously”.

TikTok is not available in China, where ByteDance offers a Chinese equivalent Douyin. Still, the hearing was closely watched in the country, with related news posts gathering millions of views on microblogging site Weibo where many users expressed sympathy for Shou and criticized US “hostility”.

Hu Xijin, a former editor in chief of state-run tabloid Global Times, said in a tweet on Thursday: “The US is robbing TikTok this time, but it is hypocritically going through the process of a hearing.”

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

TikTok is at ‘Pivotal Moment’ Says CEO

March 23, 2023

Chinese-owned short video app TikTok faces a “pivotal moment” as a growing number of US lawmakers seek to ban the popular app over national security concerns, CEO Shou Zi Chew said.

Chew said in a video posted on TikTok early on Tuesday that the app now has more than 150 million active monthly US users, representing almost half of the country’s population and up from the 100 million US users it had in 2020.

Chew, who will testify on Thursday before the US house energy and commerce committee, noted that some politicians were talking about banning TikTok.

Banning TikTok would be another message to younger voters that we don’t care about what you think

“This comes at a pivotal moment for us,” he said on the video that featured the US Capitol in the background and received more than 3.8 million views since it was posted earlier in the day. “Some politicians have started talking about banning TiktTok. Now this could take TikTok away from all 150 million of you.”

Chew asked TikTok users to leave comments about what they wanted US lawmakers to know about “what you love about TikTok”, and thousands responded in support.

TikTok’s critics fear that its US user data could be passed on to China’s government by the app, which is owned by the Chinese tech company ByteDance. TikTok rejects the spying allegations.

Last week, TikTok said the Joe Biden administration demanded that its Chinese owners divest their stake in the app or it could face a US ban.

‘Unacceptable’

On Wednesday, TikTok creators and New York representative Jamaal Bowman, a Democrat, will hold a press conference outside the US Capitol to oppose a TikTok ban.

Bowman described the push to ban TikTok as “fear mongering” in an interview. He said the US needed comprehensive “Big Tech regulation” that addressed Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and others, but singling out TikTok was “unacceptable”.

Banning TikTok “would be another message to younger voters that we don’t care about what you think,” Bowman said.

Chew said five million US businesses also used TikTok to reach customers.

TikTok also said Tuesday it had updated its community use guidelines and offered more details of its plans to secure the data of US users.

The company said it had started to delete this month US user protected data in data centres in Virginia and Singapore after it started routing new US data to the Oracle Cloud last year.

TikTok, which has said it has spent more than US$1.5-billion on rigorous data security efforts, said “if protecting national security is the objective, divestment doesn’t solve the problem: a change in ownership would not impose any new restrictions on data flows or access”.

A growing number of US lawmakers support a ban on TikTok, including house energy and commerce committee chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, congressional aides told reporters on a call Monday.

On Friday, six more US senators backed bipartisan legislation to give Biden new powers to ban TikTok. On 1 March, the US house foreign affairs committee voted along party lines to give President Joe Biden new powers to ban TikTok.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

TikTok Laments That United States is Threatening Ban

March 16, 2023

TikTok has announced that the United States government has demanded that its Chinese owners divest their stakes in the popular video app, or face a ban. This was made known on Wednesday by the company.

The Biden administration has demanded that TikTok’s Chinese owners divest their stakes in the popular video app or face a possible US ban, the company said on Wednesday.

The move is the most dramatic in a series of recent steps by US officials and legislators who have raised fears that TikTok’s US user data could be passed on to China’s government. ByteDance-owned TikTok has more than 100 million US users.

It is also the first time under the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden that a potential ban on TikTok has been threatened. Biden’s predecessor, Republican Donald Trump, had tried to ban TikTok in 2020 but was blocked by US courts. If protecting national security is the objective, divestment doesn’t solve the problem

TikTok spokeswoman Brooke Oberwetter said the company had recently heard from the US treasury-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which demanded that the Chinese owners of the app sell their shares, and said otherwise they would face a possible US ban of the video app.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the move. ByteDance confirmed that 60% of its shares are owned by global investors, 20% by employees and 20% by its founders.

CFIUS, a powerful national security body, had unanimously recommended in 2020 that ByteDance divest TikTok. Under pressure from then-President Trump, ByteDance in late 2020 unsuccessfully sought to finalise a deal with Walmart and Oracle to shift TikTok’s US assets into a new entity.

Read: TikTok moves to stave off growing threat of Western crackdown

“If protecting national security is the objective, divestment doesn’t solve the problem: a change in ownership would not impose any new restrictions on data flows or access,” Tiktok’s Oberwetter said in a statement.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is due to appear before the US congress next week. It is not clear if the Chinese government would approve any divestiture and the Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last month, the White House gave government agencies 30 days to ensure they do not have TikTok on federal devices and systems. More than 30 US states have also banned employees from using TikTok on government-owned devices.

Any US ban would face significant legal hurdles and potential political ramifications, since TikTok is popular with millions of young Americans.

Last week, Democratic senator Mark Warner said it was important the US government do more to make clear what it believes are the national security risks from TikTok. “It’s going to be incumbent on the government to show its cards in terms of how this is a threat,” Warner said.

TikTok and CFIUS have been negotiating for more than two years on data security requirements. TikTok said it has spent more than $1.5-billion on rigorous data security efforts and rejects spying allegations.

TikTok said on Wednesday that “the best way to address concerns about national security is with the transparent, US-based protection of US user data and systems, with robust third-party monitoring, vetting and verification.”

Last week, the White House backed legislation by a dozen senators to give the administration new powers to ban TikTok and other foreign-based technologies if they pose national security threats. It could give the Biden administration new ammunition in court if they sought to ban TikTok.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan praised the bipartisan bill, saying it “would strengthen our ability to address discrete risks posed by individual transactions, and systemic risks posed by certain classes of transactions involving countries of concern in sensitive technology sectors.”

The house of representatives foreign affairs committee this month voted along party lines on a much broader bill aimed at Tiktok, sponsored by Republican representative Michael McCaul, that Democrats said would require the administration to effectively ban TikTok and other subsidiaries of ByteDance.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

TikTok is Testing a Dislike Button for the Comment Section

April 16, 2022

Leading video-sharing platform, TikTok, owned by Chinese ByteDance, announced that it is testing a dislike button for comments on its app. TikTok wrote in a blog post that this new feature will help users feel like they have more control over comments. TikTok said this feature will let individuals identify comments they think are irrelevant or inappropriate without letting other users know that they have flagged a comment.

This is similar to Twitter’s downvote button (currently on a pilot phase) that allows users to flag comments that are irrelevant to the initial tweet. Many users, however, feel like the feature is useless and they are burning more for the long-requested edit button that’s been a hot topic recently.

Cormac Keenan, Head of Trust & Safety at TikTok

TikTok on the other side seems to think that this new feature is one of the many ways that will help ensure safety on the app.

“At TikTok, we believe community should be built on a foundation of respect, kindness, and understanding. To help people forge positive digital connections in line with our rules for appropriate behavior on our platform, we strive to empower our community members to stay in control of their interactions with others on TikTok,” Cormac Keenan, Head of Trust & Safety at TikTok wrote in the blog post.

In addition, TikTok is also testing safety reminders that will help creators filter out negative and abusive comments by adopting comment filtering, bulk block and delete options.

“We will continue to remove comments that violate our Community Guidelines, and creators can continue to report comments or accounts individually or in bulk for us to review,” TikTok said.

The video-sharing platform already has a dislike feature for videos or content shared on the platform. According to The Verge, the feature was added to keep content that might bother some users away from their algorithm.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry