TikTok has announced new updates to encourage kindness and safety for users, alongside the next instalment of its Community Guidelines Enforcement Report.
Among the new updates, a primary focus will be fostering authentic engagement in comments. TikTok has started testing a way to let individuals identify comments they believe to be irrelevant or inappropriate. Additionally, to avoid creating ill-feeling between community members or demoralise creators, only the person who registered a dislike on a comment will be able to see that they have done so.
New safety reminders for creators are also a part of the new update. To make it easier for users to find and use the built-in safety tools, TikTok is experimenting with reminders that will guide creators to its comment filtering and bulk block and delete options. The reminders will be shown to creators whose videos appear to be receiving a high proportion of negative comments.
TikTok also pledges to uphold its community guidelines, by removing content that violates the guidelines. TikTok has released its Q4 2021 Community Guidelines Enforcement Report, which reflects its ongoing commitment to earn the trust of its community by being accountable when it comes to keeping its platform safe and welcoming.
The report shows steadfast progress on removing violations of its policies before they receive a single view from the start of 2021 to the end.
For instance, from Q1 to Q4 2021, removals of content at zero views improved by 14.7% for harassment and bullying content, 10.9% for hateful behaviour, 16.2% for violent extremism, and 7.7% for suicide, self-harm, and dangerous acts. In addition, the video-sharing app’s ongoing safety investments have helped meaningfully improve the speed at which they identify and remove violations.
TikTok will also be providing information about content removals in more markets and ongoing improvements to its systems which aim to detect, flag, and, in some cases, remove violative content.