TikTok’s surging popularity has resulted in more video takedowns. The company’s latest transparency report states that it removed 104 million clips during the first six months of 2020. For comparison, the last report — which was published a couple of months ago, but covered July to December 2019 — revealed that roughly 49 million videos were deleted during the latter half of 2019. It’s a significant jump that can be attributed in part to the app’s ever-growing userbase, which was fuelled earlier this year by the start of the coronavirus pandemic, when people were trapped indoors and desperate for ways to entertain themselves and other people.
According to TikTok, the videos removed this year made up “less than one percent” of all content uploaded to the platform. Almost a third of the deletions contained adult nudity or sexual activities, while 22.3 percent were categorised as “minor safety.” A further 19.6 percent showed “illegal activities and minor goods” and 13.4 percent included “suicide, self harm and other dangerous acts.” Content related to “integrity and authenticity,” which includes impersonation and disinformation, only made up 1.2 percent of the takedowns. Other factors included violent and graphic content (8.7 percent), harassment and bullying (2.5 percent), hate speech (0.8 percent) and dangerous individuals and organizations (0.3 percent).