July 28, 2022 – TikTok has announced a new set of initiatives to strengthen transparency and accountability on the video-sharing platform, according to a statement released by the company on Wednesday.
“We aim to surpass the high expectations our community and stakeholders rightly have for us so we can continue to serve everyone who creates, connects, and is entertained on TikTok,” said TikTok COO Vanessa Pappas. “We’ve been listening to feedback from different communities of researchers, academics, and experts, and are today sharing new initiatives to strengthen transparency and accountability of our platform.”
Pappas said that researchers currently do not have easy and accurate ways to conduct tests of the video-sharing platform. “We’re developing a research API to improve ease of access to public and anonymised data about content and activity on our platform, and plan to make it available to selected researchers later this year.”
TikTok has developed a moderation system API, which the company is planning to make available at its Transparency and Accountability Centers.
“This moderation system API will provide selected researchers an effective way to evaluate our content moderation systems and examine existing content available on our platform,” according to the statement. “In our Transparency and Accountability Centers, researchers will also be able to upload their own content to see how different types of content are either permitted, rejected, or passed to moderators for further evaluation.”
TikTok will also grant independent experts on the US Content Advisory Council and regional Safety Advisory Councils access to confidential information, including keywords which, according to Pappas, helps detect and flag potentially violative content.
“We don’t make keyword lists available publicly in order to avoid providing a roadmap for bad actors who attempt to subvert our safeguards,” said Pappas. “While we have dedicated teams regularly stress-testing our processes and tools to ensure they’re robust and effective, we know that perspectives and insights from experts can strengthen our approach.”
TikTok will also include information about “countering covert influence operations” in its transparency reports. “In our quarterly Community Guidelines Enforcement Reports, we’ll publish insights about the covert influence operations we identify and remove from our platform globally to show how seriously we take attempts to mislead our community.”
Earlier this week, TikTok launched several new features to provide users with more ways to discover new content and tailor their viewing experiences to their personal preferences. It is also planning to introduce a system to classify content based on thematic maturity, particularly for younger audiences.
In May, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, also announced sharing more information with “vetted academic researchers” about political and social advertisements.
