April 25, 2022 – Popular Chinese-owned short video sharing application TikTok has revealed that it removed more than 6.5 million videos in Pakistan over violations of community guidelines in the fourth quarter of 2021.
According to TikTok’s Community Guidelines Enforcement Report Q4 2021 published on April 13, 2022, TikTok removed 6,563,59 videos in Pakistan between October and December 2021. Pakistan ranks third in the world to have the largest number of videos taken down. It previously ranked fourth with 6,019,754 videos removed between July and September 2021.
Globally, TikTok removed 85,794,222 videos. The United States ranks first with 12,943,295 videos, followed by Indonesia with 6,657,310.
The data shared by TikTok indicates that nearly 22 million fake accounts were suspended in the fourth quarter of 2021. Accounts suspected to be under the age of 14 amounted to over 14 million. TikTok also banned 24 million accounts for other reasons.
The report shows that 94.1 percent of videos were removed for violating community guidelines within 24 hours of being posted while 95.2 percent were taken down before being reported by a user. Over 90 percent were removed before gathering any views. However, the overall volume of videos removed made up only one percent of the total content uploaded to TikTok.
“At TikTok, we believe our community should be built on a foundation of respect, kindness, and understanding,” reads an official statement. “To help people forge positive digital connections in line with our rules for appropriate behaviour, we strive to empower our users to stay in control of their interactions with others on TikTok.”
TikTok is among the most controversial applications in Pakistan and has been banned four times over “immoral and indecent content”. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) first banned TikTok in October 2020. TikTok was unblocked 10 days later after its parent company ByteDance agreed to remove “objectionable” content from the Pakistani market.
The fourth ban on TikTok was imposed in July 2021. It was lifted in November the same year. The frequent bans on the video-focused platform have drawn sharp criticism from content creators and free speech defenders and have affected several small businesses in the country as well.
