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Big day for TikTok as it releases its H1 2020 transparency report and its head of public policy in Europe, @theobertram, appears in front of @CommonsDCMS. Will be doing a thread through the day, but first off, the transparency report: there's been a 2x increase in video removals
From just shy of 49 million videos taken down in H2 2019, TikTok took down 104.5 million in H1 2020. Proportions of the types of videos taken down stayed broadly the same with the December 2019 numbers they reported https://twitter.com/stokel/status/1281199468629671938
TikTok says the number of videos, though they doubled in absolute number, remained at "less than 1% of all videos on TikTok". We know thanks to my reporting here that at least 5 million videos are uploaded every hour https://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-tiktok-slides-engagement-time-spent-activity-2020-9
So we can assume that while the data TikTok releases indciates the app at least doubled in size in the first six months of 2020, it's actually far greater growth than that. Here's the countries with the highest number of video removals. Surprise, surprise, India tops the list
(That's not surprising because India, before it banned TikTok and a bunch of other Chinese-owned apps, accounted for roughly a quarter of TikTok users worldwide.) What it shows is India was more censorious than most, which is supported by the number of legal takedown requests too
Things that are potentially concerning: TikTok had a lot of takedown requests under local laws in Russia. @ASPI_org highlighted cultural censorship of LGBTQ content bleeding out beyond a country's borders as an issue as I reported on here https://www.newscientist.com/article/2254122-tiktok-is-censoring-videos-with-lgbtq-hashtags-in-russian-and-arabic/
Also of interest for those wondering about TikTok's place as a major platform in the future: copyright takedown requests increased nearly 10x on the previous six months. That might give more sense of the scale of platform growth
Anyway, here's my requisite book plug (you can pre-order now!) and a PSA: you may want to stick around this thread later. @CommonsDCMS proceedings kick off at 10am https://www.canburypress.com/products/tik-tok-china-and-the-superpower-race-for-social-media-pre-order?_pos=1&_sid=46cf8888e&_ss=r
SCOOP: Here’s the inside story of how TikTok struggled to deal with the suicide video earlier this month. 10,000 videos were uploaded in a short period of time to the platform https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-removes-105-million-videos-h1-2020-9
Also in my @businessinsider story, breaking news that TikTok is calling for a cross-industry initiative to tackle the scourge of such videos. @v_ness has sent a letter to nine other platforms asking to pool resources https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-removes-105-million-videos-h1-2020-9
I would love to live tweet the DVMS hearing but a BBC Two producer has me on a call lol
Lol who is this joker who is admitting his TikTok is a thirst trap? The algorithm is based on your engagement m8
"You can't have an entire meal based on carrots," says @theobertram, trying to explain algorithms to middle-aged MPs. Can we have @DamianCollins back on the DCMS committee please?
Alex Davies-Jones MP asking about the suicide video that went viral on TikTok earlier this month for @CommonsDCMS. Here's the inside story of what happened from my scoop for @businessinsider https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-removes-105-million-videos-h1-2020-9
Congratulations to the MP in the Commons DCMS committee who just took a Skype call and interrupted a really interesting answer from TikTok
These people are on the DIGITAL, culture, MEDIA and sports committee. They're meant to be our most tech-literate MPs.
Hi @julianknight15, you do know you can just look at the TikTok newsroom for that letter right? https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-gb/tiktok-proposes-global-coalition-to-protect-against-harmful-content-gb
