Social network TikTok, owned by Chinese group ByteDance, announced that it had removed four million videos deemed illegal or harmful in the EU in September, according to a report published on Wednesday. The platform claims to have a staff of 6,125 dedicated to content moderation in the European Union alone, out of a total of 40,000 responsible for protecting its users worldwide.
“The vast majority of actions taken by TikTok against illegal or harmful content are taken proactively” because they violate the social network’s rules, the group said in a report on its moderation activity within the 27 EU countries. “These withdrawals far outnumber those relating to user reports,” he emphasized.
With the aim of increasing transparency, the publication of such a report every six months is an obligation imposed by the new European legislation on digital services (DSA), which came into force at the end of August for 19 very large platforms, including TikTok.
Over the past two weeks, the European Commission has also launched investigations into X (ex-Twitter), Meta (Facebook, Instagram) and TikTok, demanding details of the measures they are implementing to combat the spread of “false information” and “illegal content”, following the Hamas attacks on Israel.
In its first transparency report published on Wednesday, TikTok, which claims 134 million monthly active users across Europe, said it was “proud” of its efforts, while acknowledging that it “still has work to do”.
The social network explains that it has introduced a tool enabling its community of European users to report illegal content, in line with DSA obligations. TikTok claims to have received 35,000 reports relating to 24,000 videos in the first month. Action was taken against 16% of them, deemed illegal or contrary to internal rules.
The median time between reporting and action was 13 hours, the group explained, underlining the difficult legal analysis it had to conduct to be fair and consistent, while taking into account freedom of expression.
Those involved in content moderation also rely on automated tools. A third of them work in English. The department also employs 869 German speakers and 687 French speakers. The team includes speakers of the EU’s 24 official languages, as well as people capable of monitoring publications in Turkish and Arabic, two frequently used languages.