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TikTok to Show How They Moderate Content at US Transparency Center

By Mara Anton

Posted on March 11, 2020

Photo by Kon Karampelas on Unsplash

In a bid to assuage security concerns, TikTok is opening a Transparency Center at their Los Angeles facility this May. There, they will disclose the way the platform moderates content and more.

Last year, TikTok was installed more than 738 million times, making it the secod most downloaded app, surpassed only by WhatsApp. From this community, 30 million monthly active users can be found in the United States. The same region where a national security review of the app started, after the FTC issued a $5.7 million fine for violating children’s privacy law. Needless to say, it’s been a bumpy road for TikTok from a credibility stand, although it hasn’t deterred users from creating content as usually.

So, TikTok is marching on but making sure they make their operations as transparent as possible. In May, TikTok will open a Transparency Center in Los Angeles where “experts” will be able to look into:

how our trained content moderators apply those Guidelines to review the technology-based actions that are escalated to them, and to identify additional potential violations that the technology may miss;
how users and creators are able to bring concerns to our attention and how those are handled;
ultimately, how the content that is allowed on the platform aligns with our Guidelines.

“We expect the transparency center to operate as a forum where observers will be able to provide meaningful feedback on our practices. Our landscape and industry is rapidly evolving, and we are aware that our systems, policies and practices are not flawless, which is why we are committed to constant improvement.”, stated Vanessa Pappas, General Manager, TikTok US in a blog post.

How the experts will be appointed and how their conclusions will reach the masses hasn’t been specified. Let’s hope this initiative will serve its stated purpose, in a bigger communications strategy the platform is undertaking, after appointing a US executive as its chief information security officer earlier this month.