Joel Saget—AFP
Video-sharing portal says it removed nearly 10 million videos in Pakistan between April and June for violating community guidelines
Video-sharing website TikTok on Thursday issued a report stating that Pakistan had ranked second globally for the largest number of videos—9,851,404—that were removed from the service in the second quarter of the current year for violating community guidelines.
“With 9,851,404 videos removed, Pakistan ranked second in the world for largest volume of videos taken down for community guidelines violations in Q2 2021,” read the report, adding that in total 81,518,334 videos were removed from the platform globally between April and June. This number, it stressed, comprised less than 1% of all uploaded content.
Of the removed content, said TikTok, 93% were removed within 24 hours of posting; and 94.1% before being reported by any users. It said that 87.5% of all removed content had zero views.
Providing a breakdown of the reasons for the content removals, TikTok said 73.3% of content promoting harassment and bullying videos and 72.9% videos focused on hateful behavior were removed prior to being reported—an increase from the 66.2% and 67%, respectively, from the first quarter of this year. “The improvement stems from the pioneering combination of technology and content moderation by a dedicated investigations team used to identify videos that violate policies,” said TikTok. “To better enforce these policies, moderators also receive regular training to identify content featuring re-appropriation, slurs and bullying,” it added.
The platform said it had also improved mute settings for comments and questions during live streams, allowing hosts to temporarily mute viewers for anywhere between a few seconds to the entire duration of the live session. It said TikTok also sought to empower users with customization options for filtering comments on their content; deleting or reporting multiple comments at once; and blocking accounts in bulk. It said that the application had also introduced prompts to urge users to consider the impact of their words before posting unkind or offensive comments. This, claimed TikTok, had already proven effective with nearly four in 10 people withdrawing or editing their comments.
Chinese-owned TikTok is currently banned in Pakistan, with regulator Pakistan Telecommunication Authority saying it is due to its failure to remove “inappropriate content.” The company has maintained it is willing to work with authorities and has initiated several media campaigns urging users to exercise care in the content they upload.