Violation: TikTok Deletes 1.7m Nigerian Users’ Videos In Q4

TikTok, the short video platform owned by Bytedance, has announced that it has deleted 1.7 million videos uploaded by Nigerian users during the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2023.
Nigeria was listed as one of the top 50 nations from which videos breaching its standards originated in Q4, 2023. Throughout the evaluation period, 176.5 million videos were taken down from the internet worldwide.

TikTok, in its Community Guidelines Enforcement report, averred that the top 50 markets which violated its policies accounted for approximately 90 per cent of all content removals for the quarter.
According to the report, the deleted videos violate TikTok’s rules pertaining to safety, civility, mental and behavioural health, privacy and security, integrity and authenticity, among others.
TikTok claimed that within the period under examination, it had deleted 169 million accounts that had been found to be fraudulent or spam.

“From October through to the end of 2023, we removed more than 169 million fake accounts globally, and we have removed about 1.2 million bot comments on content tagged with hashtags related to the Israel-Hamas war.

“We remain vigilant in our efforts to detect external threats and safeguard the platform from fake accounts and engagement. These threats persistently probe and attack our systems, leading to occasional fluctuations in the reported metrics within these areas.

“Despite this, we are steadfast in our commitment to promptly identify and remove any accounts, content, or activities that seek to artificially boost popularity on our platform. During the fourth quarter of 2023, we saw an increase in some of our fake engagement metrics,” it added.

According to the firm, 1.03 billion likes on videos were also deleted. The social networking site also removed 4.9 billion fraudulent follow requests and 720 million fake followers. The deleted likes, followers, and follow requests, according to TikTok, were found to have originated from “automated or inauthentic mechanisms.

According to TikTok, during the 4Q 2023, the number of ads removed for breaking its advertising regulations increased while the number of ads removed as a result of account-level actions decreased.

According to the report, more than 1.5 million ads were deleted in Q4 2023 due to violations of the company’s advertising regulations, up from 1.3 million in Q3.

“We are continually reviewing and strengthening our systems to identify new patterns and quickly and accurately remove ads that violate our policies. By upholding strict policies, leveraging advanced detection mechanisms, and continuously improving our systems, we strive to foster an advertising experience that is trustworthy, enjoyable, and aligned with the values of our vibrant TikTok community,” the company added.