The rising video social media App TikTok has begun to ban content that has “false information” on its platform due to a change in the terms of use of the application owned by the Chinese firm ByteDance.
The platform becomes stricter
TikTok clarified in a statement that they are eliminating “misleading information that could cause harm to the health of an individual or to public safety in general”.
The new terms aim to root out “misinformation meant to incite fear, hate, or prejudice.”
In the previous TikTok terms of use, the company only considered false information to be those publications that resulted in monetary scams. However, beyond the scams, no parameter indicated that false information campaigns were prohibited.
Not very precise rules
However, it is not clear what kind of content falls into these categories for TikTok. Many users believe that this update of the terms of use is simply one more way to censor content that the Chinese company does not want to be seen, since, in the past, users have denounced political censorship inside the app.
One of the most recent censorship complaints against TikTok came in November 2019 when an American teenager named Feroza Aziz had a problem with TikTok because they removed a video where she raised awareness about the existence of Uighur Muslim concentration camps in China.
A TikTok representative came out to deny this, saying that they do not moderate the content due to political sensitivities. “Both her new account (that of Feriza Aziz) and the video in question have not been affected, and they are constantly receiving visits”, said the representative, making it clear that the teenager’s ban occurred for other reasons. Many pundits were unconvinced.
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