TikTok, the fastest growing mobile video social media platform that hit the market, has vowed to prioritize its campaign against misinformation and spams to be true to its objective of maintaining a “safe, fun, positive virtual space” for everyone.
In an interview with a TikTok spokesperson for its regional operation, the company made emphasis on its endeavor to further enhance its platform, making it more proactive in deterring fake news and misinformation.
The spokesperson stressed that the difference of TikTok with other similar mobile video platform is they focus on positivity, fun, and entertainment.
“Our main mission is to bring joy to people and also to make a safe space for people,” said the TikTok official.
According to the spokesperson, TikTok has lots of controls to fight against spams and trolls. They even filter negative words with a button feature to delete, block off, and report directly a post that are personally attacking someone.
The moment the report is sent, the spokesperson said TikTok has to act within 24 hours maximum.
Actually, TikTok has removed 94 percent of harmful content while the rest of six percent is placed under close monitoring or under review.
Among its efforts include TikTok’s latest partnership with the Commission on Elections even before the election period to fight misinformation during the May 9 local and national elections.
“We wanted to provide the right information and we partnered with GMA to educate the public,” the official said. Thy also have a partnership Agence France Presse, a news write service, as fact checker.
The various partnerships are meant to widen its reach to understand inauthentic posts and trolls behavior.
TikTok has a back-end that detects contents that are still coming up and together with partners, they monitor to understand the potential occurrence of a misinformation.
For instance, TikTok had prevented the viral Tallano gold fake news that came out in other platforms to get into its platform.
“We are making sure this kind of misinformation does not come out in our platform,” the spokesperson added although he also acknowledged that the platform can still do more with the help of the government to combat misinformation.
TikTok would also like to bring in the local government units and integrate their rules to create a safe space for everyone and to ensure a thriving business environment.
Aside from the national government, TikTok would also like to see collaboration with the local government units. “We want to work very closely with the local people so we can help them grow their revenues,” the TikTok spokesperson added.
As such, TikTok is encouraging its users to create authentic contents or videos that are natural as opposed to the studio-produced contents.
They are strong in terms of educational postings like food and drinks, hobbies, life hacks, gaming, and entertainments.
“Education is a big push and people realized to learn how to cook, bake a cake, factual clips,” the TikTok spokesperson said.
TikTok has become a haven where gamers and gaming streamers can share and view creative content related to their favorite games.
The pandemic has also provided opportunity for more people to get onboard or start their small business. Tiktok also responded by lengthening the allotted allowed time from 15 to 30 seconds to 60 seconds, and now 5-10 minutes per post.
Like other social media platforms, TikTok earns through ads from all the major global brands.
TikTok though has very strict rules because they have to follow community guidelines for ads.
Certainly, its users are also monetizing their contents, but those transactions are privy only to the content producer and the brands.
Accordingly, TikTokers are not only paid based on the number of views or subscribers/followers but also on popularity.
Growth-wise, TikTok has seen so much growth in southeast Asia since they started in 2018. It has already 240 million active users a month in the region, with all six countries doing very well and growing very fast. Globally, TikTok has a billion monthly active users. It is also the most downloaded app in 2020 and 2021.
According to TikTok, its growth in the region will largely be driven by the booming business in ASEAN, which is perceived to be a booming and great place to do business. “There are so many people looking towards Asia, and Tiktok provides all these people to come onboard,” the company spokesperson added.