TikTok has printed its newest Transparency Report, as required beneath the EU Code of Follow, which outlines all the enforcement actions it undertook inside EU member states during the last six months of final yr.
And there are some fascinating notes in regard to the influence of content material labeling, the rise of AI-generated or manipulated media, international affect operations, and extra.
You’ll be able to obtain TikTok’s full H2 2024 Transparency Report right here (warning: it’s 329 pages lengthy), however on this put up, we’ll check out a number of the key notes.
First off, TikTok studies that it eliminated 36,740 political advertisements within the second half of 2024, in step with its insurance policies towards political data within the app.
Political advertisements are usually not permitted on TikTok, although because the quantity would counsel, that hasn’t stopped various political teams from in search of to make use of the attain of the app to broaden their messaging.
That highlights each the rising affect of TikTok extra broadly, and the continuing want for vigilance in managing potential misuse by these teams.
TikTok additionally eliminated virtually 10 million faux accounts within the interval, in addition to 460 million faux likes that had been allotted by these profiles. These may have been a method to control content material rating, and the removing of this exercise helps to make sure genuine interactions within the app.
Properly, “genuine” by way of this coming from actual, precise individuals. It could possibly’t do a lot about you liking your buddy’s crappy put up since you’ll really feel dangerous in the event you don’t.
When it comes to AI content material, TikTok additionally notes that it eliminated 51,618 movies within the interval for violations of its artificial media movies for violations of its AI-generated content material guidelines.
“Within the second half of 2024, we continued to spend money on our work to reasonable and supply transparency round AI-generated content material, by changing into the primary platform to start implementing C2PA Content material Credentials, a know-how that helps us establish and robotically label AIGC from different platforms. We additionally tightened our insurance policies prohibiting harmfully deceptive AIGC and joined forces with our friends on a pact to safeguard elections from misleading AI.”
Meta not too long ago reported that AI-generated content material wasn’t a significant factor in its election integrity efforts final yr, with scores on AI content material associated to elections, politics, and social matters representing lower than 1% of all fact-checked misinformation. Which, on stability, might be near what TikTok noticed as effectively, although that 1%, at such an enormous scale, that also represents numerous AI-generated content material that’s being assessed and rejected by these apps.
This determine from TikTok places that in some perspective, whereas Meta additionally reported that it rejected 590k requests to generate pictures of U.S. political candidates inside its generative AI instruments within the month main as much as election day.
So whereas AI content material hasn’t been a significant factor as but, extra persons are at the very least attempting it, and also you solely want just a few of those hoax pictures and/or movies to catch on to make an influence.
TikTok additionally shared insights into its third-party fact-checking efforts:
“TikTok acknowledges the essential contribution of our fact-checking companions within the struggle towards disinformation. In H2 we onboarded two new fact-checking companions and expanded our fact-checking protection to various wider-European and EU candidate international locations with present fact-checking companions. We now work intently with 14 IFCN-accredited fact-checking organizations throughout the EU, EEA and wider Europe who’ve technical coaching, sources, and industry-wide insights to impartially assess on-line misinformation.”
Which is fascinating within the context of Meta shifting away from third-party fact-checking, in favor of crowd-sourced Neighborhood Notes to counter misinformation.
TikTok additionally notes that content material shares had been diminished by 32%, on common, amongst EU customers when an “unverified declare” notification was displayed to point that the data offered within the clip might not be true.
In equity, Meta has additionally shared knowledge which means that the show of Neighborhood Notes on posts can scale back the unfold of deceptive claims by 60%. That’s not a direct comparability to this stat from TikTok (TikTok’s measuring whole shares by rely, whereas the examine checked out general distribution), however it might be round about the identical end result.
Although the issue with Neighborhood Notes is that almost all are by no means exhibited to customers, as a result of they don’t acquire cross-political consensus from raters. As such, TikTok’s stat right here truly does point out that there’s a worth in third-party truth checks, and/or “unverified declare” notifications, with a view to scale back the unfold of doubtless deceptive claims.
For additional context, TikTok additionally studies that it despatched 6k movies uploaded by EU customers to third-party fact-checkers throughout the interval.
That factors to a different difficulty with third-party fact-checking, that it’s very tough to scale this technique, that means that solely a tiny quantity of content material can truly be reviewed.
There’s no definitive proper reply, however the knowledge right here does counsel that there’s at the very least some worth to sustaining an neutral third-party fact-checking presence to watch a number of the most dangerous claims.
There’s a heap extra in TikTok’s full report (once more, over 300 pages), together with a spread of insights into EU-specific initiatives and enforcement applications.
