TikTok today issued an announcement regarding compliance with the new European legislation on digital services. THE platform points out that it has proceeded to comply with the requirements of the new law on digital services – Digital Services Act (DSA) of the EU, having adopted policies that enhance transparency in the European Economic Area.
In order to meet the great responsibility arising from its 134 million monthly users in Europe, TikTok, with a team of 1000 experts from many different groups, is launching a new European Cyber Security Hub in 23 languages, which will serve as a one-stop -shop for the user community on DSA compliance and their platform experience. Some of the changes have to do with illegal content reporting, commercial content libraries, commercial content tags, and limiting ads for users under 18.
Read the entire announcement in Greek below and in English here.
In just a few years, TikTok has emerged as a benchmark for creativity, culture and entertainment for 134 million users in Europe*, who visit the platform every month. Such figures entail considerable responsibility. One such responsibility is our compliance with the Digital Services Act – Digital Services Act (DSA), the new European legislation designed to further strengthen the security of those using platforms such as ours.
Over the past twelve months, more than 1.000 people from many different teams in our company have worked to prepare TikTok for DSA compliance from day one. In line with our obligations as a 'Very Large Online Platform' (VLOP) under the DSA, we have implemented significant changes to the TikTok product experience. These include new processes and features designed to further enhance transparency in areas such as advertising, content moderation and recommendation systems. We have also introduced a new compliance function to ensure we continue to meet the important commitments of this key content security legislation.
A key goal of DSA is to give users of digital services even greater insight into the work we do on their security and provide additional tools – and therefore more choice – for their experience on the platform.
To help our community understand these changes as easily as possible, we are also launching a new European Cyber Security Hub. This new hub will be available in 23 European working languages and will serve as a one-stop-shop for our community to learn more about how we comply with DSA and what it means for users in relate their experience on TikTok.
To mark the “official first”, here are some of the key changes:
- Report illegal content: this additional reporting option allows users to report content (including advertising) that they believe is illegal in the European Economic Area. Reported content will be reviewed in accordance with our Community Guidelines and policies and will be removed globally if found to be in violation of our policies. Otherwise, our new additional dedicated team of moderators and legal experts will assess whether the content violates domestic law and access to the content will be restricted in the reporting country. Both the user who posted the content and the person who reported it will be informed of the decision and the reasoning behind the decision, and given the opportunity to appeal if they disagree.
- Popular feeds: from now on, users in Europe can turn off personalization so that the For You and LIVE streams recommend relevant local and global “popular” videos, instead of content related to their personal interests. Likewise, when using non-personalized search, users will see results made up of popular content from their region and in their preferred language. The Followers and Friends watch feeds will only show the creators that users follow in chronological order. This feature is in addition to existing customization options such as “Refresh”, which provides a new set of popular videos as if the user had just joined TikTok, and “why this video”, which gives the user the option to check because he is watching a particular video in the stream.
- Commercial Content Library: this searchable database offers information about paid ads on TikTok and ad “metadata” – such as creative, dates served and key parameters used for targeting.
- Access the Research API: applications opened in early August to European academics who wish to conduct research on our platform, with the goal of greater transparency in TikTok content.
- Commercial Content Tag: to make commercial content perfectly clear to our global community, we now offer a wider range of tags that both individuals and businesses can add to their content. Tag options include: “ad/sponsored” – “advertising” (content paid for by advertisers), “cooperation paid” (a commercial partnership between an individual and a brand), or “promotional content” (organic content by an individual/business used to promote their own brand, product or service).
- Limiting personalized ads to under 18s: as of July, users in Europe aged 13 – 17 can no longer see personalized ads based on their activities on and off TikTok.
These changes highlight the breadth and scope of DSA, but our work does not begin and end on day one of implementation. In accordance with DSA guidelines, we will soon publish our first transparency report, which will include a breakdown of the number of monthly active users in each EU member state and further information about our content moderation activities.
Working to keep our community safe is an ongoing task, and through continued close collaboration with industry partners, regulators and civil society, we will strive to embrace the spirit of transparency and user empowerment that DSA aims to inspire people across Europe.
*Europe refers to the EEA. The European community deals with users located in EEA countries.
