TikTok Removed Nearly 50 million Videos Due to Minor Safety in Q2 2022

Video sharing platform TikTok has over 1 billion users and is among the most popular social media. However, TikTok has received a fair share of criticism due to its privacy policies and content that may harm young and impressionable people.

According to the data presented by the Atlas VPN team, TikTok removed nearly 50 million videos due to minor safety in the second quarter of 2022. Notably, most of these videos were taken down due to nudity and sexual content involving minors.

The data is based on the recent TikTok Community Guideline Enforcement report published on September 28. The analysis goes deeper into how TikTok enforces its terms of service and creates a safe and entertaining environment for its audience.

In total, TikTok removed over 113 million videos in Q2 2022. The platform’s automated defenses deleted 48 million videos, while the moderation team removed over 65 million. In addition, TikTok changed the initial decision and restored about 6 million videos.

Of those videos, nearly 44% were removed due to minor safety. TikTok deleted about 24 million videos, about 21% of all, due to illegal activities and regulated goods. Out of all removed videos, adult nudity and sexual activities made up nearly 11% or about 17 million videos.

Violent and graphic content made up 9% of all deleted videos on TikTok. About 6.5 million videos breached TikTok’s harassment and bullying policy. Videos showcasing suicide, self-harm, and dangerous acts made up 6% (nearly 7 million) of all videos.

TikTok deleted nearly 2 million videos containing hateful behavior. Violent extremism and integrity and authenticity policy violations were detected in less than 1% of all deleted videos.

Minor safety

While most content on TikTok is fun or educational, people can still find some disturbing videos. Many accounts on TikTok focus on posting dangerous or sexual content, which could be highly harmful to minors.

Out of the total videos removed due to minor safety, nearly 76% involved nudity and sexual activity involving minors. The good news is that moderators deleted 92% of these videos before they received a single view. Forbes also recently reported about TikTok accounts hiding child sexual abuse material in plain sight.

Harmful activities by minors made up nearly 16% of all removed videos due to underage people’s safety policy. Content containing physical and psychological harm to minors made up about 4% of violations.

Out of all deleted videos due to minor safety, 2.4% were engaging in the sexual exploitation of underage people. At the same time, grooming behavior was the reason behind nearly 2% of video removals.

While TikTok might have solid policies to protect minors, it does not always reflect in practice. Social media platforms develop new products or functionalities and release them without seriously addressing online safety, particularly for minors. As of now, TikTok seems behind other companies when it comes to creating a safe environment for their underage audience.