TikTok is pushing again on critics who declare the video app is falling brief in its content material moderation duties amid the Israel-Hamas battle. In a statement, the corporate supplied new particulars concerning the variety of accounts and movies it has taken down for the reason that October seventh assaults by Hamas.
In response to TikTok, it eliminated greater than 925,000 movies “within the battle area” and thousands and thousands extra “items of content material” from world wide. The corporate additionally mentioned it’s skilled “spikes in faux engagement” in current weeks. “Since Oct. 7, we've eliminated greater than 24 million faux accounts globally and greater than half one million bot feedback on content material underneath hashtags associated to the battle.”
The brand new particulars come as TikTok has confronted rising scrutiny over how its app is recommending content material associated to the continuing battle. In response to NBC Information, some lawmakers have just lately stepped up their requires the app to be banned amid allegations that TikTok’s algorithm is disproportionately selling pro-Palestinian content material. In its replace, TikTok mentioned that such claims had been based mostly on “unsound evaluation” of its knowledge.
“Sadly, some misinformed commentators have mischaracterized our work to stop the unfold of hate speech and misinformation surrounding the disaster in Israel and Gaza, particularly because it pertains to antisemitism,” the corporate mentioned. “Over the previous couple of days, there was unsound evaluation of TikTok hashtag knowledge across the battle, inflicting some commentators to falsely insinuate TikTok is pushing pro-Palestine content material over pro-Israel content material to U.S. customers.” The corporate added that, in the USA, the hashtag #standwithisrael had been seen 46 million instances since October 7, whereas #standwithpalestine had been seen 29 million instances.
TikTok isn’t the one platform to face rising scrutiny over its moderation insurance policies as tensions surrounding the battle spill over onto social media platforms. Meta has confronted accusations that it “shadowbanned” Instagram accounts that posted about situations inside Gaza, which it attributed to a “bug.” X, previously generally known as Twitter, is coping with a European Union investigation into its dealing with of misinformation associated to the battle.
This text initially appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tiktok-says-its-removed-millions-of-fake-accounts-since-start-of-israel-hamas-war-231851792.html?src=rss
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