TikTok removed 1.65 crore made in India videos from platform before ban; here’s why

TikTok has said in its Transparency report that it received 500 requests in the latter half of the last year.

TikTok has released its Transparency Report 2020 and there are some stark revelations. The report suggests an unprecedented number of requests from the government and security authorities across the world and in India. According to the report, the ByteDance-owned social media entertainment app removed 1.65 crore videos in India in the last one year. The Chinese behemoth that now has been banned in India for security concerns has said that a majority of the videos were taken down from the platform as they violated the norms of “adult nudity and sexual activities.” laid out by the company.

The other reason behind the removal of the videos were videos showing alcohol and drug consumption, violence, self-harm, or suicide, TikTok said. It also said that less than 1% of the videos that were removed from its video platform had violated TikTok’s policies on hate speech, integrity and authenticity, and dangerous individuals and organizations.

India was the leader in the list of countries where the maximum number of videos was taken by TikTok which was approximately four times the number of videos censored in any other country. The United States stood second with 4.6 million video removals while Pakistan was third on the list with 3.7 million, United Kingdom, and Russia also featured in top five on the list with 2 million and 1.3 million videos removed respectively.

On the issue of content regulation requests received from the government agencies, TikTok has said in its Transparency report that it received 500 requests in the latter half of the last year, a considerable jump from the number of requests it received in the first half of 2019 which stood at 296. TikTok said that it complied with the government regulations across the world at 90 per cent of the times and shared required data with governments.