Initiatives in place to restrict inflammatory content ahead of state polls, says TikTok Malaysia
KUALA LUMPUR: With state elections soon to be held in the country, TikTok Malaysia said that it is ready to handle potential inflammatory content that violates its community guidelines.
According to a Malay Mail report published on Friday (Apr 14), TikTok Malaysia’s head of public policy said that in addition to ongoing moderation efforts, the platform will focus on “trust and safety” initiatives that seek to educate users through its #SaferTogether campaign.
"We will create more awareness content to educate users on the do’s and don’ts, not just specifically on the state elections, but also on what would continuously be suitable and relevant,” Mr Hafizin was quoted as saying.
Under the #SaferTogether campaign, TikTok Malaysia has been working with content creators on the platform to make videos on how to safely use the app, according to the Malay Mail.
This includes educating users on how they can report inappropriate content or how they can control what comments they see.
Mr Hafizin reportedly said that for the upcoming six state elections, the awareness content it plans to create includes tutorials on how to verify sources of information.
The six states set to hold elections later this year are Kelantan, Terengganu, Kedah, Negeri Sembilan, Penang and Selangor.
He also said that TikTok Malaysia is cooperating with various government bodies to curb trends and practices that are harmful, adding that the company maintains a good relationship with agencies like the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) and the police.
On Mar 1, TikTok Malaysia clarified that political advertisements are banned on the app following a claim that a Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) member was part of the TikTok moderation team.
Commenting on the scrutiny that TikTok has faced overseas, Mr Hafzin said that TikTok has nothing to hide regarding how it uses user data as its privacy policy is made public. He added that TikTok has a rigid and robust system to safeguard user data.
"Of course what’s happening globally is upsetting, but in Malaysia, we are quite happy with our relationship with the current government.
"Meaning, we do have some discussions about the global developments, and the authorities have been receiving our response rather well that we do not pose any national security threats, (and that) data, user data, including Malaysians’ data are not transferred to any foreign governments,” he said, according to the Malay Mail.
Several countries, including Australia, France and Canada, have banned the app on government devices due to fears that user data could end up in the hands of the Chinese government. TikTok is owned by Beijing-based company ByteDance.
During the recent 15th General Election (GE15), the Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition’s strong showing when they won 74 seats has been partly attributed to its astute TikTok campaign strategy.
The PN Best campaign generated great interest, particularly in the Malay heartland. Hashtags such as #pnbest, #perikatannasional and #bersihdanstabil (clean and stable), garnered hundreds of millions of views on TikTok throughout the campaigning period.
As TikTok is largely a platform used by the youth, such videos enabled political parties to reach out to young voters.
Following a constitutional amendment that lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, known as the Undi18 Bill, GE15 was the first general election where young people aged 18 to 20 cast their ballots. The Undi18 law took effect on Dec 15 last year.
According to the Election Commission (EC), about 5.8 million new voters aged 18 and above were eligible to vote in GE15.
