“We continuously invest in the training of our team of moderators to strengthen the application of our Guidelines”: they said so, from TikTok Italia, to respond to the our observations on how content moderation could be improved on the platformespecially those produced by journalists and news sources.
The company added that “we have thousands of security professionals around the world” that “work together with technology (ie artificial intelligenceed) which helps us identify content that potentially does not comply with the Guidelines “.
In particular, as regards the so-called fact-checking and the fight against fake news, TikTok Italia reminded us that “we currently collaborate with 13 fact-checking partners “that” support 33 languages ” and “they evaluate the contents in 64 markets around the world” and that “in Italy we also collaborate with Facta News”. From what we understand, in short, there would really be a human intervention in the moderation of content, especially when a person appeals against an alleged violation: “When a user makes an appeal, this is reviewed by a moderator, who will restore it in case it is a mistake was made “. In this case, the video is included among those restored (as can be understood from the latest company report).
The witness
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TikTok between moderation and transparency
The fact remains that content moderation, how it is done and by whom it is done, is an open question for TikTok. Not only in Italy (where it would be interesting know the real number of moderators and what are the response times they can guarantee), as well as on a global level. Most recently, Vanessa Pappas, the company’s Chief Operating Officer, announced online its intention to allow a restricted group of external researchers to access the moderation systemso that they can “evaluate it and examine the content available on our platform”, also to understand “how different types of content are allowed, rejected or forwarded to moderators for further evaluation”.
Not only that: Pappas also explained that researchers will be able simulate the upload of different types of content (just to see how they are managed by TikTok) and also will have access to the list of keywords used to highlight videos not allowed on the platform.
All this will happen “soon”, while TikTok continues to work hard to prove that it is a transparent platform with little contact with China, which is a sensitive issue especially in the United States: the recent request from some American senators to open an investigation into the security of members’ data, while ex-President Trump’s words about “Americans spied on by the Chinese government” echo. On this, as we have often told on Italian Tech, the company replied several times that “we have never shared the data of US users with the Chinese government nor would we do it if asked”, also recalling the recent agreement with Oracle for the retention of American subscriber data on American servers.