TikTok Shares Knowledge on EU Enforcement Actions in H2 2024

TikTok has printed its newest Transparency Report, as required beneath the EU Code of Follow, which outlines all the enforcement actions it undertook inside EU member states over the past six months of final yr.

And there are some attention-grabbing notes in regard to the affect of content material labeling, the rise of AI-generated or manipulated media, international affect operations, and extra.

You’ll be able to obtain TikTok’s full H2 2024 Transparency Report right here (warning: it’s 329 pages lengthy), however on this publish, we’ll check out among the key notes.

First off, TikTok reviews that it eliminated 36,740 political advertisements within the second half of 2024, consistent with its insurance policies in opposition to political info within the app.

Political advertisements are usually not permitted on TikTok, although because the quantity would recommend, that hasn’t stopped plenty of political teams from looking for to make use of the attain of the app to increase their messaging.

That highlights each the rising affect of TikTok extra broadly, and the continuing want for vigilance in managing potential misuse by these teams.

TikTok additionally eliminated nearly 10 million faux accounts within the interval, in addition to 460 million faux likes that had been allotted by these profiles. These might have been a method to govern content material rating, and the elimination of this exercise helps to make sure genuine interactions within the app.

Effectively, “genuine” by way of this coming from actual, precise individuals. It could possibly’t do a lot about you liking your good friend’s crappy publish since you’ll really feel dangerous should you don’t.

When it comes to AI content material, TikTok additionally notes that it eliminated 51,618 movies within the interval for violations of its artificial media movies for violations of its AI-generated content material guidelines.

“Within the second half of 2024, we continued to put money into our work to average and supply transparency round AI-generated content material, by turning into the primary platform to start implementing C2PA Content material Credentials, a know-how that helps us establish and mechanically label AIGC from different platforms. We additionally tightened our insurance policies prohibiting harmfully deceptive AIGC and joined forces with our friends on a pact to safeguard elections from misleading AI.”

Meta lately reported that AI-generated content material wasn’t a significant component in its election integrity efforts final yr, with scores on AI content material associated to elections, politics, and social matters representing lower than 1% of all fact-checked misinformation. Which, on stability, might be near what TikTok noticed as nicely, although that 1%, at such a large scale, that also represents a variety of AI-generated content material that’s being assessed and rejected by these apps.

This determine from TikTok places that in some perspective, whereas Meta additionally reported that it rejected 590k requests to generate pictures of U.S. political candidates inside its generative AI instruments within the month main as much as election day. 

So whereas AI content material hasn’t been a significant component as but, extra persons are no less than attempting it, and also you solely want just a few of those hoax pictures and/or movies to catch on to make an affect.

TikTok additionally shared insights into its third-party fact-checking efforts:

“TikTok acknowledges the vital contribution of our fact-checking companions within the struggle in opposition to disinformation. In H2 we onboarded two new fact-checking companions and expanded our fact-checking protection to plenty of wider-European and EU candidate international locations with present fact-checking companions. We now work intently with 14 IFCN-accredited fact-checking organizations throughout the EU, EEA and wider Europe who’ve technical coaching, sources, and industry-wide insights to impartially assess on-line misinformation.”

Which is attention-grabbing within the context of Meta transferring away from third-party fact-checking, in favor of crowd-sourced Neighborhood Notes to counter misinformation.

TikTok additionally notes that content material shares have been diminished by 32%, on common, amongst EU customers when an “unverified declare” notification was displayed to point that the knowledge offered within the clip is probably not true.

In equity, Meta has additionally shared knowledge which means that the show of Neighborhood Notes on posts can cut back the unfold of deceptive claims by 60%. That’s not a direct comparability to this stat from TikTok (TikTok’s measuring complete shares by rely, whereas the examine checked out general distribution), but it surely may very well be round about the identical outcome.

Although the issue with Neighborhood Notes is that almost all are by no means exhibited to customers, as a result of they don’t acquire cross-political consensus from raters. As such, TikTok’s stat right here really does point out that there’s a worth in third-party truth checks, and/or “unverified declare” notifications, to be able to cut back the unfold of doubtless deceptive claims.

For additional context, TikTok additionally reviews that it despatched 6k movies uploaded by EU customers to third-party fact-checkers inside the interval.

That factors to a different challenge with third-party fact-checking, that it’s very tough to scale this method, that means that solely a tiny quantity of content material can really be reviewed.

There’s no definitive proper reply, however the knowledge right here does recommend that there’s no less than some worth to sustaining an neutral third-party fact-checking presence to watch among the most dangerous claims.

There’s a heap extra in TikTok’s full report (once more, over 300 pages), together with a spread of insights into EU-specific initiatives and enforcement packages.