The TikTok platform announced it had taken down 500.000 videos and shut down 8.000 live broadcasts about the Israel-Hamas war, days after the EU reminded it of its duty to fight illegal content.
"Since October 7, we have taken down more than 500.000 videos and shut down 8.000 live streams in the given area, for violating our regulations," TikTok said on its blog, adding that it had strengthened its content control teams.
Brussels on Thursday warned the Chinese social network, popular among young people, of its obligation to fight against "illegal content" and "false information" in the application of the EU's new regulation on digital services (DSA).
"You have a particular obligation to protect (users) from violent content ... which appears to be circulating in large numbers on your platform without specific security controls," European Commissioner for Digital Platforms Thierry Bretnon wrote in a letter to TikTok chief Shu Zi Chu.
The European Commissioner issued similar warnings to platforms Meta, X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube, at a time when the platforms were flooded with violent content and disinformation about Israel's war with Palestinian Hamas.
"We immediately mobilized scientific resources" to implement "our anti-violence policies, including bringing together key members of our global team and 40.000 security professionals," TikTok said.
They also say they have improved the system for "proactive automated detection" of such content in real time and increased the number of Arabic and Hebrew speaking controllers.
To combat fake content, TikTok reminds that it works with data verification organizations, including France Press, in more than 50 languages, including Arabic and Hebrew.
TikTok has also restricted live broadcasts and some "hashtags".
Several social networks have already responded to the European Commission's requests, including Meta and X.
Platform X stated that it had withdrawn or flagged tens of thousands of messages, but Brussels, evaluating that response as insufficient, opened a deeper investigation against Elon Musk's network, Thierry Breton said today.
Monitoring company "Visibrain" counted 166 million messages about the war across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Tiktok since October 7. That is 47 percent more than for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which was one of the world's most commented events.
Bonus video:
