TikTok says removed 30 million videos in Pakistan for violating its guidelines

This photograph taken on April 11, 2024, in Paris, shows the logo of the Chinese social network application TikTok Lite displayed in Apple's App Store. (AFP/File)

• The video-sharing platform made the disclosure in its report for second quarter of this year
• Key findings show 99.5 percent of videos were proactively removed before users reported them

ISLAMABAD: Video-sharing platform TikTok has taken down around 30 million videos in Pakistan for violating its community guidelines, the company said on Tuesday, underscoring its resolve to effectively combat violations.

TikTok, a social media app that allows users to create and share short-form videos, disclosed in its report for the second quarter of the year the platform had become extremely popular among younger generations, with over a billion active users worldwide.

The Q2 2024 Community Guidelines Enforcement Report detailed TikTok’s approach to content moderation in Pakistan, ensuring transparency into content generation in the South Asian country.

“The report reveals that over 30,709,744 videos were removed from TikTok in Pakistan in the latest reporting period as the platform continues to strengthen its content moderation systems to safeguard its diverse community,” TikTok said on Tuesday.

“Key findings show that 99.5 percent of these videos were proactively removed before users reported them, with 97 percent taken down within 24 hours.”

This highlighted TikTok’s commitment to ensure a “safer platform” for Pakistani users by removing harmful content before receiving any complaints, it said, adding that a total of 178, 827,465 videos were removed this year.

The platform continued to prioritize and enhance automated moderation technology which helped remove 144,430,133 videos and underscored the TikTok’s “innovative use of its detection technology to eliminate harmful content in real-time,” according to the report.

“With a proactive detection rate now at 98.2 percent, TikTok is more efficient than ever at addressing harmful content before users encounter it,” the platform said.

“The report also highlights a 50 percent reduction in the number of restored videos, reinforcing the accuracy and effectiveness of TikTok’s content moderation systems.”

This is not the first time that TikTok has removed videos from Pakistan. It took down approximately 20 million videos in Pakistan for violating community guidelines in the first quarter of this year.

In the past, Pakistani authorities have banned the video-sharing service several times, with the first ban instituted in October 2020 over what was described as widespread complaints about allegedly “immoral, obscene, and vulgar” content on the app.

The service has been prohibited from operating in the country thrice for more than 15 months since then. In November 2021, a Pakistani court finally reversed the ban after TikTok assured the government it would control the spread of objectionable content.