TikTok has stated it “immediately” took action to combat false information after the EU forwarded a warning to the platform following the Hamas attack on Israel.
On Friday, the EU urged TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew to “urgently step up” his efforts and “spell out” within 24 hours how the company was abiding by European law.
Social media companies have noticed an increase in fake news regarding violence, including edited photographs and mislabeled videos.
According to TikTok, “violent content and accounts” have been deleted.
“We immediately mobilised significant resources and personnel to help maintain the safety of our community and integrity of our platform,” TikTok said in a statement on Sunday.
The Chinese company ByteDance, which owns TikTok, stated the steps it claimed to have done on its website to prevent false information and offensive content.
It claimed to have established a command centre, improved its automated detection programmes to weed out violent and graphic material, and increased the number of moderators who speak Arabic and Hebrew.
In August 2023, the EU passed new legislation governing the types of content that are permitted online.
According to the Digital Services Act, “very large” internet platforms—those with more than 45 million EU users—must proactively remove “illegal content” and demonstrate that they have done so upon request.
