Talk:TikTok

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Hi everyone. I noticed the article currently has no description of TikTok's Community Guidelines or of the platform's Transparency Center, both of which topics have been covered extensively in RS. I'm proposing new subsections for both these topics, to be added within the "Content and usage" section.

I am also proposing a new paragraph about two of TikTok's content customization features, the "Content Levels" rating system and the ability to selectively mute hashtags.

• Community Guidelines - subsection in "Content and usage" section:

TikTok maintains and enforces Community Guidelines applying to the platform's users and content. The stated purpose of the guidelines is to "establish a set of norms and common code of conduct that provide for a safe and welcoming space for everyone."^[1]

Prior to 2020, the Community Guidelines consisted of a few bullet points relating only to the most extreme content. In January 2020, TikTok expanded its guidelines significantly, adding 10 categories of content subject to removal by moderators, including terrorist propaganda, hate speech, sexual content. The changes to the guidelines placed an emphasis on child safety, newly prohibiting videos depicting minors consuming alcohol, drugs and tobacco. The guidelines also ban "the depiction, trade, or promotion of firearms," except in the contexts of use by law enforcement and use in "a safe and controlled environment such as a shooting range."^[2]

Originally, video content violating the Community Guidelines would be removed from the platform, but the content's creator would not be informed of which policy the content violated.^[2] In October 2020, TikTok announced it would begin telling users which policy they violated that resulted in the deletion of their content.^[3]

In February 2022, TikTok updated the Community Guidelines again, newly banning deadnaming, misgendering, misogyny, promotion of conversion therapy and promotion of disordered eating.^[4]

• Transparency Center - another subsection in "Content and usage" section:

TikTok's Transparency Center is a virtual hub providing public access to the various "transparency reports" it publishes, including reports on Community Guidelines enforcement, government removal requests, intellectual property removal requests, information requests and California privacy rights.^[5][6] In July 2022, TikTok announced that later in 2022 it would provide "selected researchers" with access to the platform's moderation tools at the Transparency Center, allowing them to evaluate the moderation system and conduct experiments with different types of content.^[7]

• New paragraph to be added to end of "Features" section:

In July 2022, TikTok introduced its "Content Levels" rating system, in which human moderators evaluate video content and assign a "maturity score" meant to prevent younger users from viewing age-inappropriate material. TikTok also rolled out a feature allowing users to selectively mute hashtags, so users can avoid being shown videos they do not want to see.^[8]

Thanks, Bkenny44 (talk) 21:57, 3 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

•  Not done: article is too long to be adding trivial content like this. ––FormalDude (talk) 15:50, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @FormalDude: I agree that the article is too long. But the solution should not be to block the inclusion of encyclopedic content that is well within the scope of the article and which has ample coverage in top-tier RS. TikTok's Community Guidelines are a fundamental part of how the platform functions, i.e., what types of content are and are not allowed to appear in videos (covered in strong RS such as Wired, The Verge, NPR and others). The platform's Transparency Center, as the cited article in The Verge makes clear, is especially significant because of the active public discourse surrounding TikTok's moderation policies and how they are implemented. And the "Content Levels" feature is a critical and basic change made to the way younger users interact with the platform, which has been covered in sources like Gizmodo and CNET.

A better way to deal with the length of the article would be to pare down existing parts of the article that are excessively detailed, and merge those details to other, split-off articles where relevant. Some examples:

• The Viral trends section should be cut down significantly and most of its contents split off to a new article on TikTok trends. This idea was raised a few months ago and got some support at Talk:TikTok#New article for TikTok trends? but does not appear to have been implemented since then. (Pinging the editors who took part in that discussion: Phreshwater, FishandChipper, Spiderwinebottle, ASpacemanFalls)
• The Bans and attempted bans section should be summarized at a high level, and most of the content should be split off into the existing articles Censorship of TikTok and Donald Trump-TikTok controversy.
• The Controversies section is by far the longest section in the article, which strikes me as inappropriate for any article, no matter how extensive the news coverage generated by the controversies. I hope that an unbiased editor will take the time to review this section and trim any excessive and WP:UNDUE subsections.

Thanks, Bkenny44 (talk) 20:23, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(Note: @Bkenny44 asked me to take a look at this discussion.) I think we should definitely be covering the content standards in the article. However, the proposed text is one-sided in that it includes only what guidelines TikTok publishes and leaves out discussion of how they're enforced (or not enforced, or parleyed into censorship) in practice, something that has been the subject of substantial media coverage (see e.g. [1]).

The transparency center is probably worth a sentence, but again will need some independent research to avoid COI bias. I'd support one sentence summarizing what reliable sources say about the degree to which TikTok has or has not been transparent about sharing its data with researchers. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:34, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Sdkb: Thanks for responding. I think the balance you're looking for can already be found in other parts of the article. I would point in particular to the Content censorship and moderation by the platform section, but examples can be found elsewhere as well: paragraph 7 in Viral trends; paragraph 2 in Bangladesh; paragraphs 3-4 in Content concerns; paragraph 1 in Misinformation; ISIL propaganda; and paragraph 2 in Cyberbullying. In any article, some parts will naturally reflect more positively on the subject and some parts will reflect more negatively. Alternatively, perhaps some of the elements found in these critical sections could be summarized and appended to the proposed Community Guidelines subsection.

Similarly regarding the transparency center, the article already contains a balancing line about transparency, at the start of the "Content censorship" section: "TikTok's censorship policy has been criticized as non-transparent." The line is sourced to a different Verge article published a year before the Verge article about the Transparency Center - both are independent sources. I don't believe there has been any follow-up news coverage about the access intended to be granted to researchers, as it has only been three months since this was announced. Maybe some version of that critical sentence should be integrated into the proposed content about the transparency center. I hope that makes sense. Bkenny44 (talk) 12:57, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think both the CG and TC should be covered in this article, and I agree with the second and third suggestions for moving content out of this article into other ones (I don't agree with the first, a suggestion to create yet another spin-off article). Just dealing with those two would make plenty of room. I agree with Sdkb that balancing content that is not from TikTok's perspective is required. Bkenny44 is correct that some of this can come from moving content already in the article to the new subsections. Alternatively, the TC might not need a subsection and might be better discussed where this balancing material already is, under "Content censorship". But Sdkb's additional source should also be used, and probably more. Also, the CG material drafted above can be considerably compressed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:13, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like the discussion died off, which is a shame. I would still support the removal of the viral trends subsection and spinning it off into another article. Perhaps not one entirely dedicated to TikTok trends but one that encompasses a few social platforms? Though finding RS for many of them might prove difficult, so it's a tentative support, at this point.

For Controversies, the section has grown too long indeed and I think, in particular, the user data and privacy subsection deserves its own page. But some of the content in the section feels superficial and could, at least, be condensed to not have as many dividers, making it seem like sections such as Microtransactions have substantial information whereas it is actually a sentence long and doesn't provide much information beyond the criticism existing (not even where it originated.)

For the Bans section, most of its content can be slotted into other articles that are more focused on the subject. As it is, too much space in an article devoted to TikTok (in general) is devoted to the lengthy and, let's be honest, not very fruitful process of trying to get it banned in the US. Unless it does come to pass, we can simply trim it and keep the ongoing attempts in their own article. ASpacemanFalls (talk) 16:01, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Gah, was so engrossed in writing out the move discussion points, that I forgot to address the initial question. I believe mentioning the Transparency Center is a good idea, provided that it comes with neutral wording. Community Guidelines may be a stretch as it's something you can find on any platform and doesn't really merit a deep look, in my view. Are TikTok's Guidelines remarkable for any particular reason? Things like banning the promotion of firearms and hateful content aren't something worth mentioning unless there are prominent examples of those guidelines being enacted in a meaningful way. ASpacemanFalls (talk) 16:06, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@ASpacemanFalls: Thanks for reviving this discussion! To address the last point, TikTok's community guidelines have generated a good deal of news coverage, in part because the platform has been heavily scrutinized over the years for its approach to content moderation (see this Wired source for one example).

Zooming out a bit, it seems that most of us here agree on the broad strokes of what is needed here. With respect to the content I proposed at the top of this thread, most agree that some material should be added, though not necessarily in the exact language that I suggested. And both ASpacemanFalls and SMcCandlish agree generally on moving content out of this article and into other articles, though SMcCandlish did not agree on doing so for the Viral trends section. ASpacemanFalls, would you be willing to make a WP:BOLD attempt at implementing the agreed-upon parts of this discussion? I'm not doing so directly due to my COI, and as you said, it would be a shame for this discussion to die off without yielding any progress in the article. Thanks, Bkenny44 (talk) 19:56, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I can certainly take a stab at it and I think the community would help round it down (or up) to the proper state that would be agreeable with everyone. I'll give it a go soon. ASpacemanFalls (talk) 21:52, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The one source used to back this claim does not support this claim at all. The WaPo article is about Facebook buying negative PR for TikTok (concerning supposed dangerous trends starting on TikTok). Right-wing US politics aren't even mentioned, neither are accusations of spying for the PRC government, and especially the end goal of stoking anti-Chinese racism, is not in the text. This is currently grossly misleading, I would suggest deleting the two sentences. C9po (talk) 07:18, 16 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's even less consistent with the current Wikipedia article. According to the newly linked article, doubts about TikTok data security are a bipartisan stance in the US, that contradicts the Wiki article. Also, this article does not proof that those claims are conspiracy theories and untrue, it just says, that many US politicians say, that there is a problem, and that TikTok denies that. C9po (talk) 08:19, 16 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Apart from the source not supporting what is currently in the article, I doubt, that Facebook's smear campaign is such a relevant controversy, that it should be featured in the lead sentence. Calling doubts about data security a conspiracy theory and alleging racist intentions without a source backing that claim, is clearly against the guidelines and values of Wikipedia (WP is not a source of original information: Info on WP needs sources. Claiming, that something is backed by a credible source, although the source doesn't, is generally bad, not just on WP) C9po (talk) 08:32, 16 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This source does not say what is in the wiki article now, either. Currently, the article reads, that accusations of TikTok cooperating with the chinese regime are wrong. The source does not give proof for that. I would not keep this section in the lead paragraph, the controversies section gives a much more nuanced and better sourced overview of the topic. Just stating, that those accusations are wrong, although it is nearly impossible to prove or disprove them, in the lead paragraph, without having a proper source, is not good.

Also, the current wording is misleading, as the end goal of Facebook/Meta's campaign was not stoking racism (although they certainly were okay with that also happening), but instead they tried to profit off this sentiment. I would just cut this part completely from the lead paragraph, as it is too insignificant for that.

For such an important controversy, Wikipedia giving a completely wrong impression without proper sources in their lead sentence, is scandalous. C9po (talk) 15:29, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I looked at your concerns just now, and have removed the references to Meta and China from the lead paragraph. Although Taylor Lorenz specifically stated that Meta was helping that Republican consulting film stoke anti-China sentiment during an interview with MSNBC last year, you were right at the fact that it wasn't nuanced. Ahd it would definitely give the China hawks more ammunition to accuse Wikipedia of leftism. WakeFan1991 (talk) 13:22, 22 January 2023 (UTC)^[1][reply]

To clarify, @Riverbend21:, the reason I removed that criticism section is because, according to WP:RS/P:

There is consensus that Reason is generally reliable for news and facts. Editors consider Reason to be a biased or opinionated source that primarily publishes commentary, analysis, and opinion articles. Statements of opinion should be attributed and evaluated for due weight.

While it can be used for facts, using it for opinion pieces and criticism is a more debatable inclusion, as I said in the edit summary. I'd hardly say criticism comparing a ban of TikTok to the policies of the Chinese Communist Party is non-biased. ASpacemanFalls (talk) 16:35, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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Saying "Tiktok, also known as Douyin抖音" is innaproatiate as it infers that one can use the names tiktok and douyin interchangeably, which is not the reality. when people in China or anywhere say 抖音 they mean 抖音, not TikTok; they're separate apps. I believe it should be described as either a version or a completely separate thing. 120.21.231.119 (talk) 01:16, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template. Lightoil (talk) 03:25, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like there is currently no mention of Project Texas anywhere in the article about TikTok, nor could I find mention of it elsewhere on Wikipedia. Here are a few sources:

• TikTok Parent ByteDance Planned To Use TikTok To Monitor The Physical Location Of Specific American Citizens — Forbes
• TikTok’s New Defense in Washington: Going on the Offense — The New York Times
• Inside Project Texas, TikTok’s Big Answer To US Lawmakers’ China Fears — BuzzFeed News
• TikTok tries to sell 'Project Texas' as it fights for survival in the U.S. — NBC News
• Project Texas: The Details of TikTok's Plan to Remain Operational in the United States — Lawfare
• Is Project Texas enough to save TikTok? — NPR
• TikTok CEO Says 'Project Texas' to Allay US Security Concern — Bloomberg

Pretty major story, should probably be included in the article. Cheers! 98.155.8.5 (talk) 18:30, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also no mention of Project Clover in the TikTok article. Here are some sources:

• TikTok unveils new European data security regime — Reuters
• TikTok launches Project Clover to allay China security fears — BBC
• TikTok unveils new European data security regime — NBC News
• TikTok Rolls Out 'Project Clover' to Assure Europeans on Data — The Wall Street Journal
• TikTok launches 'Project Clover' charm offensive to fend off European bans — Politico
• With Project Clover, TikTok touts new EU data privacy and security efforts — TechCrunch
• Project Clover is TikTok's effort to get ahead of EU privacy and security concerns — Engadget

A similar data localization plan being put in place, this time in Europe. Whereas Project Texas is related to the North American market. Both the Clover & Texas projects should be included in the article, in my opinion. Cheers! 98.155.8.5 (talk) 03:26, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]