TikTok published a report regarding its moderation policy, a requirement imposed by the new European legislation on digital services (DSA).
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TikTok announced it removed four million videos deemed illegal or harmful in the European Union in September, according to a report published on Wednesday.
The platform, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, claims to have a workforce of more than 5,000 people dedicated to content moderation in the EU alone, out of the 40,000 people responsible for protecting its users worldwide.
“The majority of actions taken by TikTok against illegal or harmful content are taken proactively” because they violate the social network’s rules, the group said in a report on its moderation activities in the EU.
It added that these removals are far more frequent than removals related to user reports.
In the interest of increased transparency, the publication of such reports every six months is a requirement imposed by the new European Digital Services Act (DSA) that came into force at the end of August and affects 19 very large tech platforms, including TikTok.
The European Commission has also launched investigations in the past two weeks targeting X (formerly Twitter), Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and TikTok.
It sought clarification on measures being implemented against the spread of “false information” and “illegal content” following Hamas attacks on Israel.
The social network states that it has introduced a tool that allows its European user community to report illegal content, in line with DSA obligations.
TikTok received 35,000 reports related to 24,000 videos in the first month. Action was taken against 16 percent of them considering it illegal or in violation of internal rules.
The group said the average time between reporting and action was 13 hours, highlighting the challenging legal analysis to be fair and consistent while considering freedom of expression.
People involved in content moderation also rely on automated tools, a third of which operate in English.
The service also employs approximately 860 German speakers and more than 650 French speakers.
The team includes speakers of the 24 official languages of the EU, as well as individuals able to monitor posts in Turkish and Arabic, two frequently used languages.
