TikTok to place warning screens on videos that contain disturbing content

Chinese short video-making app TikTok will now place warning screens on graphic videos to prevent the users from viewing disturbing content.

Part of its new community guidelines, the warning screen will give two options -- either view the clip or skip it entirely.

More extreme content is already being removed from the platform entirely but the new warning labels cover content that might be allowed for "documentary reasons," scenes from horror movies, or violent scenes of animals hunting. TikTok also announced a new text-to-voice accessibility tool that would read out text as it appears in a video.

The company informed that it is adding vaccine information to its coronavirus resource hub.

"The hub will be updated to include commonly asked questions and answers about COVID-19 vaccines from public health experts like the Centers for Disease Control.

According to the company, the coronavirus resource hub has been viewed over two billion times in the last six months.

TikTok is also planning to allow its users longer, three-minute videos in an apparent bid to take on YouTube.

TikTok currently allows creators to upload videos up to a minute in length.

--IANS

na/