Video sharing app Tik Tok builds teams to monitor local content

An app going viral in India is putting in place stringent measures to curb inappropriate content as policymakers tighten their noose on social media platforms.
 
Tik Tok, a video sharing app, is hiring content moderators in different languages to supplement artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms in weeding out objectionable posts.
 
The app, owned by Chinese internet major ByteDance, is working with the government on various concerns raised around content and safety of the users. A member of the legislative assembly in Tamil Nadu had recently said Tik Tok was allowing sharing of sexually-explicit and other objectionable content.
 
In India, the app is mostly used by those in the age group of 14-20 years. The current age of signing onto Tik Tok, as well as on platforms like Facebook, is 13 years.
 
“We have put in place robust measures to protect our users,” said Belle Baldoza, director at ByteDance, which is based out of Singapore. Other than Tik Tok, ByteDance also owns Helo, an Instagram-like platform.
 
“We have a moderation team in place, based in India. The team is growing and currently covers 15 Indian languages. We want our algorithms to go hand in hand with the human moderation process, and make sure we take into account local cultural nuances when we flag objectionable content,” said Baldoza.
 

Social media firms are under the scanner as the government has asked them to better regulate content. In the past, fake news on instant messaging platform WhatsApp had led to violence in some parts of the country. This was followed by a meeting between the ministry of electronics and IT and WhatsApp Chief Executive Chris Daniels in August last year. The government has also asked Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to appear before a parliamentary panel.
 
Belle said ByteDance’s government relations team, which represents Tik Tok, Helo and Vigo Video, was working with local authorities and apprising them about the steps they are taking.
 
The firm is also recruiting a chief nodal officer to better co-ordinate with the government and law-enforcement agencies that are looking into content violation cases. “We are respectful of local laws and regulations and we’ll take that into account in all our decision-making,” said Belle.
 
Within two years of launch, Tik Tok has taken its place beside Facebook, and Indian social media platforms like ShareChat, among Indian users. With 25-30 million daily active users, Tik Tok is said to be popular with users in non-metro areas.
 
According to SimilarWeb, an intelligence platform, Tik Tok ranks twelfth among the list of most popular apps in India, based on current installs and active users, ahead of Facebook Messenger and even Gmail.
 
“A big reason behind Tik Tok’s hockey curve growth is its powerful AI (artificial intelligence). ByteDance’s recommendation engine, which tells users what to watch next, is considered as the best in the world. It is hooking users on to the app,” said an executive in a social media firm.
 
The app was launched in India in the later part of 2017 along with Helo. Tik Tok, which operates under the name Douyin in China, is an amalgamation of ByteDance’s own product and Musical.ly, the first such app to popularise bite-size videos. In 2017, ByteDance acquired Musical.ly for an estimated $1 billion and merged it with Tik Tok. Today, Tik Tok has over 500 million monthly active users around the world.