TikTok has shared its newest EU content material enforcement and utilization numbers, as a part of its DSA disclosure reporting, which gives some fascinating notes on moderation, person progress, and extra inside the area
The most recent report covers the interval between July and December 2024, and is the platform’s fourth DSA report. Beneath the EU Digital Companies Act, massive on-line platforms must share common knowledge on their efficiency in these key areas.
And whereas a variety of the information is according to earlier tendencies, there are some factors of observe.
First off, TikTok experiences that it eliminated nearly 21.2 million items of content material within the interval for Group Tips violations, together with an extra 1.5 million for violations of its advert insurance policies.
The Group Tips violations are according to the platform’s earlier DSA experiences, however its advert removals have jumped considerably since its final replace (3.4x total).
Why?
TikTok noticed a 4x improve in removals resulting from “Deceptive and False Content material” within the interval, and an analogous improve in removals for “Grownup and Sexual Content material”.
There was additionally a 6x improve in removals for “IP Infringement”, so clearly, TikTok’s push into in-stream buying has seen it up its enforcement on this entrance.
However the greatest improve of all of them? A 19x bounce in removals inside the “Politics and Faith and Tradition” class.
Contemplating the assorted main elections inside the interval, that’s not an enormous shock, however it’s fascinating to see how some politically-motivated teams seemingly sought to make use of TikTok to broaden their messaging. Possibly that labored to some extent, however the removing numbers present that TikTok’s checking processes additionally caught out a variety of deceptive adverts as nicely.
That would additionally level to extra censorship of “tradition” primarily based exercise, however there’s no particular breakdown of the removals within the report.
When it comes to content material moderation, TikTok experiences having 5,807 individuals devoted to content material moderation of content material within the EU as of the top of December 2024.
Which is a decline from its earlier experiences.
In its final replace, printed in October final yr, TikTok reported having 6,354 EU moderators, so it’s seemingly decreased that by 547 workers over the past six months.
That’s unlikely to make EU regulators too joyful, although TikTok did publish a slight improve carefully workers final report (+67).
Possibly, then, that is only a correction in staffing, although it’s a big correction if that’s the case, which extra doubtless signifies that it’s placing extra reliance on its AI programs to detect and spotlight potential points.
Certainly, TikTok additionally notes that:
“Within the second half of 2024, the accuracy price for our automated moderation applied sciences was 99.1%. This builds upon the excessive accuracy we achieved within the first half of the yr, whilst moderation volumes elevated, reflecting our continued funding in bettering precision and decreasing incorrect removals.”
As such, plainly TikTok is decreasing its reliance on human moderators over time, which is one other component to look at.
Lastly, when it comes to customers, TikTok experiences having 159.1 million month-to-month lively customers in Europe within the interval.
That’s a rise of round 9 million on its final report, which exhibits that TikTok is steadily rising within the area, and constructing its broader affect.
Which is nice information, as its future within the U.S. nonetheless hangs within the steadiness. The corporate can be seeking to improve its push on TikTok buying inside Europe to capitalize on its reputation.
Germany, France, Italy and Spain stay TikTok’s key EU nations, now with over 20 million customers every.
For context, the U.S. at present has round 170 million TikTok customers.
These are some fascinating notes, which level to TikTok’s growing efforts to stamp out sure components, significantly referring to IP violations and deceptive merchandise.
As a result of these might erode confidence in its in-app gross sales instruments, and as such, TikTok wants to make sure that its programs are detecting such, whereas it’ll even be fascinating to see how its removals associated to faith and politics shift, or not, over time.
You possibly can try TikTok’s newest DSA report right here.
