TikTok removed over 37 million videos from India in H1 2020

TikTok revealed the latest data in its global transparency report for the first half of 2020. Overall, 104,543,719 videos were removed globally.

TikTok global transparency report. (REUTERS)

Tiktok has published its global transparency report for the first half of 2020. The transparency report comes amid TikTok's newly announced deal with Oracle and Walmart for the app to continue functioning in the US. TikTok in its report shares data on the content removed from its platform.

TikTok said it witnessed more content being created than ever before this year. But this also meant more content removals which grew more than the last report. In total, 104,543,719 videos were removed globally by TikTok. These videos are said to have violated TikTok's community guidelines or terms of service. The number may seem huge but interestingly this is less than 1% of all the videos that have been uploaded on TikTok. Also, out of these 37,682,924 video removals were from India. Tiktok also said 96.46% of these videos were removed before they were reported, and 90.32% were removed before any views.

In addition to video removals, TikTok also received an increased number of legal requests this year. There were 1,768 requests for user information made from 42 countries. TikTok did not specify which countries sent the most number of user information requests. Out of these, 121 requests were made from government agencies to either restrict or remove content from 15 countries. TikTok also pointed out that it evaluated 10,625 copyrighted content take-down notices globally.

TikTok in its report also listed out the tools it introduced in India to counter misinformation. The video sharing app was however banned by the government citing security reasons. TikTok was facing a potential ban in the US as well but it managed to strike a deal with Oracle and Walmart. This deal is yet to be finalised.