TikTok significant event censorship
Canada
In February 2023, the Canadian government banned TikTok from all government-issued mobile devices.Europe
In February 2023, the European Commission and European Council banned TikTok from official devices.Belgium
In March 2023, Belgium banned TikTok from all federal government work devices over cybersecurity, privacy, and misinformation concerns.Denmark
In March 2023, Denmark's Ministry of Defence banned TikTok on work devices.Censorship and moderation
TikTok's and Douyin's censorship policies have been criticized as non-transparent. Internal guidelines against the promotion of violence, separatism, and "demonization of countries" could be used to prohibit content related to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Falun Gong, Tibet, Taiwan, Chechnya, Northern Ireland, the Cambodian genocide, the May 1998 riots of Indonesia, Kurdish nationalism, ethnic conflicts between blacks and whites, or between different Islamic sects. A more specific list banned criticisms against world leaders, including ones from Russia, the United States, Japan, North and South Korea, India, Indonesia, and Turkey.In 2019, TikTok took down a video about human rights abuses in Xinjiang internment camps against Uyghurs but restored it after 50 minutes as well as the creator's account, saying that the action was a mistake and triggered by a brief "satirical" image of Osama bin Laden in another post. TikTok moderators were instructed to suppress posts from "For You" recommendations if the users shown were deemed "too ugly, poor, or disabled". The consumption of alcohol, full or partial nudity, LGBT and intersex contents were restricted even in places where they are legal. TikTok has since apologised and instituted a ban against anti-LGBTQ ideology, but censorship continues on Douyin due to regulations in China. Douyin guidelines also forbid live broadcasting by unregistered foreigners, "feudal superstition", "money worship", smoking and drinking, competitive eating by the "already obese", "toxic" slime (toy), "pornographic" ASMR such as ear-licking, and female anchors wearing revealing clothes.ByteDance said its early guidelines were global and aimed at reducing online harassment and divisiveness when its platforms were still growing. They have been replaced by versions customised by local teams for users in different regions.A March 2021 study by the Citizen Lab found that TikTok did not censor searches politically but was inconclusive about whether posts are. A 2023 paper by the Internet Governance Project at Georgia Institute of Technology found no pro-China censorship on TikTok.Following increased scrutiny, TikTok said it is granting some outside experts access to the platform's anonymized data sets and protocols, including filters, keywords, criteria for heating, and source code.