In the second quarter of 2024, TikTok took significant action to enhance user safety by removing 11,887,516 violative videos from nine African countries. These countries include Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, Algeria, Somalia, Libya, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Morocco. This initiative is part of TikTok’s broader effort to ensure user safety through stringent content moderation, targeting videos that violate community standards related to integrity, advertising, privacy, and security.
The platform confirmed that it utilized automated technology to remove 80% of the violative videos this quarter, marking a notable increase from 62% in the same period the previous year. Proactive detection reached a record high of 98.2%, and the rate of videos restored after removal was reduced by more than half year-over-year.
Breaking down the numbers, Egypt led with 2,754,574 videos removed, followed by Nigeria with 2,137,687 videos, Algeria with 1,837,202 videos, Somalia with 1,380,154 videos, Libya with 1,149,855 videos, Ethiopia with 702,622 videos, Sudan with 665,456 videos, Morocco with 645,560 videos, and South Africa with 614,406 videos.
According to an earlier report by Innovation Village, in South Africa alone, 143,998 accounts were banned for violating TikTok’s rules. Of these, 137,663 accounts were removed because the account holders were suspected of being under 13 years old.
TikTok has also implemented additional privacy controls over the past few months to align with global regulations aimed at protecting children’s online privacy. This follows a 2021 settlement where TikTok agreed to pay $92 million to resolve a class-action lawsuit alleging the illegal collection of data from teenage users.
Recently, TikTok has faced safety concerns in Africa. In August 2024, Egyptian authorities announced plans to enhance mechanisms for monitoring content on TikTok to ensure adherence to Egyptian values. This decision came amid calls from activists and media professionals in Egypt for a ban on the platform.
In April 2024, Kenya announced plans to require TikTok to publish compliance reports every three months as part of its strategy to address the platform’s negative effects rather than imposing a ban. In response to these challenges, TikTok has taken proactive steps. In March 2024, it partnered with the African Union Commission’s Women, Gender, and Youth Directorate (WGYD) to raise awareness about online safety among African youth and parents.
This campaign aims to educate youth, parents, and educators on staying safe online, with plans to create content tailored to local languages and cultures to ensure broad relevance and impact. In its latest move, TikTok has established an African council of internet and information experts to guide its policies on hate speech and disinformation in the Sub-Saharan Africa region.
