ISLAMABAD: More than six million videos were removed from TikTok in Pakistan in three months, the Chinese-owned app said on Wednesday.

The global platform for sharing short video clips released on Wednesday its quarterly transparency report, which showed Pakistan was the second-largest market where clips were removed for violating the company’s community guidelines and terms of service and promoting Covid-19 misinformation.

Popular among Pakistani youths, TikTok has been shut down by authorities twice over “indecent” content, most recently in March after which the company pledged to moderate uploads.

According to TikTok’s report, during the three-month period from January to March 2021, 61.95 million videos were removed globally, which is less than 1 per cent of all videos uploaded on TikTok.

Only the US had more videos removed from the platform

Of those videos, TikTok identified and removed 91.3pc before a user reported them, 81.8pc before they received any views, and 93.1pc within 24 hours of being posted.

In the Pakistani market, the app removed 6.49m videos, making it the market to have most videos removed after the US, where 8.54m videos were removed during the period under review. Around 15pc of the removed videos involved “adult nudity and sexual activities”. A spokesman said the Pakistan-made videos were banned as a result of both user and government requests.

Being a responsible platform, TikTok continues to work with public health experts to help the community stay safe and properly informed on Covid-19 and vaccines, said the report.

In the first quarter of 2021, TikTok’s Covid-19 information hub was viewed 1.53 billion times globally. Banners directing people to the hub were added to 1m videos and were viewed 11.84bn times.

Jamin Tan, TikTok’s head of Asia Pacific Region for product policy, trust and safety, said the platform provided access to correct information and removed 30,624 videos in the first three months of 2021 for promoting Covid-19 misinformation.

“Of those videos, 79.6pc were removed before they were reported to us, 88.4pc were removed within 24 hours of being uploaded to TikTok, and 61.2pc had zero views,” Mr Tan said. He said his platform continues to rely on technology to detect and automatically remove questionable content. It also offers creators the ability to appeal a video clip’s removal.

“After receiving an appeal, TikTok reviews the video a second time and reinstates it if it had been mistakenly removed,” Mr Tan said. He said that in the last quarter 2.83m videos were reinstated after appeals.

Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2021