TikTok announces tools for handling inappropriate comments
TikTok has published a popup designed to warn users before they post comments that may be inappropriate or inappropriate.
The platform said:
At TikTok, we work constantly to maintain a supportive environment that enables our community to focus on what matters to them: creativity, community creation, and having fun, and part of that fun is interacting with content, sharing ideas and communicating through comments.
She added:
Our goal is to foster a positive environment where people support each other, and to help reinforce this in our community, we're introducing two new features today: one that gives creators more control over comments via videos, and a second, calls for people to reconsider posting inappropriate comments.
More power to control comments:
Content creators go to great lengths to create the content millions of people love, TikTok provides more control over the content, and content creators can use the new feature to filter all comments to determine which comments appear across videos.
When this feature is enabled, comments are not displayed unless approved by the video maker using the new comment management tool.
This feature builds on TikTok's current set of comment controls that allow people to filter spam, offensive comments, and specific keywords.
Think before you comment:
In addition to empowering creators with more tools, the platform also wants to encourage its community to treat everyone with kindness and respect.
A new warning now asks people to reconsider posting a comment that may be inappropriate or offensive, and users are being reminded of community guidelines and allowed to edit comments before sharing.
The warning says:
Would you like to reconsider posting this? You can edit it or post anyway.
As part of the new announcement, TikTok also announced its partnership with the Cyberbullying Research Center, as it works on more anti-bullying initiatives.
The mission of the Cyberbullying Research Center is to develop sound research on cyberbullying and related forms of abuse, and the platform works with the center to enhance its knowledge of bullying inside and outside TikTok, collaborating in ways to better support community members, and develop others.
The Cyberbullying Research Center said:
The Cyberbullying Research Center is delighted to work with TikTok in the coming months on anti-bullying initiatives, the new TikTok features are positive steps to foster kindness, and we are keen to collaborate in other ways to protect against bullying and harassment.
Such claims from other social networks were explored to reduce bullying and harassment, as Instagram made similar claims in 2019, and Twitter announced that it was testing them last year, and they were also monitored via Facebook.
Instagram later reported that the claim filing results were promising and found that these types of alerts can encourage people to reconsider words when given the opportunity.