In order to increase user safety, TikTok is upgrading and streamlining its community guidelines and adding AI and anti-misinformation regulations.
The company also clarified its rules regarding age restrictions, civil and electoral integrity. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is scheduled to testify before Congress on March 23 as concerns about security grow. The revised rules will go into effect on April 21.
The revised requirements demand that synthetic or altered content clearly depict real-world scenes. The company advises using labels or captions that say things are “altered,” “false,” “fake,” or “synthetic.”
According to TikTok, while AI fosters creativity, it can also make it difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction, which can be hazardous.
The new rules state, “We do not accept synthetic material that incorporates the likeness of any real private individual.
“While we give public figures more freedom, we do not want them to be mistreated or fall prey to financial or political difficulties.
Read also: TikTok creators can now restrict videos to adult viewers only
If the content is designed to promote products or breaches another rule, we do not permit the use of synthetic media featuring prominent people.
This includes outlawing sexual exploitation, hate speech, and severe kinds of harassment.
Synthetic media, which includes “very realistic” digitally produced content of actual people, like a video of a real person saying altered words, is defined by TikTok as media created or edited using AI technology.
A public figure is a government official, politician, business executive, or celebrity who is at least 18 years old.
TikTok won’t accept fake content that doesn’t explicitly depict real-world scenes. Modified or combined content that misrepresents actual events is not permitted on the app.
In synthetic media, which includes educational material, public figures can be shown. Videos of famous people performing TikTok dances or historical characters from history classes are permitted by the software.
The current TikTok AI policy forbids the use of altered or synthetic material that deceives viewers by misrepresenting facts and seriously harms the subject of the video, other individuals, or society. The new limitations are more stringent.
Due to ChatGPT and DALL-E 2’s success, AI restrictions have been updated.
Because of the hazards of AI, which misinformation professors and experts have warned about, TikTok is altering its policy to include AI guidelines. Julie de Bailliencourt, the head of product policy for TikTok globally, stated during a press event that “the world is changing.” “Our neighbourhood is evolving.’’
In order to meet the expectations of those who use our service, we believe that these rules need to be updated frequently as new trends emerge. A section on climate misinformation has been added to TikTok’s deceptive policy.
With the revised policies, TikTok forbids spreading false information on climate change that challenges established scientific consensus, such as denial of the phenomenon or its causes.
The app permits discussions about climate change policy, technologies, and meteorological phenomena as long as they don’t go against scientific consensus. The new ban was brought about by TikTok search results last year that were replete with false material about climate change.
According to the research, when users searched for “climate change,” the app displayed anti-science results.
Increasing Policy Openness
Justin Erlich, TikTok’s global head of issue policy and partnerships, remarked during the press event that the new community guidelines seem different.
“That’s because we’ve completely overhauled how we organize our rules into different topic areas with clear headings. In the new format, we have a brief section of each rule where we explain what we allow and don’t allow, along with the rationale,” he added.
The corporation has expanded its civil and election integrity and government, politician, and political party account policies.
TikTok’s community guidelines specify that it does not allow election or civic process misinformation. The new restrictions specify that TikTok does not allow misrepresentation concerning civic and electoral processes, including how to vote, registration to vote, candidate eligibility, ballot counting and certification, and election results. The app’s For You stream won’t include unverified electoral predictions.
According to the standards, TikTok treats government and politician accounts the same but enforces material differently. Any significant content violation, such as threatening violence, will prohibit these public interest accounts. Repeated minor content breaches will temporarily disqualify them from the For You feed. They may be temporarily barred from posting.
TikTok has implemented an age limitations section for young users. The app restricts mature content to 18-year-olds, and the guidelines now specify what is restricted.
Significant body exposure by adults, attractive performances, sexualized posturing, allusions to sexual activity, the blood of people and animals, excessive drink and tobacco consumption by adults, activities likely to cause bodily injury, and cosmetic surgery without risk warnings are age-restricted.
Last year, TikTok introduced a “Content Levels” system to block mature content from 13-to-17-year-olds.
The app’s For You stream won’t display content from under-16 accounts, according to the standards. The For You stream will not include moderate body exposure, personal kissing, or sexualized posing by young individuals. The policy allows users to read this content on the app if they follow or visit their profile.
TikTok’s scam regulations now state that multiple accounts are prohibited. By distributing content offences over numerous accounts, circumvention is prohibited. The programme also prohibits using alternate accounts to repeat the banned activity.
During the following three months, the business will train its moderators to implement these new guidelines.
The updated community standards come as the Biden administration continues to prohibit the app in the U.S. The Biden administration has sponsored a bipartisan measure to ban the app and threatened a ban if the firm doesn’t separate with its Chinese ownership.