Today, TikTok announced its refreshed Community Guidelines with additional details about what’s allowed on TikTok. The Community Guidelines support the authentic and entertaining TikTok experience that people know and enjoy. They define a common code of conduct and encourage a welcoming community environment. 

Promoting inclusive policies

At TikTok, safety isn’t a nice-to-have or an afterthought; it’s central to the work, and all teams strive to be inclusive and thoughtful when developing policies. The guidelines apply to everyone and all content on TikTok and broadly cover 10 categories of content. This update adds more specifics to each area based on behavior observed , feedback heard from the community, and input from academics, civil society, and  organizations. 

While much of this content was covered by the previous guidelines, here are some of the key areas that were strengthened to better support the well-being of the TikTok community.

  • TikTok wants its community to feel comfortable and confident expressing themselves exactly as they are. This is why the updated guidelines incorporate feedback and language used by mental health experts to improve policies on self-harm and suicide content and avoid normalizing self-injury behaviors. The policy on eating disorder content has additional nuance to prohibit normalizing or glorifying dangerous weight loss behaviors.
  • TikTok also recognizes the burden victims of abuse often face in managing their online presence, where TikTok has bolstered policies on bullying and harassment. Now, the guidelines are more explicit about the types of content and behaviors that aren’t welcome on TikTok, including doxxing, cyberstalking, and a more extensive policy against sexual harassment.
  • The safety of everyone in the community is of utmost importance, especially the well-being of youth. In line with the existing dangerous acts policy, TikTok works to either limit, label, or remove content that depicts dangerous acts or challenges. Now, TikTok has added a harmful activities section to the minor safety policy to reiterate that content promoting dangerous dares, games, and other acts that may jeopardize the safety of youth is not allowed on TikTok. The platform encourages people to be creative and have fun, but not at the expense of an individual’s safety, or the safety of others.
  • TikTok stands firmly against violence, both online and off. The platform updated the previous dangerous individuals and organizations policy to focus more holistically on the issue of violent extremism. TikTok’s guidelines now describe in greater details what’s considered a threat or incitement to violence and the content and behavior they prohibit. 

As the platform develops inclusive policies, TikTok continuously works to make the platform more accessible for everyone. They recently announced new tools to support people with photosensitive epilepsy, and we’re starting to roll out a text-to-speech feature that allows people to convert typed text to voice that plays over text as it appears in a video. 

New resources to support well-being

As we navigate challenging subjects like self-harm and eating disorders, compassion for survivors is front of mind. Over the coming week, TikTok will be rolling out t updated resources to support people who may be struggling. These resources were created with guidance from leading behavioral psychologists and suicide prevention experts, including Providence, Samaritans of Singapore, Live for Tomorrow, and members of our US Content Advisory Council. Now, if someone searches for terms like “selfharm” or “hatemyself” they’ll see evidence-based actions they can take. 

TikTok is also introducing opt-in viewing screens on top of videos that some may find graphic or distressing. These types of videos are already ineligible for recommendation into anyone’s For You feed, and this feature aims to further reduce unexpected viewing of such content by offering viewers the choice to skip the video or watch it.

In addition, the platforms will continue to develop tools to help people manage their TikTok experience, from automatically filtering unwanted comments to the ability to say “not interested” on videos in their For You feed. This is especially important in our efforts to support people who want to share their story and use their voice to raise awareness on topics others may find triggering. 

Since the start of the pandemic, TikTok has provided access to information from health experts in app and relief for frontline workers and families. The community also came together through memorable challenges – like #wipeitdown and #happyathome – that connect us and bring joy during difficult times. As COVID-19 vaccines are developed and approved, TikTok continuing its efforts to make authoritative information readily available as they work simultaneously to remove misinformation about vaccines and the coronavirus.

Over the coming week the platform will update the in-app coronavirus resource hub  with commonly asked questions and answers about COVID-19 vaccines from the World Health Organization (WHO), which is available from the Discover page, search results, and banners on COVID-19 and vaccine-related videos and has been viewed over 2 billion times globally over the last six months. TikTok is also partnering with Team Halo so that scientists all over the world can share the progress being made on the vaccine through video updates.

Educating our community

TikTok works to educate and empower its community on policies through in-app videos, notifications, and safety tools. This month when a user opens up TikTok, they’ll be prompted to review these refreshed guidelines.

Keeping its community safe is a commitment with no finish line. TikTok recognizes the responsibility it has to its community to be nimble in the detection and response when new kinds of content and behaviors emerge. To that end, the platform will keep advancing its policies, developing technology to automatically detect violative content, building features that help people manage their TikTok presence and content choices, and empowering our community to help us foster a trustworthy environment. Ultimately, we hope these updates enable people to have a positive and meaningful TikTok experience.