ISLAMABAD: TikTok, the global platform for creating and sharing short videos, today released its quarterly transparency report which indicated Pakistan as the second largest market to have videos removed that violated TikTok's Community Guidelines, Terms of Service and those promoting COVID-19 misinformation.

During the three-month period from January till March 2021, 61,951,327 videos were removed globally, which is less than 1% of all videos uploaded on TikTok. Of those videos, TikTok identified and removed 91.3% before a user reported them, 81.8% before they received any views, and 93.1% within 24 hours of being posted.

In the Pakistani market, TikTok removed 6,495,992 videos making it the second market to get most videos removed after the USA where 8,540,088 videos were removed during this period.

Being a responsible platform, TikTok continues to work with public health experts to help the community stay safe and informed on COVID-19 and vaccines. In the first quarter of 2021, TikTok's COVID-19 information hub was viewed 1,535,114,921 times globally.

Banners directing people to the hub were added to 1,002,100 videos and were viewed 11,846,566,486 times.

"We also continued to add public service announcements (PSAs) to relevant COVID-19 and vaccine hashtags that direct users to the WHO and local public health resources, and these PSAs were viewed 19,660,517,152 times. As we provided access to information, we removed 30,624 videos in the first three months of 2021 for promoting COVID-19 misinformation. Of those videos, 79.6% were removed before they were reported to us, 88.4% were removed within 24 hours of being uploaded to TikTok, and 61.2% had zero views," said Jamin Tan - Head, APAC Regional Product Policy, Trust and Safety, TikTok.

TikTok continues to rely on technology to detect and automatically remove violating content. It also offers creators the ability to appeal their video's removal. After receiving an appeal, TikTok reviews the video a second time and reinstates it if it had been mistakenly removed.

"Last quarter, we reinstated 2,833,837 videos after they were appealed. We aim to be consistent and equitable in our moderation and will continue our work to reduce false positives and provide ongoing education and training to our moderation team," added Jamin.