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Chris Stokel-Walker Profile picture
@stokel
Sep 22, 2020 • 36 tweets • 11 min read • Read on X
Big day for TikTok as it releases its H1 2020 transparency report and its head of public policy in Europe, @theobertram, appears in front of @CommonsDCMS. Will be doing a thread through the day, but first off, the transparency report: there's been a 2x increase in video removals Image
From just shy of 49 million videos taken down in H2 2019, TikTok took down 104.5 million in H1 2020. Proportions of the types of videos taken down stayed broadly the same with the December 2019 numbers they reported
TikTok says the number of videos, though they doubled in absolute number, remained at "less than 1% of all videos on TikTok". We know thanks to my reporting here that at least 5 million videos are uploaded every hour businessinsider.com/leaked-tiktok-…
So we can assume that while the data TikTok releases indciates the app at least doubled in size in the first six months of 2020, it's actually far greater growth than that. Here's the countries with the highest number of video removals. Surprise, surprise, India tops the list Image
(That's not surprising because India, before it banned TikTok and a bunch of other Chinese-owned apps, accounted for roughly a quarter of TikTok users worldwide.) What it shows is India was more censorious than most, which is supported by the number of legal takedown requests too Image
Things that are potentially concerning: TikTok had a lot of takedown requests under local laws in Russia. @ASPI_org highlighted cultural censorship of LGBTQ content bleeding out beyond a country's borders as an issue as I reported on here newscientist.com/article/225412… Image
Also of interest for those wondering about TikTok's place as a major platform in the future: copyright takedown requests increased nearly 10x on the previous six months. That might give more sense of the scale of platform growth
As I pointed out when the H2 2019 stats came out, TikTok manages to be quite proactive in removing a lot of content before it's seen by anyone, and that continues in this report. 96.5% of videos were taken down without being reported, and 90% had no views
Anyway, here's my requisite book plug (you can pre-order now!) and a PSA: you may want to stick around this thread later. @CommonsDCMS proceedings kick off at 10am canburypress.com/products/tik-t…
SCOOP: Here’s the inside story of how TikTok struggled to deal with the suicide video earlier this month. 10,000 videos were uploaded in a short period of time to the platform businessinsider.com/tiktok-removes…
Also in my @businessinsider story, breaking news that TikTok is calling for a cross-industry initiative to tackle the scourge of such videos. @v_ness has sent a letter to nine other platforms asking to pool resources
businessinsider.com/tiktok-removes…
I would love to live tweet the DVMS hearing but a BBC Two producer has me on a call lol
Lol who is this joker who is admitting his TikTok is a thirst trap? The algorithm is based on your engagement m8 Image
"You can't have an entire meal based on carrots," says @theobertram, trying to explain algorithms to middle-aged MPs. Can we have @DamianCollins back on the DCMS committee please?
Alex Davies-Jones MP asking about the suicide video that went viral on TikTok earlier this month for @CommonsDCMS. Here's the inside story of what happened from my scoop for @businessinsider businessinsider.com/tiktok-removes…
Congratulations to the MP in the Commons DCMS committee who just took a Skype call and interrupted a really interesting answer from TikTok
These people are on the DIGITAL, culture, MEDIA and sports committee. They're meant to be our most tech-literate MPs.
Hi @julianknight15, you do know you can just look at the TikTok newsroom for that letter right? newsroom.tiktok.com/en-gb/tiktok-p…
Hi @MrJohnNicolson, if you look at this thread you'll see the numbers you're asking for
Jesus christ @MrJohnNicolson, the data is literally published here about Russian removals Image
"I agree with you: the Russian law is terrible... but unfortunately we have to comply with legal requests in the country we operate," says @theobertram of LGBTQ issues on TikTok
I see we've got to the "how well do you know history" quiz point of the TikTok hearing, here
We had a very roundabout way to a proper question there about Feroza Aziz. There is a difficulty here for TikTok in that the (horrific) rules and policies *were* in place. The challenge of its origin in China
Oh that's a new number: 300 million videos were posted on TikTok in the UK in the first six months of the year. 1.6 million videos posted by British users every single day
This is an interesting exchange: Damian Green has identified an issue around data handling versus GDPR, claiming it's illegal. "Your understanding of complexity of EU law is not quite right," says TikTok's Theo Bertram
Also the Irish data centre has been brought forward a year according to Theo Bertram just now - from 2021 EU data will be stored in the EU, compared to 2022
Another new number! There are 363 content moderators in the UK, out of 800 total TikTok employees in the country
LOL amazing, some MP just confused a MAC address with an Apple Mac. Can we get a new committee please?
God give me the confidence of an MP who confuses a MAC address and an Apple Mac then doubles down with a follow up question
OH MY GOD THE MASSIVE BELL SECONDS AFTER. This sums up this shitshow of the DCMS committee hearing into TikTok
The weird MP who can't understand the difference between a MAC address and an Apple Mac just accidentally hit on something that is an issue, which is that UK legislation on content takedown isn't as strong as Germany. TikTok has 85 moderators there
Lol strong, specific opening question from Kevin Brennan: "How many of your videos contain music?"
That's 105 minutes of my life I won't ever get back Image
Both @YuanfenYang and @ruima bringing some useful (much needed) insights into the DCMS commitee hearing
Dipped back into the DCMS committee hearing to hear an MP say to @ruima, who has years of experience as an investment banker, "If you were an investment banker". Kind of sums everything up.
I'm told that Theo Bertram misspoke here and the Irish data centre is still opening in 2022

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More from @stokel

Chris Stokel-Walker Profile picture
Mar 27, 2023
SCOOP: I spoke to the guy behind Balenciaga Pope for @BuzzFeedNews, who was (a) tripping on shrooms when he made the image and (b) thinks it means we should regulate AI buzzfeednews.com/article/chriss…
This is my second Balenciaga pope story of the day, after this one for @newscientist
As far as I can tell the key differences between the two publications is that New Scientist took the word “drip” out of the edit and BuzzFeed added it in
Read 7 tweets
Chris Stokel-Walker Profile picture
Mar 27, 2023
My random Monday morning thought is I think there's a pretty compelling case right now for either banning r/midjourney or requiring every human being on earth to undergo a mandatory media literacy course
It's like we've just given every prehistoric human a flamethrower without explaining to them how to work it or what impact it has if you use it
I wrote about the Balenciaga pope, the Great Cascadia earthquake, and what the real fear is - and how we should tackle it (or at all) for @newscientist newscientist.com/article/236631…
Read 4 tweets
Chris Stokel-Walker Profile picture
Nov 28, 2022
SCOOP: Twitter didn't pay its current and former employees on time in the UK and Germany today. “It has come to our attention that some of you may not have received your November 2022 salary yet in your bank account,” an email sent this morning says.
Usually, Twitter staff are paid on the 28th of every month. If the day falls on a Monday, staff would typically see their salary as a pending payment on the Friday, with the cash hitting their accounts by midnight on Saturday. But it didn't - or in one case, did and was reversed
This is a huge issue that has got current and former employees in private groups up in arms. Staff in Ireland and the Netherlands were paid on time. In the last 30 minutes, some of the salaries have been hitting bank accounts... one at a time, suggesting they're doing it by hand
Read 15 tweets
Chris Stokel-Walker Profile picture
Sep 15, 2022
TikTok is becoming BeReal newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/introduc…
TikTok Now sounds like a horrible idea (largely because I think BeReal is a horrible idea), but it is fascinating to see how they're trying to mark out ever wider territory in users' daily lives
One thing I find really interesting is that they're also testing out both in-app integrations and a standalone, separate TikTok Now app, depending on the geography
Read 8 tweets
Chris Stokel-Walker Profile picture
Sep 14, 2022
YES! What3Words strikes again
Unbelievably, no one in DCMS can make this work correctly. They're saying go to shops.views.paths (which is near Charlotte, North Carolina) rather than the actual site, shops.view.paths Image
I love this for us. A moment of levity at a time of national sadness. Death, taxes, and What3Words being rubbish
Read 9 tweets
Chris Stokel-Walker Profile picture
Aug 26, 2022
This is something I fear a lot of people are missing in their budgeting. It's a price cap *for the average household*. By definition, half of us will use more than the average household
There's some really interesting Ofgem research on nine buckets of households it thinks most people fall into here: ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/…
I used to work in the energy sector and still remembers the formula to convert p/th to p/kWh. We HAVEN'T FIGURED OUT HOW TO COMMUNICATE ENERGY PRICES IN AN UNDERSTANDABLE WAY. Give a unit rate and it's impossible to calculate. Give a round number and people misinterpret it
Read 4 tweets

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