Tackling TikTok’s Community Guidelines

14 July 2020

Image credit: iStock

TikTok has a suite of community guidelines designed to keep its users safe. Here’s a few of the most relevant.

The beauty of TikTok is how fun and easy it is to share and create content with people around the world. If it’s interesting enough, a video can “go viral” and attract hundreds of millions of eyeballs, motivating tens of millions to like and share the piece.

But what are the rules? TV, movies and video games have rating systems that’re designed to guide parents toward content that’s appropriate for their teen – but what about the wide world of social media?

Thankfully, TikTok has a long list of Community Guidelines that outline what they don’t want published on their platform.

Here’s how they describe them*:

“We remove content including video, audio, image, and text that violates our Community Guidelines, and suspend or ban accounts involved in severe or repeated violations. Under certain circumstances, we will go one step further and report the accounts to relevant legal authorities to keep our community safe.”

Check out our quick breakdown to help you get your head into it.

Individuals or organisations who promote dangerous behavior that could cause harm - criminal or otherwise – are banned from TikTok if caught. That extends to the publishing of the symbols and images that promote of any of these groups too – people who are caught posting them are kicked off.

The same applies to posts that demonstrate or glorify the sale and consumption of controlled substances, weapons or dodgy financial schemes.

Unfortunately, criminally bad haircuts, dance moves and singing are all still allowed.

Find out how to report users on TikTok>

While TikTok is for teens and adults, it’s not for – ahem – “adult” content. Nudity is a no-no.

Violent content, including self-harm, is strictly forbidden. So is the threat of violence, or a non-violent act that causes harm, like consumption of detergent, for example.

Find out how to report posts on TikTok>

Harassment and bullying

While it’s always fun to have a chuckle at the antics of strangers on social (remember the haircuts we mentioned earlier?), we all know there’s a line where the laughter becomes one-sided and isn’t so nice for the other person anymore.

That’s where TikTok’s rules around abusive behavior come to the rescue. According to their community guidelines:

“Users should feel safe to express themselves without fear of being shamed, humiliated, bullied, or harassed. We deeply understand the psychological distress that abusive content can have on individuals, and we do not tolerate abusive content or behavior on our platform.”

That’s why they aim to remove abusive posts, including threats, sexual harassment, disparaging statements regarding appearance, intellect, personality traits, and hygiene.

Find out how to report users on TikTok>

Ok, this one isn’t actually a viral TikTok challenge, but it is one we all face when it comes to social media trends. And while we can’t watch our kids all the time and we still want them to have fun with their friends, we do need to mitigate risks.

Remember – even though the minimum age for a TikTok account is 13, there’s still the possibility your child might have access through a friend at school or older sibling.

One of the ways to talk to your kids about the sticky subject of dangerous trends is with a few key questions.

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