TikTok series: Policy recommendations

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) identifies systemic failures in TikTok's moderation of hate speech and extremism, noting that 30% of a sampled white supremacist dataset contained multiple policy violations. The report recommends enhancing Trust and Safety resourcing, updating moderator training to recognize nuanced 'dog-whistles', and overhauling the auto-suggest feature which currently suggests workarounds for accessing violative content. Additionally, ISD calls for expanded Research API access for civil society organizations beyond the US and Europe to improve platform transparency.

• TikTok exhibits systemic failures in moderating both nuanced and overt policy violations; in an assessment of white supremacist content, 30% of the total sample contained two or more policy violations.
• The platform's auto-suggest function is identified as a major safety risk because it proactively suggests ways for users to find violative content or communities promoting extremist narratives, operating independently of video moderation strategies.
• TikTok's hashtag and search blocking systems are insufficient and easily bypassed by misspellings, which allows users to discover networks of accounts spreading anti-migrant and white supremacist content through 'dog whistles' and coded language.
• There is a critical need for specialized moderator training and dedicated issue-based moderation queues to handle the complexity of hate speech, as general moderators often lack the contextual knowledge to identify subtle derogatory language regarding migration.
• TikTok's Research API is currently too restrictive, as it is limited to non-profit academic institutions in the US and Europe, which hinders the ability of civil society organizations to monitor the platform.

APA

Institute for Strategic Dialogue (2024). TikTok series: Policy recommendations. https://www.isdglobal.org/digital-dispatch/tiktok-series-policy-recommendations/

Chicago

Institute for Strategic Dialogue. TikTok series: Policy recommendations. 2024. https://www.isdglobal.org/digital-dispatch/tiktok-series-policy-recommendations/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Institute for Strategic Dialogue |title=TikTok series: Policy recommendations |date=13 September 2024 |url=https://www.isdglobal.org/digital-dispatch/tiktok-series-policy-recommendations/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{instituteforstrategicdialogue2024tiktok, author = {{Institute for Strategic Dialogue}}, title = {{TikTok series: Policy recommendations}}, institution = {Institute for Strategic Dialogue}, year = {2024}, month = sep, url = {https://www.isdglobal.org/digital-dispatch/tiktok-series-policy-recommendations/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }