IN FOCUS: How Israel-Hamas falsehoods on TikTok ‘cloud the public eye’ in Southeast Asia

WHAT TIKTOK SAYS Government

The European Commission has questioned TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp owner Meta about how they combat false information about the conflict. Additionally, it is looking into X for supposedly spreading false information.

The Ministry of Communications and Information in Singapore has” emphasized to social media services the need to step up content moderation efforts during this period, taking into consideration local sensitivities ,” in response to CNA’s inquiries. It didn’t go into detail.

The department acknowledged that Singaporean social media users may be at” heightened risk of being exposed to harmful online information and misinformation ,” and it urged the government to exercise caution, fact-check, and refrain from disseminating information if they are unsure of its veracity. & nbsp,

The limited regulators in Malaysia and Indonesia were also contacted by CNA for their feedback.

Since the start of the war, TikTok has removed more than 925, 000 videos from the turmoil location for breaking its policies on violence, hate speech, misconceptions, and extremism, including content that promotes Hamas, according to its most recent update on its website, which was published on Friday.

Over 24 million fake accounts, more than 500,000 bot comments on content using keywords related to the war, and 50 000 video with” dangerous misinformation” have all been removed from TikTok globally during the same time period.

The platform, which is owned by the Chinese tech company Bytedance, recently announced that it had added more Arabic and Hebrew-speaking moderators to evaluate content pertaining to the conflict. Additionally, it collaborates with outside fact-checking organizations like Agence France-Presse.

Recent media reports and scientific studies have revealed that TikTok’s algorithms does not favor information and that deceptive videos on the platform you” spread quickly thanks to their shock value ,” in addition to content moderation.

The idea that the platform would gain from shock value content is” baseless ,” a TikTok spokesperson retorted to CNA. & nbsp,

According to the spokesperson,” we remove material that contravenes our policies against damaging misinformation and have laws against stunning content, which we either remove or render unsuitable for recommendation into the For You feed.”

According to the interpreter, TikTok reviews content as it becomes more popular on the app in order to stop videos from being recommended that go against its policies.

People were allegedly paying TikTok as little as US$ 7 to spread false information about the Israel-Hamas conflict, according to another content published in October.

According to a TikTok interpreter, the platform blocks search terms in violation of its policies and does not help keyword targeting or topic-based advertising. Additionally,” Israel” and” Palestine” have been added to a list of prohibited search terms.

No NEUTRAL PLATFORMS, DO YOU THINK?

Some fake clips that the journalist came over were finally taken down during CNA’s week-long study of Israel – Hamas information on TikTok.

Some, however, persisted in their online activity, raking in opinions, remarks, and shares while demonstrating the whack-a-mole nature of content moderation.

Malaysian Mr. Harris urged social media platforms to be more open about how they moderate information and to experience greater regulatory scrutiny.

After everything that has happened, the claim that they are only negative platforms is obviously false, and those making it today are dishonest, he told CNA.