TikTok denies claims that it helped promote PN videos

SHAH ALAM - TikTok Malaysia strongly denies claims that it helped promote Perikatan Nasional’s (PN) video contents until it went viral and garnered millions of views.

ByteDance public policy head Hafizin Tajudin who also manages TikTok Malaysia said the platform only promoted a small fraction of videos which were intended to diversify the content experience and introduce celebrities and new creators within the TikTok community.

"However, we do not allow political advertisement on the platform, which was further strengthened through the changes in the government, politicians and political party accounts policy (GPPPA) which was made last year.

“We do not allow paid advertisements that promote or oppose candidates, the government, current leaders, political parties or groups, or issues at the federal, state or local level," he said in a statement, today.

On Monday, a Twitter account owner shared a video claiming that TikTok moderators can help make video content go viral and that there were former TikTok staff members who were PN members.

Regarding former employees who served as content moderators, Hafizin stressed that their content moderators did not have any authority or access to any form of promotional tools for content.

"We have a robust quality assurance system to ensure that political or personal opinions of our employees do not affect the quality and ethics of their work, including when performing content moderation duties.

"TikTok's content moderation decisions are based on a set of clearly defined community guidelines and layers of checks and balances including quality assurance and third party fact checkers, to uphold safety and ensure fairness in moderation," he said.

He said TikTok addressed content and behaviour that violated its community guidelines through a combination of policy, technology and moderation.

"Therefore, we moderate all content, including political expression, neutrally based on our community guidelines and will take action to remove or make it ineligible for the "For You" feed if found to be in violation of our community guidelines.

''We remain committed to our mission to provide a safe and positive experience for our community members to connect and share their creativity,'' he said.