TikTok has updated its content moderation policies to include new restrictions on posting AI-generated deepfakes.
These updates come amid mounting political pressure on its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
TikTok updates to address deepfakes causing damage and misinformation on its platform
While most of TikTok’s moderation policies remain unchanged, the new expanded “synthetic and manipulated media” section covers AI deepfakes, which have grown in popularity on the app in recent months.
Previously, TikTok’s rules on deepfakes were limited to a single line that prohibited content that could “mislead users by distorting the truth of events or causing significant harm to the subject of the video”. The company now requires that all AI-generated and edited content that appears realistic be “disclose clearly” as such, either in the video caption or in an overlay label.
TikTok will not allow any synthetic media “containing the likeness of any royal private figure” or depict a public figure endorsing a product or violating other app policies (such as its ban on hate speech). The company defines public figures as anyone over the age of 18 with “a significant public role, such as a government official, politician, business leader, or celebrity”.
AI-generated content has grown in popularity within TikTok, largely thanks to the increasing availability of AI voice cloning tools that make it easy to imitate someone’s voice. These tools have created new subgenres of content, often centered on unexpected situations with public figures like President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Other use cases are more damaging, with deepfakes showing these same figures reading homophobic or transphobic statements, which have sometimes been mistaken for actual footage.
TikTok’s policy update comes at a time of mounting political pressure for ByteDance, as Western governments express fears over the app’s collection of private data and its potential to sway public opinion. The US government has threatened a public ban on TikTok if ByteDance doesn’t sell its stake, while the app has already been banned from the devices of European Commission staff and government teams in the US, UK, New Zealand and Canada.
Although TikTok does not address these threats directly in its updated policies, the company has stated that it wants to offer “much more transparency about our rules and how we enforce them”. The company will also publish a list of eight “Community Principles” which it claims “they shape our daily work and guide how we approach difficult compliance decisions”. It should be noted that the first two principles are “prevent harm” and “allow free expression”.
