Popular app TikTok censors videos that China hates: report

TikTok — the Chinese-owned video app popular with members of Gen Z — has instructed its moderators to censor any clips that mention Tiananmen Square, Tibetan independence or religious groups banned by Beijing, according to a new report.

Moderation guidelines from Chinese tech company ByteDance, which owns TikTok, that were leaked to The Guardian touch on issues specific to China, including under a section called “hate speech and religion,” according to the outlet.

Any posts that promote the religious group Falun Gong, which is banned in China, is marked as a “violation” on TikTok, meaning moderators are tasked with deleting those clips and any user that posts about the group can be banned, the outlet reported.

A ban titled “criticism/attack toward policies, social rules of any country…” wipes out any criticism of China’s socialist system, according to the report.

Another rule covers “demonization or distortion of local or other countries’ history such as May 1998 riots of Indonesia, Cambodian genocide, Tiananmen Square incidents,” the Guardian reported.

There’s also a general ban on “highly controversial topics, such as separatism, religion sects conflicts, conflicts between ethnic groups, for instance exaggerating the Islamic sects conflicts, inciting the independence of Northern Ireland, Republic of Chechnya, Tibet and Taiwan and exaggerating the ethnic conflict between black and white,” the report says.

The app also bans a list of 20 “foreign leaders or sensitive figures” including President Trump, former president Barack Obama, former North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, Russian president Vladimir Putin and others — but not Chinese President Xi Jinping.

ByteDance said the guidelines obtained by The Guardian were retired in May and that its current rules don’t reference any specific countries.

“The old guidelines in question are outdated and no longer in use,” the company said in a statement. “Today we take localised approaches, including local moderators, local content and moderation policies, local refinement of global policies, and more.”

TikTok, which launched in 2017, was the most downloaded app on the iOS App Store in the first half of 2018.