DUBAI: TikTok has announced a slew of safety updates to enhance content creation and sharing on the platform.

The company said the features were designed to provide better transparency and help creators learn about its policies and check their account status.

Adam Presser, head of operations, said: “Creators play a fundamental role in helping maintain a safe and entertaining environment for everyone on TikTok.

“We focus on empowering people with information about our policies and tools so they can safely express themselves and connect with others.”

Effective this month, TikTok’s community guidelines have been updated to include refined definitions and more detailed explanations of the platform’s policies, such as those concerning hate speech and health misinformation.

They also feature expanded guidelines on the moderation of features such as Search, Live and the For You feed.

The platform is revising its eligibility standards for the feed. For example, accounts that repeatedly post content that goes against the standards for the feed might become temporarily ineligible for recommendation, making their content harder to find in searches.

The creators behind these accounts will be notified and be able to appeal the decision.

In order to help people better understand its policies TikTok will issue a warning when a creator violates community guidelines for the first time. This will not count toward the account’s strike tally.

The platform will notify creators of any violations and provide details about which rules they have breached and allow them to appeal the decision if needed.

However, policies that are considered zero tolerance, such as incitement to violence, are not eligible for such reminders and accounts violating them will be banned immediately.

Building on the account status page introduced last year, TikTok is launching an account check tool that will allow creators to review their last 30 posts and account status in one place.

It will also roll out a creator code of conduct in the coming weeks, which sets expectations for creators involved in programs, features, events and campaigns to follow both on and off-platform.

Presser said the standards were being introduced because the company “believes that being a part of these programs is an opportunity that comes with additional responsibilities.”

“This code will also help provide creators with additional reassurance that other participants are meeting these standards too,” he said.

LONDON: Universal Music Group and TikTok said on Thursday they had reached a new licensing agreement that will restore the label’s songs and artists to the social media platform as well as give musicians more protections from artificial intelligence.
TikTok began removing Universal’s content from its app after their licensing deal expired in January and the two sides failed to reach agreement on royalties, AI and online safety for TikTok’s users.
Describing their new pact as a multi-dimensional deal, the companies said they were working “expeditiously” to return music by the label’s artists to TikTok, and also said they would team up to realize new monetization opportunities from TikTok’s growing e-commerce capabilities.
They will “work together on campaigns supporting UMG’s artists across genres and territories globally,” the two firms said in a joint statement.
The short video app is a valuable marketing and promotional tool for the music industry. TikTok is where 16- to 19-year-olds in the United States most commonly discover music, ahead of YouTube and music streaming services such as Spotify , according to Midia Research.
“Roughly a quarter of US consumers say they listen to songs they have heard on TikTok,” said Tatiana Cirisano, Midia’s senior music industry analyst.
However, Universal Music claimed its artists and songwriters are paid just a fraction of what it receives from other major social media platforms.
The music label says TikTok accounts for 1 percent of its annual revenue or about $110 million in 2023. YouTube, by contrast, paid the music industry $1.8 billion from user-generated content in the 12 months ending in June 2022, according to Midia.
In a move that may well have eroded its bargaining power, Taylor Swift, one of Universal Music’s biggest acts, allowed a selection of her songs to return to TikTok as she promoted her latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department.”
Swift owns the copyrights to her recordings through her 2018 deal with Universal and can control where her songs are available, according to the Financial Times.
As licensing negotiations resumed in recent weeks, AI remained a major point of contention. Universal has claimed TikTok is “flooded” with AI-generated recordings, including songs that users create with the help of TikTok’s AI songwriting tools.
In Thursday’s deal, TikTok and Universal said that they would work together to ensure AI development across the music industry will protect human artistry and the economics that flow to those artists and songwriters.
“TikTok is also committed to working with UMG to remove unauthorized AI-generated music from the platform, as well as (developing) tools to improve artist and songwriter attribution,” the statement said.
Concerns about AI have grown in the creative community. In April, a non-profit group called the Artist Rights Alliance published an open letter urging the responsible use of the technology. The group of more than 200 musicians and songwriters called on technology companies and digital music services to pledge not to deploy AI in a way that would “undermine or replace the human artistry of songwriters and artists or deny us fair compensation for our work.”
The deal comes amid questions over TikTok’s long-term future in the United States. President Joe Biden signed legislation last week that gives TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, 270 days to sell its US assets. TikTok has vowed to file suit to challenge the legislation, which it calls a ban.
More than 170 million Americans use its video service, according to TikTok. Globally, it has more than 1.5 billion monthly active users, according to research firm Statista.