TikTok – a battlefield with landmines

Communication Minister Fahmi Fadzil had announced efforts by Byte Dance – the parent company of TikTok to better moderate the mini video social media platform in July with content moderation in vernacular languages as a major step following the death of TikTok influencer A Rajeswary, better known as Esha.

However, TikTok remains a battlefield filled with landmines.

Cyberbullying continues in different format. For instance, there are promotional clips that are laced with body shaming.

Reports have been lodged on numerous video clips and accounts registered under fake accounts but TikTok is blind to these violations.

Questions over TikTok’s content moderation team also arises since the issue is not merely about the language. It is also about subject matter experts.

For instance TikTok can hire a Subramaniam but he may not be able to differentiate a Shaktism based content from Saivite based content because school of thoughts is not his field of expertise.

Having large number of reports alone does not suffice for a video to be taken down or an account to be suspended.

How does TikTok justify having a convicted cyber bully Shalini Periasamy return to the TikTok platform?

Her first live session was with controversial suspended cop Sheila Sharon and it went live uninterrupted.

The need for licensing social media platforms came about as a trigger reaction to Esha’s death but today there are TikTok account holders using fake accounts such as Justice for Esha to gain all the attention that one can get via TikTok.

The account remains active. It is neither suspended nor have its clips removed even though some are clearly harassing certain quarters.

An account called Mullai Malar Kodi have video clips that clearly harasses journalists but no action has been taken even though reports have been made.

The above are happening on the Tamil #fyp on TikTok.

The battlefield is the same for the Malay audience. However the number of landmines are far much lesser.

Issues crop up over content posted up in support of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

One activist contact had his TikTok account temporarily suspended.

While many have experienced account suspension for over a period of days and months, this one was the most bizarre.

The account was suspended for a period of 120 months. That’s 10 years.

TikTok’s proactive measures in retaining a battlefield with landmines have caused the proliferation of more fake accounts.

This is because even authentic content creators need to protect their account and withstand the attacks from fake accounts that are on rampage against them.

Perhaps TikTok in Malaysia needs to spring clean the accounts here because many are not worthy to be known as content creators.