While similar lists are often used on other social media platforms to monitor more questionable content such as child pornography or abusive content, lists found in the ByteDance moderation tool include politically relevant"sensitive words" for the company's team to track, according toThe lists kept by ByteDance had a variety of titles, such as"Trump Directed Prohibited Words,""Theming Strategies of Uyghur-Han Couples," and"TikTok audio sensitive words in...
The guide to the tool containing the lists was written by Chinese employees from ByteDance and its Beijing subsidiary Jiyun Hudong, which described it as their"global core vocabulary" regarding"common bottom-line sensitive words with high risk" and their"global commonly used thesaurus" involving"fully classified" illegal vocabulary. While some of the lists mentioned Douyin, the Chinese version of the social app, others explicitly mentioned TikTok by name.
The moderation tool also collected data on the"hit rate" of sensitive words, such as how often U.S. users posted about them. A spokeswoman from TikTok dismissed the lists, saying that they were"significantly outdated or incomplete" and that none of them are currently or ever have been used by TikTok."TikTok and Douyin are different apps, in different markets, with separate content policies and source code. These apps use separate keyword platforms and keyword lists that are managed by separate teams," the spokeswoman said.