The short-form video curation app, Tiktok accounts for more than 200 million users in India. The social media company, launched its first Transparency Report on December 30, 2019, showing which country has submitted the request for the content takedown and seeking user information.
The report summarises requests made by the governments between January 1 and June 30, 2019. According to the report, India has requested the maximum number of times to take down the content and user information with 107 requests followed by the United States and Japan with 79 and 35 requests respectively. It is interesting that China is notably absent from the report – the video-sharing app, owned by the Chinese internet giant, Bytedance.
India has made 107 requests for user information, out of which 99 are legal requests and 8 were emergency requests. These requests were aimed at 143 specified accounts and TikTok complied with 47% of them in some capacity.
In a response to an enforceable law enforcement requests, Tiktok may most of the user information, including subscriber information (first name, last name, email address, phone number, device model, account creation date, IP address of the device); video content; user interactions (comments to videos, direct messages, and live chats) and detailed log data (include account logins and logouts, file creation and modification dates, and in-app communications).
Maintaining the privacy of users, Tiktok accepts law-enforcement requests when the law-enforcement agency provides the appropriate legal documents required for the type of information being sought, such as a subpoena, court order, or warrant, or submit an emergency request.
The Indian government also made the highest number of content takedown. Out of the 11 requests made by the government that targeted 9 accounts. In response, Tiktok removed or restricted 8 accounts. Whereas the USA and Japan made 6 and 3 such requests, respectively. These requests seek to remove content that violates local government laws.
Based on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Tiktok has taken down 85% of the content that violates copyright law.
In the past, Madras High Court had imposed a temporary ban on the app in April 2019 on the grounds that it is responsible for spreading pornography, exposing children to sexual predators. In July 2019, MeitY’s Cyber Laws and e-Security wing had also submitted a notice to TikTok asking them to respond to concerns about them committing anti-India and unlawful activities.
Download the entire report here
