TikTok is said to be more favorable in content moderation for accounts with a lot of followers

According to Forbes, as recently as last year, TikTok used a two-tier censorship system to prioritize the most popular users on the platform. The above information is taken from a recording of a TikTok meeting in September 2021. Here the company detailed an internal feature called “creator labels”. It was created specifically for accounts with over 5 million followers. When it comes to censoring such influential or famous users, TikTok has a separate censorship rating and filtering mechanism for them.

One TikTok employee shared: “We don’t want to treat these users like any other users. I would say there will be a little more favor towards them.” But on its website, the company says its Community Guidelines apply to “everyone and everything on TikTok.”

TikTok has not yet commented on the news. A TikTok spokesperson told Forbes it has “zero tolerance for censorship of accounts with more than 5 million followers.”

If the above information is correct, TikTok will not be the first company to favor influential users on a certain platform. Facebook’s system once “blocked” censors from deleting nude photos posted by Brazilian soccer star Neymar of a woman who had accused him of sexual assault. The post had over 60 million views before the Meta took action. In addition, Facebook did not ban Neymar’s account, even if the player shared nudity and violated the company’s community guidelines.

According to Engadget