By Lavanya Mahendran and Nasser Alsherif, Global Trust & Safety, TikTok.

TikTok's mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. We're building a global community where users can create and share authentically, discover the world around them, and connect with others across the globe. We're also committed to keeping this community safe.

Today, we're releasing a comprehensive, expanded publication of the Community Guidelines that help maintain a supportive and welcoming environment on TikTok. These guidelines reflect our driving philosophy – providing a platform for creative self-expression while remaining safe, diverse, and authentic – and define a common code of conduct on our platform. 

We want to be sure users understand TikTok's guidelines, including when and why we place some restrictions on what is or isn't allowed on the app. Users will begin receiving notifications of the updated guidelines starting today, and can always refer to them on our Safety Center and directly in the app.

Updated for greater transparency

The Community Guidelines we've published today give users far more detail than previous versions. Over the past year our global trust and safety team has grown, just as our platform has, and we've combined our experience to bring greater transparency to our guidelines.

Users will also notice we've grouped violations into 10 distinct categories, each of which includes an explanation of the rationale and several detailed bullet points to clarify what type of misbehavior would fall into that category.

These changes offer clarity around how we define harmful or unsafe content that is not permitted on the platform. It’s important that users have insight into the philosophy behind our moderation decisions and the framework for making such judgements.

The values behind our guidelines

While the language and structure of our Community Guidelines are new, the fundamental values that shape them remain unchanged.

TikTok is an inclusive platform built upon the foundation of creative expression. We encourage users to celebrate what makes them unique, within a community that does the same. Our community is diverse and global, and we aim to cultivate an environment for authentic interactions. We believe that feeling safe helps users feel comfortable expressing themselves openly and allows creativity to flourish.

Our global guidelines are the basis of the moderation policies TikTok's regional and country teams localize and implement in accordance with local laws and norms. Our teams remove content that violates these guidelines, and suspend or ban accounts involved in severe or repeated violations.

Inspiring creativity and bringing joy to users across the globe

Another way to view our mission is this: spending time on TikTok is meant to be rewarding and fun. That doesn't mean serious or controversial content doesn't have a place on our platform; ultimately, the platform is built to support our users and their diverse thoughts, experiences, and interests. But our goal is to provide tools for users to foster their creativity and enjoy content that's expressive, authentic, refreshing, and sometimes delightfully quirky – all within a supportive community environment.

We're committed to being transparent about the ways we maintain the app experience users expect while providing the protections they deserve. This is just one step as we constantly work to improve and expand upon our practices, policies, and protections in order to provide a joyful experience for our users.