Cormac Keenan, Head of Trust and Safety, TikTok

Since we established our presence in Europe, we have been constantly humbled that so many people come to our platform for entertainment and fun. With more than 100 million people across Europe active on TikTok every month, our teams are focused on maintaining their trust and the trust of policymakers and the broader public.

One important part of this is helping people to better understand our work. And we believe that being open about what's happening behind the scenes is crucial to this. Our first Transparency and Accountability Centre opened in the US in July 2020, and we're delighted to share more about our plans for a European Transparency and Accountability Centre today.

Once operational, the Centre will provide experts with an opportunity to visit and see first-hand how teams at TikTok go about the critically important work of securing our community's safety, data, and privacy.

Through this direct observation of our practices, experts will have an opportunity to learn about our moderation systems, processes, and policies. This includes exploring:

  • How we use technology to keep our community safe
  • How our trained content review teams make decisions about content based on the policies in our Community Guidelines
  • The way human reviewers supplement our moderation efforts using technology to help catch potential violations of our policies
  • Ultimately, how the content allowed on the platform aligns with our values

In addition to content moderation, the Centre will offer detailed insight into our recommendation technology, and our commitment to data privacy and security.

The landscape we operate in is rapidly evolving and it's our hope that visitors will be able to learn more about our work, but importantly, also provide candid feedback about what they see and hear. No system, policy, or practice is flawless, and we are committed to constant improvement. For example, following meetings with epilepsy experts last year, we listened to feedback and used it to introduce a series of new features to help protect people from photosensitive content.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the Centre will initially operate virtually, and we expect to offer virtual tours from June 2021. We plan to establish the Centre in Ireland, and we anticipate that it will be fully operational by 2022. We're looking forward to welcoming experts and we will continue our work to find innovative ways to improve our content moderation, safety, and data security systems.