By Vanessa Pappas, TikTok US General Manager

I joined TikTok at the start of this year because I found the platform's fun and entertaining environment to be a breath of fresh air in an online world that has increasingly migrated toward argument and divisiveness. TikTok is different. Our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy.

Just over a year after launching in the US, TikTok's entertaining short videos are making the lives of millions of users and creators a little more fun. TikTok is beloved because it provides an outlet for creative expression and a uniquely genuine and inspiring app experience. It's amazingly rewarding to know that we're bringing joy to so many – but it also brings great responsibility on our part. We are committed to meeting this responsibility fully.

With this in mind, we want to share some of our near-term plans to further strengthen our teams, moderation policies, and overall transparency. To do this right, we will leverage a combination of internal and external resources to help ensure that TikTok is well prepared to serve our users and community effectively and responsibly.

Working with me and my team throughout this process will be an outstanding group from the global law firm K&L Gates LLP, including former Congressmen Bart Gordon and Jeff Denham, who bring excellent expertise in the technology sector. The external team that we've brought on for this project will collaborate with our internal US management team to work on several key initiatives:

  • Create a committee of outside experts to advise on and review content moderation policies covering a wide range of topics, including child safety, hate speech, misinformation, bullying, and other potential issues.
  • Further increase transparency around our content moderation policies and the practices we employ to protect our community.
  • Build out an even deeper bench of internal leaders so that we are well prepared to tackle the challenges that our continued rapid expansion will bring.

These steps are just the latest efforts in our ongoing commitment to maintaining the app experience users expect while providing them the protections they deserve, and we will continue to provide updates and transparency in the months and years ahead.