By Ebony Tucker, Product Policy Manager, TikTok
At TikTok, we value and celebrate self-expression and are focused on promoting an environment where community members feel safe and comfortable sharing their experiences, including difficult conversations such as those around sexual assault.
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and for TikTok, it's a time to recognize the important conversations happening on our platform about sexual violence, recovery, and advocacy. We've been working with experts to improve our understanding of sexual assault and trauma and how to foster a safe and supportive space for survivors. Now, we're rolling out new resources we developed with guidance from experts at RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network). Our goal is to make access to support readily available to anyone in need and educate the broader community on this important issue.
Providing resources for our community
For survivors who want to share their story, it's important that they're able to do so without fear of abuse or alienation. To help create a welcoming environment we're working to connect our community to expert-backed support materials. We've partnered with RAINN to develop educational content for this month within our Discover page, where people can learn about sexual violence, prevention, and healing.
This year's theme for Sexual Assault Awareness Month — We Can Build Safe Online Spaces — is one that especially resonates with us. As a global platform, we continue to think about the measures we can take to keep TikTok a space where survivors can find support and community. That's why on our Discover page all month long you can find tips for supporting survivors and access to the National Sexual Assault Hotline (800-656-HOPE or online.rainn.org).
Building safe online spaces requires understanding where the conversations are taking place and meeting survivors where they are. As such, we've introduced permanent public service announcements on hashtags, such as #consentmatters and others, to both foster supportive conversations and connect our community to help resources on our Safety Center.
“We are proud to be partnering with TikTok to educate more people on the realities of sexual violence and provide resources. As people look to platforms like TikTok to receive and share information, it is more important than ever that the content is reliable and not harmful. We’re excited for the opportunity to share our resources with a global audience and to help TikTok remain a safe and positive platform for people to have these critical conversations.” - Heather Drevna, Vice President of Communications, RAINN
Building for safety
In the coming months, we'll be rolling out additional permanent resources to help survivors looking for confidential help, information, and services in our app.
As a reminder, TikTok strictly prohibits content depicting or supporting sexual violence, including non-consensual intimate imagery, hacked imagery, and any attempt to glorify rape and sexual assault. Another step we've recently taken is refreshing our policies to better create space for survivors to share their story or find community, without fear of further harassment. In order to do that, we strive to consistently and equitably enforce our policies against content that exploits sexual violence or accounts that engage in harassing behaviors.
As we continue to work with experts and evolve our approach to providing community resources, our hope is to uplift survivors and help build a culture in which there are fewer victims, not just in April but every month of the year.