Mr. Shou Zi Chew
Chief Executive Officer
TikTok Inc.
5800 Bristol Parkway
Culver City, California 90230
Dear Mr. Chew:
Since the October 7th Hamas attacks on Israel, social media platforms’ contributions to the proliferation of antisemitism and anti-Israel misinformation online have been deeply concerning. Jewish content creators on TikTok and other platforms have been inundated with antisemitic comments, many to the point of leaving platforms entirely.
ADL’s most recent investigation found that bad actors are circumventing TikTok’ content moderation safeguards to spread vile and obvious antisemitism and to connect with their heinous fellow travelers on the platform.
Despite ADL’s research showing that harassment on TikTok has more than doubled since 2021, TikTok remains, for many, a black box. In 2021, ADL rated TikTok’ data accessibility an F - the worst among all platforms. While TikTok has introduced a tool allowing academic researchers to access data to understand the platform, at this moment more is required.
We, the undersigned individuals and organizations, demand TikTok take immediate action on these urgent issues of antisemitism on the platform by:
- Submitting to an independent Antisemitism Audit by external experts on antisemitism
- Implementing policy and design changes to better support targets of antisemitism and hate on the platform.
- Expanding resources and training for TikTok’s Trust and Safety team around antisemitism
Below are the details of these actions.
1) Submit to an independent Antisemitism Audit by external experts on antisemitism
In 2018, Meta (then Facebook) brought in external parties to perform a Civil Rights Audit of the Facebook platform, which was released in 2020 following pressure brought to bear on the company from the Stop Hate for Profit coalition in a time of unprecedented racial unrest in the United States.
In this moment—when antisemitism is surging both in the United States and globally and there are many questions on TikTok’s role--the platform must similarly step up and be more transparent and accountable for how it is handling this surge as well as the experiences of its Jewish users. It is time for an independent Antisemitism Audit of TikTok.
The Audit would consist of a multi-faceted evaluation of TikTok’s content moderation practices around antisemitism including policy, enforcement, product and personnel support for targets of antisemitism by the foremost world experts on antisemitism, social media policy, and content moderation enforcement.
2) Support for Targets of Online Hate:
Many Jewish TikTok creators have been targeted with unrelenting antisemitism since October 7. Earlier this year, the ADL Center for Tech and Society evaluated nine tech platforms on how they are supporting targets of online hate. ADL rated TikTok a C for their efforts to support targets.
For TikTok specifically to improve their support for targets of hate they must improve their efforts around communicating with targets of harassment, supporting users experiencing networked harassment campaigns, and muting features.
To improve support for targets of hate, TikTok should take these concrete steps:
- Implement a reporting portal/ticketing system to keep targets of hate apprised of the status of their report to TikTok
- Create a feature to allow trusted allies to be given delegate access to help moderate content for a particular user
- Create a user-friendly way to allow users to easy mute other users who they may not want to see in their timeline
- Provide real time support for targets of severe harassment on the platform
3) Expand resources and training to TikTok’s Trust and Safety team around antisemitism
The past year has shown social media companies on the retreat in terms of investment in their trust and safety teams. While TikTok has not conducted significant layoffs, they should further lean into resourcing their trust and safety teams, especially around antisemitism.
- Make permanent the surged resources that TikTok announced as part of their response to the attacks on October 7. This would include the command center with key members of their safety teams and increased Hebrew and Arabic speaking moderators.
- Expand the staffing and other resourcing of their trust and safety teams. Currently TikTok has 40,000 safety professionals and 1.7 billion monthly active users, making the ratio of staff to users 42,500 users to 1 safety staff. TikTok should resource to reduce this ratio significantly.
- TikTok should expand its training programs to include modules on antisemitism from credible experts, so that all safety staff and moderators are conducting their work with an accurate and operational understanding of antisemitism.
The stakes are too high, and the public deserves to know how TikTok is protecting Jewish users and ensuring that antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiments are not being further inflamed, further endangering Jews around the world. TikTok must act now.
Sincerely,
ADL (Anti-Defamation League)
AEPhi
BBYO International
Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America
Jewish Graduate Organization
Olami
Sigma Alpha Mu (SAM)
Sigma Delta Tau (SDT)
The Rabbinical Assembly
Union for Reform Judaism
Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America
Zeta Beta Tau (ZBT)