As the prospect of a US TikTok ban continues to grow, the video app has refreshed its content moderation policies. The rules on what content can be posted and promoted are largely unchanged but include new restrictions on sharing AI deepfakes, which have become increasingly popular on the app in recent months.
The bulk of these moderation policies (or “Community Guidelines,” in TikTok’s parlance) is unchanged and unsurprising. There’s no graphic violence allowed, no hate speech, and no overtly sexual content, with gradated rules for the latter based on the subject’s age. One newly expanded section, though, covers “synthetic and manipulated media” — aka AI deepfakes, which have become increasingly popular on the app in recent months.
Previously, TikTok’s rules on deepfakes were restricted to a single line banning content that could “mislead users by distorting the truth of events [or] cause significant harm to the subject of the video.” Now, the company says…
