TikTok Bans Misgendering, Deadnaming, Misogyny, and Promotion of ‘Conversion Therapy’ In New Push Towards Protecting the LGBTQ+ Community and Women on the Internet
Censoring topics on social media has long been a controversial topic. Today, TikTok, the short form video app, announced changes to its community guidelines that prohibit misgendering, deadnaming, misogyny, and the promotion of "conversion therapy," among others. While such activity has long been discouraged on the platform, this is the first time it was explicitly stated and banned.
Cormac Keenan, TikTok's head of trust and safety, wrote in a blog post, "Though these ideologies have long been prohibited on TikTok, we've heard from creators and civil society organizations that it's important to be explicit in our Community Guidelines. On top of this, we hope our recent feature enabling people to add their pronouns will encourage respectful and inclusive dialogue on our platform."
This is an interesting development because many social media platforms have received criticism for a lack of monitoring that leaves users open to abuse and hate speech. TikTok's stance was made in hopes to making the video app a more safe and inclusive environment for creators. Currently, Twitter is the only other social media platform that explicitly prohibits misgendering and deadnaming.
In addition to these new policies, TikTok's Community Guidelines also now include new measures to prevent suicide hoaxes, removal of content that promotes disordered eating, and "unauthorized access to content, accounts, systems and data, and is spelling out that app users are prohibited from using TikTok to 'perpetrate criminal activity.'"
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