TikTok Crackdown: Nearly Two Dozen ISIS Propaganda Accounts Banned

As TikTok’s scope and influence continue to grow, the company is taking steps to crack down on extremist accounts on the service.

It was reported on Monday that TikTok had banned close to two dozen accounts found to be posting ISIS propaganda videos. According to the Wall Street Journal, some of these videos featured ISIS members, dead bodies, and women sharing jihadist slogans.

“Content promoting terrorist organizations has absolutely no place on TikTok,” a company spokesperson told CNBC. “We permanently ban any such accounts and associated devices as soon as identified, and we continuously develop ever-stronger controls to proactively detect suspicious activity.”

TikTok’s rules ban any and all criminal groups from using the app. A spokesperson for the company said that keeping such entities away is a problem facing all social media platforms, and that they were able to remove these extremist videos before they were able to reach more than 10 views. While the views were low, some of the accounts had already garnered over 1,000 followers.

“This is an industry-wide challenge complicated by bad actors who actively seek to circumvent protective measures, but we have a team dedicated to aggressively protecting against malicious behavior on TikTok,” the spokesperson said.

While many might see this as a positive move by the company, TikTok has recently been under fire for removing and censoring content on behalf of the Chinese government. The company is currently owned by Bytedance, a Beijing-based company.

Some Washington lawmakers have called for an investigation into the company’s practices.