According to reports, former moderators of TikTok-tied Chinese Communist Party were able to say that the training material contained a lot explicit images and videos for child abuse.
Former third-party moderators for TikTok from the company Teleperformance said a “DRR” or Daily Required Reading document had explicit child abuse content. Forbes reports that the document was easily accessible by employees at both TikTok as well as Teleperformance, as of this summer.
Forbes reported that “hundreds” of TikTok and Teleperformance employees had “free access” to the document. The required reading, along with other content moderation training materials, were stored in the internal workplace software, Lark, developed by TikTok’s parent company, Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-tied ByteDance. Recently, it was revealed that employees from Chinese ByteDance had direct access the TikTok U.S. user information.
Teleperformance Global President of Trust & Safety Akash Pugalia told Forbes his company does not use explicit child abuse videos during training. Forbes cited “legal and online safety experts” as saying that TikTok and its consultants’ handling of the explicit material is “ham-handed and cavalier at best, and harmful and re-traumatizing at worst.”
TikTok spokesperson Jamie Favazza told Forbes that the company’s “training materials have strict access controls and do not include visual examples” of child sexual abuse material, although she reportedly admitted that TikTok’s third-party partners may have separate processes.
Forbes wrote that images of child abuse and exploitation are illegal, and that, if discovered, the material in question must be removed immediately and reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), and there are strict rules for handling such images when discovered. NCMEC will review the information and get in touch with appropriate authorities. The law gives NCMEC 90 days to investigate and retain such information. The law does require that the content is deleted after the 90-day period.
Forbes reported that 25 percent of DRR Resource spreadsheet was made up of child sexual abuse content. Forbes claimed this was despite being said by former moderators. According to Forbes, it is not clear if the content has been removed from the DRR. Teleperformance employees working remotely raised concerns about the security of this content.
“It’s not hard to just come up with teaching tools that help staff delineate between what’s okay and what isn’t,” Forbes quoted David Vladeck, a former director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, as saying.
Teleperformance’s TikTok moderation program had begun by the end of 2019, former moderators told Forbes, though it is unclear when the contract was signed, according to Forbes.
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