TikTok is introducing a new feature that allows them to reduce the volume of AI-made media appearing in their feeds. This step comes as the platform revealed that it currently hosts more than 1 bn AI videos.
Trial and Implementation
The update is undergoing trials over the next few weeks before a global release. This shift comes amid a increase in content created by AI, fueled by recent video-generation tools.
AI Content on Other Platforms
Recent reports that approximately 10% of the most rapidly expanding channels on a popular video site only show clips produced artificially. A large amount of this content is deemed “AI slop”, a phrase for poor-quality, bulk-generated content that is frequently absurd or dreamlike.
“We know from our community that a lot of users like content created using AI tools, ranging from AI artwork to educational videos, and we aim to provide users the ability to adjust the amount of that, based on their own choices,” stated a platform representative.
AI on the Platform
TikTok shared that there are currently 1.3bn videos on its network tagged as AI-generated. Overall, more than 100 million media items are uploaded to the platform each day, making AI content a relatively small portion of its overall inventory.
Customizing Your Feed
Users will be in a position to reduce or increase the volume of AI content they watch by opening the content preference option in the application and picking the AI content topic. Additional categories that are already be controlled under the setting encompass current affairs, fashion, beauty, and dance.
Platform Guidelines
The platform’s policies oblige content makers to label lifelike artificially created content, and it forbids malicious deepfakes of well-known individuals or critical incidents. Any believable artificial content that is without a tag can be taken down under its community policies.
In addition, the platform will henceforth attach an “AI-made” watermark to content created with its own AI tools, or detected by an industry-wide initiative for identifying AI-generated material. This step is aimed to help prevent users from trying to bypass the tagging system.
Educational Initiatives
TikTok is furthermore launching a $2m AI literacy fund for professionals and organizations to produce informative material about using AI responsibly. This project will support educational bodies focused on educating programming and robotics.
Moderation Strategy
TikTok has defended its moderation strategy, amid discussion over intentions to cut jobs for hundreds of review team members in Britain. It is expected to eliminate hundreds of positions in its content moderation team in the UK capital, with labor groups and online safety experts raising concerns that people are being substituted by machine-led review.
A senior executive clarified that people-led review would still have a role, but artificial intelligence can safeguard staff by filtering out the most graphic content before it is viewed by staff. TikTok stated a 76% decrease in explicit and harmful content seen by content reviewers over the last 12 months due to the use of its AI tools.
It is vital to balance people and machines to maintain a secure environment,” the official commented. “We’ll have staff as part of that process, but we additionally believe it’s highly necessary to minimize viewing of harmful content as swiftly, which is why a significant AI assistance is really helping us process content quickly.”
