Photos: Black Star News\ Kittl\Wikimedia Commons
TikTok is looking to calm governments’ nerves across the continent as it rolls out new measures to improve its ability to moderate content in Africa. The company set up an advisory council last month to inform its policies on the continent. It also updated community guidelines to take into account cultural norms in the countries it operates in and to be clearer to creators.
Fortune Sibanda, the company’s head of public policy and government relations in Africa, told Semafor Africa that the company had in recent months been working to “demystify misconceptions” about its work. The push comes amid mounting scrutiny into the ByteDance owned-app from governments around the continent as its popularity skyrockets.
The eight-person council is composed of African experts drawn from different sectors who will advise the company on its approach on various issues in different African countries.
They include Ethiopian academic Prof Medhane Tadesse, Nigeria’s Dr Akinola Olojo — an expert on countering violent extremism, and Kenya’s Lilian Kariuki, founder of child online safety organization Watoto Watch Network. Others are Ghanaian content creator Dennis Coffie and Aisha Dabo, co-founder of Senegalese pro-democracy organization AfricTivistes
A survey conducted by Geopoll in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa last year found that TikTok was the second most popular social media platform by active user engagement, ahead of Instagram and X. It only trailed Facebook.
— Martin K.N Siele in Nairobi
