As lately as final 12 months, TikTok employed a two-tier moderation system that gave preferential remedy to its hottest customers, in accordance with Forbes. The outlet obtained an audio recording of a September 2021 assembly the place the corporate detailed an inner characteristic referred to as “creator labels” that was reserved for accounts with greater than 5 million followers. When it got here to moderating these customers, a lot of them influencers and celebrities, TikTok reportedly filtered them by way of a separate moderation queue that noticed the corporate deal with these accounts in another way.

“We don’t want to treat these users as, um, like any other accounts. There’s a bit more leniency, I’d say,” one worker with TikTok’s Trust and Safety stated throughout the assembly, in accordance with Forbes. On its web site, the corporate states its Community Guidelines apply to “everyone and everything on TikTok.”

TikTok didn’t instantly reply to Engadget’s request for remark. A spokesperson for the corporate instructed Forbes it’s “not more lenient in moderating accounts with more than 5 million followers,” including it doesn’t have moderation queues primarily based on follower counts.

If the report is correct, TikTok wouldn’t be the primary firm to deal with its most influential and highly effective customers in another way. In 2021, The Wall Street Journal detailed how Meta’s XCheck system had allowed tens of millions of high-profile Facebook and Instagram customers to skirt its guidelines. In one incident described by the report, the system “blocked” Facebook moderators from eradicating nude photographs Brazilian soccer star Neymar posted of a girl who had accused him of sexual assault. The publish was seen greater than 60 million instances earlier than Meta took motion. Additionally, the corporate didn’t ban Nyemar’s account, although he shared non-consensual nudity in violation of its Community Guidelines.