TikTok ranks Ugandan content among the most harmful in the world

Popular social media platform TikTok has flagged Uganda as a major source of content that violates its policies in its latest report.

New figures from the China-based short-form videos platform reveal a troubling trend of local users flooding the app with material that breaches community guidelines, including hate speech, misinformation, and sexually explicit content. 

The platform's latest transparency report shows that in the three months to June, TikTok deleted over 1.5 million videos posted by Ugandan accounts.

This figure dwarfs the 450,000 videos reportedly taken down in neighbouring Kenya, where internet and social media usage are both higher. 

Consequently, Uganda has now made a dramatic leap into the global top 30 countries with the highest number of deleted TikTok videos and accounts. 

The nation now ranks 29th worldwide on this metric, ahead of several European countries with far greater online populations, such as France, Italy, and Spain. 

Uganda did not feature in the global ranking at all the previous year.

TikTok is Uganda's second-most popular social media platform after WhatsApp.

Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) says the country now has 8.8 million TikTok users, approximately 17 per cent of the total population.

The majority of content removed from the platform in Uganda did not pertain to political misinformation or censorship issues. 

According to TikTok’s data, a majority—over 60 per cent—of the deleted videos involved inappropriate material such as nudity, or depictions of regulated products like alcohol, drugs, or firearms. 

TikTok, which globally removed 189 million videos in the quarter, attributes some of its higher removal numbers to improved moderation technology, with nearly 99 per cent of deleted content being removed proactively before user reports. 

Regionally, Uganda's 1.5 million removals trail Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan, which recorded higher violation numbers across the same period.

One potential technical factor contributing to the high number of proactive moderation actions in Uganda is language. 

Since English is the primary language used by Ugandan content creators, their material is subject to the most globally targeted content moderation efforts, given that nearly a quarter of all removed videos worldwide are in English. 

However, digital rights experts have offered a different interpretation of the online environment.

The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa, a Kampala-based technology think tank, suggests that authorities often focus on silencing dissent rather than tackling genuinely harmful content. 

They claim that condemnations of 'offensive' content are frequently directed at political commentary and satire, blurring the lines between disinformation control and censorship.