By Shira Hanau
TikTok announced a slate of new features intended to reduce the spread of misinformation about the Holocaust shared on the platform and to direct users to trustworthy sources about the subject.
Beginning Thursday, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a banner will pop up when users search for Holocaust-related terms and direct them to aboutholocaust.org, a website run by the World Jewish Congress and UNESCO, to offer information about Holocaust history.
A link to the website will also pop up for users viewing hashtags related to the Holocaust like #Holocaust and #HolocaustSurvivor.
TikTok and other social media platforms have long been criticized for allowing Holocaust denial and antisemitism to spread unchecked on their platforms. Some Jewish content creators have also complained about being banned or censored from the platform for posting videos that educate about Judaism or antisemitism.
The social media platform, which is made up of short user-produced videos, has pledged to crack down on hate speech shared on the platform in the past and has worked with the Anti-Defamation League to develop protocols for determining hate speech.
“Hateful behavior of any kind is incompatible with our values and the inclusive environment we are building at TikTok. We condemn antisemitism in all its forms and deploy a combination of technologies and moderation teams to remove antisemitic content and accounts from our platform, including Holocaust denial or any other form of hate speech directed at the Jewish community,” the company said in an announcement.
