Thursday, August 18, 2022

Oracle Begins Audit Of TikTok’s Algorithms And Content Moderation Models Over Fears Of Chinese Manipulation

TikTok has been in the limelight for quite some time now as researchers have raised alarms about user data being shared with China.

On that note, a new report by Axios has gone on to reveal today how Oracle has begun monitoring the platform. This includes a thorough audit of both content moderation as well as the app’s algorithms.

It is believed that the reviews actually started last week. But a lot of the focus on the decision has come about after the company opted to directly route most of its respective traffic to the US. To be more specific, we’re talking about servers based in Oracle.

The controversial claims that so much data is being accessed by the Chinese government officials without consent and further manipulated is definitely a worry that many lawmakers have had in the past.

Hence, the decision today is designed to provide greater reassurance to American lawmakers in this regard.

Oracle will be checking to see if TikTok is working around the policies that it has stood by since day one and not transgressing beyond bounds. The report also spoke about how Oracle will be making sure all the models for content moderation aren’t manipulated by China.

TikTok itself says it has begun auditing its own practices including models of content moderation and other automated systems used to provide content to users. There is a special emphasis on seeing how the app’s users are agreeing to its policy for privacy.

TikTok did confirm today that the news is accurate and it was certainly working hard on such practices, which many have been calling controversial for years.

One of the most striking reports came from The Washington Post that highlighted how TikTok was busy disguising content on the platform after receiving instructions from government officials in Beijing.

Moreover, the report also talked in detail about blocking certain types of content after they failed to impress Chinese officials who had cautioned against displaying such orders through the app.

In that same timeframe, another report was released by The Guardian that delineated how political speech-themed content on the app was forced under censor as the Chinese Government felt it was undesirable.

But along the way, TikTok has denied all such claims and any wrongdoing, trying hard to clear up its tainted image. They even referred to such news as outdated and irrelevant.

The real began this year in June when an alarming report by BuzzFeed confirmed that TikTok was way closer to its Chinese counterparts than many would like. The fact that data belonging to US users were constantly being accessed via employees in China really raised eyebrows.

And for evidence, data recordings were provided that were linked to more than 80 meetings.

That was enough to shake the firm owned by ByteDance, who decided to hush the matter by moving all American traffic to Oracle servers in the US. This way, the data would be secure from those trying to eye it from a distance.

This is why Oracle has been given the huge responsibility of eyeing TikTok and preventing any US data from being leaked or sent out to China. Therefore, the deal is definitely one that has brought into light a huge responsibility of Oracle, not to mention a high degree of involvement with the app.

If the audit goes according to plan, it would certainly be a huge win for TikTok as it would back up claims of the app that it has done absolutely nothing wrong.

Therefore, it’s definitely an interesting affair and we can’t wait for the results.


Read next: Innovation At Peak For TikTok As App Launches Its New In-App Text-To-Image AI Generator
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

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