| New research from digital identity security specialists, ID Crypt Global, reveals that the amount of spam being removed from TikTok has increased by as much as 1,200% in the past year as social media platforms battle to keep disinformation away from their networks.
ID Crypt Global has analysed data from Facebook* and TikTik* regarding the amount and variety of spam content being removed from their platforms, and how this has changed over the past year. Facebook’s rules state that the platform does not allow spam, which it defines as “content that is designed to be shared in deceptive and annoying ways or attempts to mislead users to drive engagement”. The platform describes spam as being spread in two ways: automated spam published by bots or scripts, and coordinated spam when a human user uses multiple accounts to spread deceptive content. Both methods are typically used for some sort of financial gain. The analysis shows that: - - In its battle to reduce the amount of spam on the platform, Facebook removed 436m pieces of spam content in Q1 2024 (January-March). This marks a quarterly decline of -54.8%, and an annual reduction of -72.8%. It is also the lowest number of quarterly spam removals since at least 2017.
- This huge reduction in spam removal suggests that there is now less spam on Facebook than ever before, likely due to its popularity declining in favour of other social media platforms.
- One such platform is TikTok. TikTok says it is “vigilant…in efforts to detect external threats and safeguard the platform from fake accounts and engagement”, but admits that the constant attack of spam does still lead to “occasional fluctuations” in the amount that is able to infiltrate the platform.
- Much like Facebook, TikTok has seen removal numbers for some kinds of spam significantly reduced in the past year.
- In Q1 2024, 236m fake Likes were removed, which is -56% less than Q1 2023. This reduction is at least partially due to TikTok’s growing ability to block fake Likes, which it did 23.6 billion times in Q1 2024, marking an annual increase of 181%.
- In the past year, TikTok has seen the number of fake Followers removed from the platform fall by -97%, while the number of fake Follow requests prevented has fallen by -11%.
- Such reductions might suggest that TikTok is successfully deterring spammers from trying to manipulate the platform, but further data shows that there is still a tough task ahead due to persistent efforts to infiltrate the network.
- In the past year, the number of fake accounts that TikTok has prevented from infiltrating the platform has soared by 312% and the number of videos removed from fake accounts that have managed to get through TikTok’s spam filter has increased by 1,241%.
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Data tables and sources Full data tables and sources can be viewed online, here. |
