Off-Limits: Sexual Violence on TikTok

Authors: Paula-Charlotte Matlach and Allison Castillo

Published: 17 January 2025

TikTok’s efforts to remove shocking and graphic content – including sexual and physical abuse of both children and adults – remains inconsistent and might be inadvertently marginalising victims and survivors of sexual violence. ISD has examined the platform’s content moderation practices on sexual violence in English, French, German and Hungarian. On the one hand, ISD analysts found significant gaps in enforcement across languages, locations and devices. On the other hand, TikTok’s efforts to uphold their own Community Guidelines and stop the dissemination of violent or sexualised content may have also affected legitimate discussions and information concerning gender-based violence – for example, by blocking terms associated with sexual violence completely. TikTok’s guidelines state that “reproductive health and sex education content” are explicitly allowed.

However, it appears that the enforcement of these guidelines is inconsistent, which could result in a disproportionate negative impact on women and the LGBTQ+ community. Two contradictory conclusions arise: TikTok’s moderation strategy on sexual violence is failing to balance moderating violent content and ensuring freedom of expression, as required under Article 34 of the DSA. Its moderation policies are also simultaneously risking the restriction of legitimate discussion about sexual violence and insufficient consideration of sexual violence keywords.

This briefing is part of a series examining online gender-based violence (OGBV) on TikTok in English, German, French and Hungarian. It is part of the project Monitoring Online Gender Based Violence Around the European Parliament Election 2024, funded by the German Federal Foreign Office.