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TikTok has removed 11,149,514 accounts for violating Community Guidelines or Terms of Service, a statement on June 30 said.

Out of which, the social media company said that 7,263,952 were removed for potentially belonging to a person under the age of 13 — the minimum age for TikTok according to their terms and conditions.

Over 61 million videos were also removed for violating Community Guidelines or Terms of Service.

The five markets with the largest volumes of removed videos include the U.S., Brazil and Indonesia.

2021 Transparency report

TikTok has released their transparency report for the first quarter of this year, providing "visibility into the volume and nature of content and accounts removed from (their) platform during the first three months of 2021".

It stated that they aim to create age-appropriate environments by developing policies and tools that help promote safe and positive experiences on our platform.

Earlier this year in January, a new default privacy settings was introduced for teens, setting user accounts ages 13-15 to private and restricting who can download their videos and engage with their content.

Young users on TikTok

A 2020 article by the New York Times (NYT) reported that TikTok previously classified over one-third of its daily users in the U.S. to be 14. years old or younger, according to internal company data and documents.

There are concerns that some under-13 users may lie to get around the age restrictions when registering for an account.

In the U.S., those who declare that they are under 13 are allowed to use a " walled-off mode within the app", NYT reported. They cannot share personal information or videos.

Internet sites are also required to obtain parental permission before collecting data on children under 13, according to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.

TikTok was forced to pay the US Federal Trade Commission a US$5.7 million fine in 2019 for collecting children’s data, according to SCMP. This data included their names, email address and locations.

Top photo via Solen Feyissa/Unsplash