TikTok: A source of inspiration and entertainment

TikTok is a place where creativity grows, a space where everyone can express themselves, share their passion or even their profession.

In just a few years, TikTok has become a source of inspiration and entertainment, with more than 150 million people from all over Europe coming to our platform every month. TikTok is a place where creativity grows, a space where everyone can express themselves, share their passion or even their profession. From bibliophiles and foodies, to budding artists and farmers, culture is being remixed and reshaped in a unique way through TikTok.

Create opportunity in the real world

Our platform prioritizes content over social connections and has opened amazing opportunities for businesses, artists and creators to harness the creative potential of TikTok to achieve their goals:

– After losing their jobs during the pandemic, French couple Jojo and Josie open JOJO’s Dough Cookie shop in Cannes. Its viral TikTok content skyrocketed its sales, opening a second store in Paris and launching a franchise model to expand its business across France.

British rapper Stepz has achieved huge success on the platform and was, last year, the most viewed account on TikTok, when it comes to British artists. Stepz has built an impressive nearly 3 million followers through a mix of music and comedy content, and his viral hit – TikTok ‘Cramp Dat’ – has brought his creativity to a global audience.

We fully understand the importance of continuing to invest in Europe to support this thriving community. More than 5,000 people now work on TikTok in 10 countries across the region – Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the UK. Our people work in a variety of areas, from brand engagement, creators, e-commerce, and music to privacy, public policy, research and development, and security.

Promote a culture of compliance

This level of local investment also extends to our approach to keeping our European community and its data safe and secure, particularly in the context of new regulations.

Last week we released our first major report under the Code of Conduct on Misinformation, presenting more than 2,500 statements on the implementation and enforcement of TikTok’s policies in 30 European countries. We’ve also expanded our team with additional expertise and brought in key resources across the company to ensure our future compliance with the Digital Services Act (DAS).

Transparency is a key component of the Digital Services Act and we’ve supported the goals of regulation from the start, as they reflect the thinking that guides our quarterly Community Guidelines enforcement reports, where we provide information about the nature of content and accounts removed from our platform. We will continue to increase external visibility of the work we do to protect our society, including by opening the European Transparency and Accountability Center in Dublin next month, where the specialist public can learn more about our work to keep people informed. TikTok is safe.

Introducing our data management strategy

We also continue to focus on building trust with our community by showing that their data is safe. We continue to deliver on the data governance strategy we put in place for Europe last year, which includes reducing employee access to European user data; minimizing data flows outside Europe; and local storage of European user data.

In terms of domestic data storage, in line with the growth of our community, we are looking forward to expanding European data storage capacity. We are in the advanced stages of finalizing a plan for a second data center in Ireland with an offshore service provider, in addition to the site announced last year. We are also in talks to establish a third data center in Europe to continue to complement our planned operations in Ireland. Data from European TikTok users will start migrating this year, and continue through 2024.