TikTok Moves Its Trust and Safety Personnel Pieces Around Its Chess Board

TikTok is shuffling its trust and safety personnel deck in response to pressure from individual states and the federal government over safety and security concerns.

The company is establishing a trust and safety team within the U.S. data security team it formed in June, and the new team will be led by current head of U.S. safety Eric Han, who becomes head of U.S data security trust and safety.

Other U.S. safety teams, including legal policy and threat intelligence, will be reorganized into the U.S data security trust and safety team.

The U.S data security trust and safety team will work on compliance, content moderation and safety strategies for the private data of U.S. users, while the company’s global trust and safety team will continue to develop global safety policies for the platform and oversee the moderation of content worldwide that does not involve the private data of U.S. users.

Content policies and strategies developed by TikTok’s global team will be reviewed and approved by the U.S data security trust and safety team in order to ensure compliance with protocols being developed with the U.S. government.

TikTok head of trust and safety Cormac Keenan explained in a blog post Thursday, “At the same time, we’re combining forces between the rest of our U.S. safety team and our global trust and safety team to deliver on our shared mission to protect people from harm, promote platform integrity and foster a place that brings people joy. By bringing together the talents of our teams, we aim to create even more effective safeguards for our global community, with increased people power and more seamless handling of potentially harmful content, issues and events globally.”

Keenan added that TikTok now has more than 40,000 safety professionals worldwide working to build policies, processes and systems that protect against harm and promote authenticity, diversity and safety.

TikTok also named current director of U.S. policy Tara Wadhwa to the newly created role of head of country policy, charged with ensuring that the company’s global policies meet the needs of the countries it serves around the world, including the U.S.

Keenan wrote, “TikTok’s mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy to people around the world. This mission is made possible by the critical work our trust and safety team does each day to prevent, detect and remove harmful content and behavior from the platform. Our goal is to keep TikTok a welcoming, enjoyable place for self-expression, connection and entertainment. With that in mind, we’re making improvements to how we’re organized internally to further promote a safe and secure platform for our community.”