The TikTok Company Targets Countries Including Somalia and Provides Details on the Matter

The company TikTok has targeted countries including Somalia and provided details on the matter

The social media company TikTok has removed millions of videos uploaded from East African countries, which were said to have violated the company's rules regarding permissible content. This action is part of a broader campaign underway in the region to control the content shared on social media.

In Kenya alone, TikTok removed 750,185 videos between April and June 2026, according to the company's latest report on its enforcement of its rules.

TikTok users and content creators in Kenya have reacted in various ways to this action. Some expressed concern over the revenue lost from the removed videos and fear of restrictions on freedom of speech, while others called for a cleanup of the content shared on the platform, and for content creators to adapt new strategies to comply with the company's strict regulations.

The report stated that 99.8 percent of flagged videos are removed from the platform through automated systems, before being reviewed by human staff.

Some content creators have stated that TikTok's system sometimes misinterprets harmless jokes, colloquial language used in Kenya, and educational-related videos, which forces them to frequently appeal decisions made to remove their videos.

On the other hand, a large portion of TikTok users in Kenya, parents, and analysts have welcomed this move. Following public complaints regarding the live broadcasts of sexually related content, online harassment, and children using the platform, many Kenyans see the deletion of children's accounts and harmful advertisements as a crucial step in cleaning up the platform.

To avoid losing their followers, some TikTok users in Kenya have created multiple accounts, while others change the spelling of words to evade the company's automated targeting.

Content creators are also encouraging each other to clearly label videos created by artificial intelligence (AI), and to carefully review their videos before posting.

In other countries in the region, over two million videos have been removed in Ethiopia, 677,000 in Uganda, 648,000 in Somalia, while nearly 500,000 videos have been removed in Tanzania. Rwanda and South Sudan have also been among the countries affected by this action.

The report indicates that 99.8 percent of videos were removed in Kenya before users reported them, while 93.8 percent were removed within the first 24 hours of being posted.

TikTok has also deleted more than 46,000 accounts belonging to Kenyan users, who were suspected of having children under the age of 13.