New TikTok Guidelines Push LGBTQ+ Acceptance, Counter Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia

TikTok has updated its community guidelines and announced an ambitious, four-pronged approach to countering various cases of hate and discrimination on the diverse and burgeoning application.

“While our Trust & Safety teams already work to remove hate speech and hateful ideologies, such as neo-Nazism and white supremacy, we are strengthening our enforcement action to remove neighboring ideologies, such as white nationalism, white genocide theory, as well as statements that have their origin in these ideologies, and movements such as Identitarianism and male supremacy,” the Chinese video-sharing social network revealed in a Wednesday news release.

This change comes as part of TikTok’s vow to take a stand against hateful ideologies. In addition, the company seeks to increase the cultural awareness of its users via content moderation; improve transparency within the community; and invest in socially conscious leadership.

The company patted itself on the back when it came to the issue of anti-Semitism, highlighting that the application does not permit “content that denies the Holocaust and other violent tragedies.”

This practice will be taken a step further in the near future as TikTok seeks to “remove misinformation and hurtful stereotypes about Jewish, Muslim and other communities.”

“This includes misinformation about notable Jewish individuals and families who are used as proxies” to spread anti-Semitism, said the release.

“Hateful ideas” regarding the LGBTQ+ community, including promoting inhumane practices such as conversion therapy, will also be removed.

TikTok’s ambitious new community guidelines will also attempt to differentiate between when a word or phrase would be considered hate speech versus a community’s attempt at reclaiming the term.

“If a member of a disenfranchised group, such as the LGBTQ+, Black, Jewish, Roma and minority ethnic communities, uses a word as a term of empowerment, we want our enforcement teams to understand the context behind it and not mistakenly take the content down,” the release explained.

As for transparency, TikTok will notify the respective content owner upon moderation and also provide the user with an opportunity to contest the enforcement team’s decision.

Furthermore, the company claims it has “added leaders with deep expertise” in social consciousness and how it relates to online content management.

TikTok’s new guidelines follow the company’s decision to join the European Commission's Code of Conduct on Countering Illegal Hate Speech Online.

“We have never allowed hate on TikTok, and we believe it's important that internet platforms are held to account on an issue as crucial as this,” the company declared in its September announcement on the code of conduct, which was established in May 2016 with immediate support from Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube.

https://sputniknews.com/science/202010231080853374-new-tiktok-guidelines-push-lgbtq-acceptance-counter-anti-semitism-islamophobia-/

IDF strikes Hamas targets in Gaza in response to rocket fire

Israeli aircraft strike weapons manufacturing facility, underground infrastructure belonging to terror group, after 2 projectiles fired at Ashkelon

Israel carried out airstrikes against the Hamas terror group in Gaza in the early hours of Friday morning, in response to two rockets fired into Israel by Palestinian terrorists in the Strip on Thursday night, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.

IDF warplanes and other aircraft attacked a Hamas weapons manufacturing facility and underground infrastructure, the army said.

Tensions have climbed in the south after the IDF on Tuesday announced uncovering what it said was a Hamas attack tunnel inside Israeli territory that had been dug from the Gaza Strip.

The rockets were fired on Thursday at the city of Ashkelon and nearby communities north of the Gaza Strip, the second attack in days following months of relative quiet along the border.

The IDF said one projectile was intercepted by the Iron Dome air defense system. The second projectile appeared to land in an open field. No injuries or damage were reported.

A single rocket was fired at Israel on Tuesday, drawing a reprisal raid. The rocket attack occurred hours after the military announced uncovering the tunnel into Israel. A Gazan rocket was also fired at Israel on Friday.

The so-called “terror tunnel” had been constructed from the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis toward the Israeli community of Kibbutz Kissufim.

Though the tunnel penetrated dozens of meters into Israeli territory, it remained on the Gaza side of the underground concrete barrier around the Strip. IDF Spokesperson Hidai Zilberman said the sensor-studded barrier, which is due to be completed in the coming months, first identified an anomaly on Monday and military engineers confirmed that it was in fact a tunnel the following day.

The military said Wednesday night it had determined that Hamas was behind the tunnel based on the manner in which it was constructed. It did not offer any details.

There was no immediate comment from Hamas.

The military said the tunnel did not pose a threat to communities in the area.

Reports have proliferated in Hebrew media in recent weeks that Qatar is close to reaching a deal to resume supplying tens of millions of dollars in monthly cash transfers to Gaza, meant to help keep a lid on internal pressures.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-strikes-hamas-targets-in-gaza-in-response-to-rocket-fire/

>>11229569

8bit is a good guy he was taken to task, made some mistakes got called on it but tried to right his wrongs

fapjack however has yet to earn my respect.