The content was taken down for violating the platform’s Community Guidelines, marking a 50% increase in enforcement compared to the previous quarter.

The figures are detailed in TikTok’s Q1 2025 Community Guidelines Enforcement Report, underscoring the platform’s ongoing mission to foster a secure, inclusive, and respectful online environment for users across Nigeria and beyond.

Proactive Safety at Scale

According to the TikTok report (focus: Nigeria):

• 4% of the removed content was taken down before it was reported
• 1% of violative videos were removed within 24 hours of being uploaded
• A total of 42,196 LIVE rooms were banned and 48,156 livestreams were interrupted in Nigeria for guideline violations

These actions reflect TikTok’s continued investment in AI-powered moderation tools, a dedicated global safety team, and a growing network of local partnerships.

Despite the high volume of removals, TikTok emphasizes that this represents only a small fraction of the total content shared by the Nigerian community, the vast majority being positive, entertaining, educational, and uplifting.

Global Impact, Local Protection

Globally, TikTok removed over 211 million videos in Q1 2025, up from 153 million the previous quarter, with more than 184 million removals executed automatically.

The platform’s global proactive detection rate now stands at 99%, showcasing major improvements in how quickly harmful content is identified and removed.

In West Africa, TikTok also removed 129 covert accounts in March 2025, as part of its broader strategy to tackle coordinated harmful behaviour on the platform.

Elevating LIVE Safety and Monetization Standards

While TikTok LIVE continues to be a powerful tool for real-time engagement, the platform is enforcing stricter monetization rules and clearer content policies. Certain LIVE content is now ineligible for monetization, and enforcement of these guidelines remains a top priority.

New Tools and Resources for Nigerian Users

In June 2025, TikTok Africa hosted the “My Kind of TikTok Digital Well-being Summit”, convening NGOs, creators, policymakers, and safety experts from across Sub-Saharan Africa.

At the summit, TikTok unveiled several initiatives aimed at strengthening well-being and youth safety in Nigeria, including:

• In-App Helplines: Rolling out soon in Nigeria through a partnership with Cece Yara, a child-focused non-profit. These helplines will offer expert support to users encountering issues related to suicide, self-harm, bullying, and harassment.
• New Well-being Ambassador: Dr. Olawale Ogunlana (Doctor Wales), a Nigerian healthcare professional and member of the WHO Fides Network, has joined TikTok’s global team of verified health experts to promote digital wellness.

Community at the Core: #SaferTogether

TikTok continues to invite users to play an active role in creating a safer platform through its ongoing #SaferTogether campaign, encouraging community reporting, education, and responsible content sharing.

These initiatives reinforce the platform’s core belief that digital safety is a shared responsibility.

“Our Q1 2025 enforcement report reflects not only the scale of our safety efforts, but also our commitment to transparency and trust,” said a TikTok spokesperson. “We’re working with Nigerian partners and communities to ensure our platform remains a force for good, a space where creativity thrives without compromise to user safety.”

The full report can be accessed here.

The social media giant, in its latest Community Guidelines Enforcement report, placed Nigeria among the top 50 countries with the highest number of violations.

The scale of enforcement was global—153 million videos were taken down in total. The United States topped the list with 8.5 million videos deleted. 

TikTok stated that these takedowns were necessary to maintain platform integrity, covering violations related to misinformation, privacy breaches, security risks, and harmful behaviour.

Alongside video removals, TikTok also deleted 211.5 million accounts in the same period. The majority—185.3 million—were classified as fake. Another 20.5 million accounts belonged to users suspected to be under 13, violating TikTok’s age restrictions. An additional 5.6 million accounts were shut down for unspecified reasons.

“We remain vigilant in our efforts to detect external threats and safeguard the platform from fake accounts and engagement. These threats persistently probe and attack our systems, leading to occasional fluctuations in the reported metrics,” the report stated.

TikTok also revealed updates to its detection system for fake likes and followers, increasing the accuracy of its enforcement initiatives. These changes, it claimed, better reflect the scale of current moves to remove manipulated engagement on the platform.

Despite its aggressive enforcement, TikTok is still under investigation, particularly in the United States. In October 2024, 13 U.S. states, along with Washington D.C., filed lawsuits against the platform. They accused TikTok of failing to protect young users and deliberately designing its app to be addictive.

The lawsuits argue that the platform exploits children’s vulnerabilities to maximise profits, further fuelling talks about its impact on mental health. Plaintiffs are seeking financial penalties and demanding stricter regulations to hold the company accountable.

The platform deleted 1.7 million videos uploaded by Nigerian users during the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2023.

Throughout the evaluation period, 176.5 million videos were taken down from the internet worldwide.

TikTok, in its Community Guidelines Enforcement report, averred that the top 50 markets which violated its policies accounted for approximately 90 per cent of all content removals for the quarter.

According to the report, the deleted videos violate TikTok’s rules pertaining to safety, civility, mental and behavioural health, privacy and security, integrity and authenticity, among others.

TikTok claimed that within the period under examination, it had deleted 169 million accounts that had been found to be fraudulent or spam.

“From October through to the end of 2023, we removed more than 169 million fake accounts globally, and we have removed about 1.2 million bot comments on content tagged with hashtags related to the Israel-Hamas war.

“We remain vigilant in our efforts to detect external threats and safeguard the platform from fake accounts and engagement. These threats persistently probe and attack our systems, leading to occasional fluctuations in the reported metrics within these areas.

“Despite this, we are steadfast in our commitment to promptly identify and remove any accounts, content, or activities that seek to artificially boost popularity on our platform. During the fourth quarter of 2023, we saw an increase in some of our fake engagement metrics,” it added.

According to the firm, 1.03 billion likes on videos were also deleted. The social networking site also removed 4.9 billion fraudulent follow requests and 720 million fake followers. The deleted likes, followers, and follow requests, according to TikTok, were found to have originated from “automated or inauthentic mechanisms.

According to TikTok, during the 4Q 2023, the number of ads removed for breaking its advertising regulations increased while the number of ads removed as a result of account-level actions decreased.

According to the report, more than 1.5 million ads were deleted in Q4 2023 due to violations of the company’s advertising regulations, up from 1.3 million in Q3.

“We are continually reviewing and strengthening our systems to identify new patterns and quickly and accurately remove ads that violate our policies. By upholding strict policies, leveraging advanced detection mechanisms, and continuously improving our systems, we strive to foster an advertising experience that is trustworthy, enjoyable, and aligned with the values of our vibrant TikTok community,” the company added.