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TikTok will now tell you why it removed your video

TikTok will now tell you why it removed your video

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Yes, you

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

You know what you did. Or do you? Until recently, TikTok wouldn’t necessarily explain why it removed one of your videos from the platform. You’d simply be told that it violated the company’s “community guidelines” somehow.

But today, TikTok is announcing that it will give you at least a vague idea of why your video is gone, by naming the specific policy it fell afoul of. That’s pretty similar to how other companies do it.

Here’s what TikTok’s new content violation notifications look like. The only real change is the name of the specific policy.
Here’s what TikTok’s new content violation notifications look like. The only real change is the name of the specific policy.
Image: TikTok

As before, you’ll be able to submit an appeal. Maybe you’ll have some idea what you’re appealing now. TikTok says it’s been experimenting with these notifications for a few months, and that appeals have actually gone down by 14 percent. (I guess they did know what they’d done.)

We had some idea this was coming: in July, when the company released its second transparency report, it revealed that it had started keeping track of the specific reasons why it removes each video.