Initiative aims to bolster social networking firm’s efforts to be more open, accountable to audiences DUBAI: Social networking service TikTok has launched a dedicated transparency center to bolster its efforts to be more open and accountable to audiences. The new hub will house the platform’s annual and quarterly transparency reports, in addition to upcoming interactive reports. The launch accompanies the latest H1 2021 content removal requests reports. The company began releasing transparency reports in 2019 in a bid to build trust, which is becoming increasingly important as more instances of social media platforms’ negligent use of user data come to light. Most recently, the platform released the findings of a report specially commissioned to help better understand young people’s engagement with potentially harmful challenges and hoaxes — pranks or scams created to frighten someone — in an attempt to strengthen safety on the platform. TikTok is also incorporating feedback from civil society organizations and experts to further develop refreshed report formats, offering downloadable data in machine-readable formats. The reports aim to be visually appealing and reader-friendly with interactive charts and graphs to better illustrate data and actions taken. The reports will be published in 26 languages, including Arabic, English, French, German, Spanish, traditional Chinese, Russian, and Urdu.