Image: art-skvortsova, remix by Emily Lipstein
Hacking. Disinformation. Surveillance. CYBER is Motherboard's podcast and reporting on the dark underbelly of the internet.
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DiPenti is not the only one. TikTok has removed content from a spread of other security creators too, highlighting the grey area TikTok puts this sort of material in. Some hacking content on the platform will be maliciously driven, but here, the creators are focused on education."It's really anyone that posts security content at all," DiPenti said.Jonathan Boring, a creator on TikTok and other platforms, told Motherboard "The videos with ANYTHING close[ly] related to hacking or cybersecurity get taken down.""Almost always," he added.Boring said the content is often restored. But that still creates a roadblock with creators having to appeal the decisions, and facing the prospect of being banned if too many of their videos are deemed to have violated the site's community guidelines. A suspension will last 3 days, and then appealing can take over 48 hours, Boring said.Boring suggested he has ended up self-censoring in an effort to avoid triggering enforcement from TikTok."I have to avoid words like 'hack,' 'hacking,' 'hacker,' etc," he said. He added that he can't do any videos on the HackRF Portapack H2, an add-on for the HackRF software defined radio product.Do you have access to internal TikTok moderation documents? We'd love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Joseph Cox securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, Wickr on josephcox, or email joseph.cox@vice.com.
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Marcus Hutchins, generally known as MalwareTech and for his role in stopping the WannaCry ransomware attack, said TikTok has also removed his videos."A lot of us had the same issues on the early days of YouTube and other platforms. Seems to be a consistent problem when platforms are newer," he told Motherboard. "I think the over moderation could lead to the same issues it does everywhere: making the platform unusable."TikTok told Motherboard that while the platform does not allow criminal activities or harassment, it does make exceptions for some educational content. When Motherboard sent an example of one of DiPenti's removed videos, TikTok told Motherboard the video had been removed in error and restored it.A day later, TikTok removed it, again."TikTok removed the same video again. And I'm unable to appeal it," DiPenti told Motherboard.Subscribe to our cybersecurity podcast, CYBER.