Video-sharing platform TikTok has unveiled its inaugural eight-member Safety Advisory Council for the sub-Saharan Africa region, as it looks to strengthen its safety protocols and improve its country-based policies.
The council, which includes one seat for Kenya, brings together a diverse group of experts including policy specialists, academics and content creators, and will be tasked with monitoring emerging regional safety concerns and recommending forward-looking policies.
Lilian Kariuki, founder and executive director of Kenya's Watoto Watch Network, will sit on the council alongside seven others, including Ghana's Dennis Coffie, Senegal's Aisha Dabo and Nigeria's Dr Akinola Olojo.
Others are Prof Guy Berger from South Africa, Prof Medhane Tadesse (Ethiopia), Berhan Taye (Ethiopia) and Peter Cunliffe-Jones, a visiting research fellow at the University of Westminster in the UK.
The formation of the advisory board comes just months after TikTok came under scrutiny from Kenyan authorities, who threatened to ban the platform in a move the government said was aimed at preventing leakage of sensitive data and enhancing citizen security.
In Kenya, TikTok is the third most followed social media platform after Facebook and YouTube, with an estimated 10.6 million Kenyans aged 18 and above having an account on the Chinese platform.
In an interview, TikTok's head of government relations and public policy for sub-Saharan Africa, Fortune Mgwili-Sibanda, said the team will be required to submit quarterly reports on their monitoring activities, which will inform regional regulation of the platform.
“These are African experts and specialists doing advisory work for us on issues related to safety on the platform. We shall then feed their input into our community guidelines and will greatly inform how we define them in future,” said Sibanda.
The official also revealed that TikTok is toying with the idea of introducing a directly paying monetisation programme in Kenya, as rival platforms X, YouTube and most recently Facebook have done, but stopped short of saying when it would launch.
“For easy community reporting, TikTok is required to share quarterly compliance reports with the ministry, clearly showing content taken down and reasons for the same,” ICT Principal Secretary John Tanui told MPs in April.
