Video-sharing app TikTok on Tuesday said that it had removed over 3.7 crore videos from India in the first half of 2020 for violating its guidelines. The company gave the information in its transparency report.

TikTok, which is owned by Chinese multinational firm ByteDance, was banned in India along with several other apps in June, amid border tensions between the two countries.

The company said that it removed 3,76,82,924 videos from India, followed by 98,22,996 from the United States, 64,54,384 from Pakistan, 55,25,783 from Brazil and 29,49,620 from the United Kingdom.

TikTok added that it had removed over 10 crore videos from its platform globally. “In the first half of 2020 (January 1 - June 30), 10,45,43,719 videos were removed globally for violating our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service, which is less than 1% of all videos uploaded on TikTok,” the company said in its report. “Of those videos, we found and removed 96.4% of videos before a user reported them, and 90.3% were removed before they received any views.”

The company said that amid the coronavirus crisis, it had been relying more on technology to automatically eliminate content that violated its policies. TikTok also announced the launch of fact-check programmes in Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Spain, US and the UK.

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The company is facing the possibility of a ban in the US. Last week, the government delayed the ban on TikTok till September 27 following its proposal to make multinational firm Oracle its US technology provider and retail company Walmart a commercial partner.

In August, US President Donald Trump had issued executive orders banning transactions with the video app within 45 days if it did not sell off its assets. A week later, he issued another order and gave the company the 90-day ultimatum to close the deal. He has repeatedly alleged that the app poses a threat to his country’s national security because of Beijing’s influence.

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