Popular social media app, TikTok, has removed over 3.6 million videos posted by Nigerian users between January and March 2025. The company said the videos were taken down for going against its content policy and community guidelines.
This figure is a sharp increase compared to the previous quarter, when TikTok deleted about 2.4 million videos from Nigerian accounts. The increase shows that the platform is becoming stricter with its enforcement actions and wants to keep the digital space safe and respectful.
This information was shared in TikTok’s Community Guidelines Enforcement Report for the first quarter of 2025. The report also shows that the company is now more proactive in detecting harmful or rule-breaking content. According to the data, 98.4% of the videos removed were discovered and deleted before any user had the chance to report them. Also, 92.1% of these removals happened within just 24 hours.
Apart from videos, TikTok also targeted suspicious accounts. In March 2025, the platform removed 129 accounts across West Africa that were linked to secret or misleading operations. This is part of a larger effort to fight misinformation, fake popularity, and political manipulation on the app.
Globally, the number of deleted videos has also gone up. In total, TikTok took down more than 211 million videos around the world during the same period. Out of these, over 184 million were removed using automated systems that can detect violations without human help. The global proactive detection rate stood at 99%, showing that TikTok is becoming faster and better at removing harmful content before it spreads.
TikTok is also cracking down on fake engagement. Between January and March 2025, the platform deleted 44.7 million fake comments and 4.3 billion fake likes. These fake engagements were linked to bots or other systems that try to make videos look more popular than they are. The company said it is keeping a close watch on such fake activities and will continue to remove any accounts or content that try to manipulate the platform’s algorithm.
TikTok’s statement read, “We remain vigilant in our efforts to detect external threats and safeguard the platform from fake accounts and engagement. These threats persistently probe and attack our systems, leading to occasional fluctuations in the reported metrics within these areas. Despite this, we are steadfast in our commitment to promptly identify and remove any accounts, content, or activities that seek to artificially boost popularity on our platform.”
Regarding TikTok LIVE — the live-streaming feature of the app — the company also carried out strong enforcement. In Nigeria, TikTok banned 42,196 LIVE rooms and stopped 48,156 LIVE streams for violating its policies within the first quarter. The platform has now tightened its LIVE Monetization Guidelines, making it clear which types of content are not allowed to earn money from the app.
Even though millions of posts and accounts are being removed, TikTok noted that harmful content still forms less than 1% of everything uploaded to the platform. This means that the majority of users follow the rules and use TikTok responsibly.
Still, TikTok is facing legal troubles from governments across the world. In October 2024, 13 U.S. states and Washington D.C. took legal action against the company. The lawsuits accused TikTok of not doing enough to protect young users, especially teenagers, from harmful content. According to the cases filed in New York, California, and other states, the app is built in a way that makes it addictive, which could affect children’s mental health.
The lawsuits argue that TikTok’s software is designed to keep young people glued to their screens for hours, raising serious questions about the platform’s role in shaping social behavior and public health.
In Nigeria, digital rights advocates have urged users to be more cautious about what they share on the app. They also called on TikTok to invest in more localized content moderation and work with Nigerian regulators to ensure fairness.
