TikTok Hires Law Firm To Help Review Content Moderation Policies

TikTok has hired U.S. law firm K&L Gates to help review its content moderation policies. After all, the viral short-form video sharing app has been getting TikRocked recently:

• Last month, The Guardian got its hands on internal documents showing moderators were instructed to remove content Beijing doesn't like.
• Last week, Sen. Marco Rubio called on the U.S. government to investigate TikTok's M&A activity.
• Yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg took a swipe at the app's heavy-handed content moderation.

Refresher for non-Gen Z readers: TikTok's algorithms push more personalized content as users spend more time on the platform. And speaking from personal experience, it's highly addicting. TikTok is one of the U.S.' most downloaded mobile apps this year.

Zoom out: TikTok, which last year said it would employ 10,000 human moderators, is China's first successful consumer tech export. That's great and all, but Chinese AI startups are being targeted by U.S. lawmakers. I interned in the D.C. K&L Gates office TikTok has hired, and my hunch is that this isn't just about content moderation...it probably will involve some policy and lobbying help as well.