TikTok has agreed to set up a Kenyan office for higher content material moderation and African operations. Despite present authorized troubles round content material moderation in Kenya, the president’s assertion concerning the meeting ignores TikTok’s involvement with one of many key events, Majorel.
After meeting with President Ruto William, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has agreed to set up a TikTok office in Kenya to coordinate its operations on the continent. The meeting was held on Thursday, August 24, 2023; it was a well timed dialog given the latest debate about banning the platform due to specific content material posted by customers. President William Ruto mentioned the transfer will be certain that content material on the platform is moderated to match group requirements.
There are many difficulties round content material moderation, and earlier this yr, former content material moderators sued Meta and Majorel for wrongful dismissal. A court docket dominated that Meta might be held chargeable for labor rights violations regardless of the moderators being employed by third-party contractors like Majorel. As the lawsuit gained consideration, an inner TikTok doc leaked, exhibiting that the corporate was getting ready for investigations into its remedy of outsourced content material moderators in Kenya.
The president’s assertion concerning the meeting additionally says nothing about bettering Kenya’s monetisation of the platform. When asserting the meeting the day earlier than, President Ruto mentioned he would discuss with Mr. Chew about extending monetisation channels to Kenyans. Currently, no African nation can earn cash immediately from the platform, solely by way of influencer advertising and marketing, internet online affiliate marketing, or the advertising and marketing of their items and providers. Ruto mentioned he had beforehand interacted with social media platforms similar to Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter regarding monetisation methods. However, it stays unclear if these conversations influenced the selections of YouTube and Facebook to allow monetisation in Kenya.
While he claims that his talks with YouTube have led to the East African nation is among the solely 4 African nations that gained entry to the platform’s monetisation program final yr, information stories courting again to 2015 present that Kenya and several other different African nations have had entry to the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) for practically a decade. YPP presents creators enhanced entry to monetisation options, that are presently accessible to 12 African nations, opposite to President Ruto’s claims that solely 4 nations have entry to them.
Kenya is among the many 4 African nations— Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa— that may monetise content material by way of Facebook’s Ad Breaks characteristic, permitting video creators to earn income from ads. However, they gained entry to it in 2019—when President Ruto was deputy president to Uhuru Kenyatta. It’s unsure if he or the Kenyan authorities influenced the number of these nations. In the primary quarter of the yr, Facebook introduced the characteristic was now obtainable to Kenya, the nation ranked fourth amongst African nations for residents’ social media utilization, suggesting that the choice might have been data-driven.
President Ruto desires an analogous monetisation association between Kenyan content material creators. There are direct monetisation channels similar to Livestream presents and the Creator fund, however they aren’t obtainable in any African nation. Africans on TikTok at present earn by way of influencer advertising and marketing, internet online affiliate marketing, and presumably promoting their services or products.
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https://techcabal.com/2023/08/24/tiktok-to-set-up-a-kenyan-office/
