The leaked documents show how the company games out responses to tricky questions, and highlight what the company thinks is its biggest public perception problem. China is one of the chief ones.
The PR documents obtained from within the company are called "TikTok Master messaging" and "TikTok Key Messages." There are explanations of press talking points in English and a translation into a European language. The language is not being named to protect the source of the document. The larger of the two is the 53-page TikTok Master messaging document. Since it was created in March 2020, the version history shows that it has been continually changed.
Is it close to the top of the list? ByteDance downplays the China association, downplays artificial intelligence. The second, third and fourth lines of the document are the bullet points that say "emphasise TikTok as a brand/ platform." TikTok is only for users aged 13 and over according to the company's advice.
Language similar to what is in the documents appeared in a TikTok executive's testimony before the United Kingdom's parliament. TikTok wouldn't answer questions about the leak.
The Chinese link is a known issue for TikTok PR, and it comes up frequently in both documents. In the TikTok Key Messages document, public relations people are given soundbites to answer any questions about China.
There are soundbites.
proof points for TikTok PRs are provided in the document.
Staff are given potential questions from journalists and stock answers in the master messaging document TikTok PR expects to face questions about the relationship between Bytedance and its individual products such as TikTok and Toutiao. Employees of TikTok can't comment on Byte Dance. Byte Dance will be referred to by us. Under the heading "DO NOT USE," the document gives staff a high-level briefing of Byte Dance's background.
There is a lot of information about TikTok being spread. The facts are here. TikTok has an American CEO, a head of security with decades of experience in the U.S. military and law enforcement, and a U.S. team that is responsible for the development of the security infrastructure. Some of the world's most respected global investors fill four of the five seats on the board.
The company's PR staff is told not to highlight the age of its users, who are reputed to be younger and cooler than those on other social networks. According to the guidance, the app is only for 13 and older. We may talk about young people, but not of children.
Most of the users of TikTok are between the ages of 16 and 25. The majority of users are older than 25.
PRs help head off questions about whether young users could be spending mom and dad's money on livestreaming gifts. The document says that the spending cap is $1,000 per day for internal information. Information has not been published before.
TikTok doesn't want to be scrutinized about how it determines what gets seen or heard. There is a bullet point in the "music" section of the master messaging document.
The company has prepared quotes for questions about past moderation decisions, including a suggestion that the Tiananmen Square revolution wouldn't be recommended through the app. They are part of the company's "down play the China association" strategy.
The PR representatives are recommended to say that the rules were formulated more restrictively in order to minimize conflicts. Last year, we realized that this wasn't the right approach. Local teams were given a more prominent role in this process as they have a better understanding of their markets.
The shorter Key Messages document echoes that sentiment. We operate in the scale of other big players because we are a platform that is nearly three years old. This responsibility is taken seriously by us. The document advises PRs that we made mistakes with our moderation policies. The local team has full authority to make decisions about our policies.
Theo Bertram, TikTok's director of government relations and public policy in Europe, the Middle, gave testimony to the UK parliament's Digital, Culture, Media and Sports select committee in September 2020.
The language used in letters to US Senators regarding TikTok's data access practices is similar to the language used in the language used by Language PR staff. According to the document, we are on par with, or less than, many other apps. There is a comment in the Key Messages document. The document says that the type of user data that we collect is in line with what our peers collect. Peer companies collect a lot of location data. We don't We like to compare our practices to what other people are doing. The data is protected from misuse.
The history of the Master Messaging document shows that excerpts of other internal documents were used to create it. The documents were not obtained by Gizmodo.
Questions about the documents were not answered by Tik Tok. The master messaging document seems to be the result of collaboration across multiple teams at the company. Six current or former TikTok employees commented on the changes that had been made to it. Three different users commented on the second Key Messages document created in February 2021.
A PR representative for a competitor says they are surprised by the document. The revealing thing here is not how many difficult topics the TikTok team are dealing with, but the lack of basic information the company is willing to let its PR team use to answer simple questions.
Tech PR claims that the lack of information puts TikTok PR at a disadvantage. To be taken seriously when talking on more difficult topics, a PR needs to be able to answer basic questions, even if it is a few hundred dollars.
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