About Research Tools

TikTok's Research Tools allows researchers with the necessary expertise who conduct research on a not-for-profit basis to access certain data, including the following information about public account owners.

• Videos: Videos that can be watched by "Everyone" and, for such videos, the total number of likes, total number of comments, total number of favorites, voice-to-text, subtitles, whether it can appear in our STEM, associated metadata (e.g. the time of creation), playlist information, as well as associated user content such as hashtags.
• Comments: Comment text, and total number of likes, replies, and the time the comment was posted.
• Accounts: Bios, profile pictures, country of registration (for example, a region code such as IE), the usernames and profile names, URLs shared by users who are verified, and engagement data (e.g. following list and followers list, and shop performance where the account sells on TikTok Shop).

The Research Tools supports research in areas such as misinformation, disinformation, violent extremism, social trends, and community building. In order to obtain access to TikTok's Research Tools, researchers must submit an application, be approved, adhere to our Community Guidelines, and TikTok Research Tools Terms of Service.

Where researchers need access to data of under 18 users for their research (for example, where they are researching minor rights' and online safety), TikTok applies additional protections to any under 18 data provided.

TikTok users have the right to object to the processing of their information when their data is processed for the purpose of facilitating scientific or historical research in certain circumstances.

Additional information about TikTok's Research Tools can be found on TikTok for Developers.

Data Sharing Pilot

The EU Digital Services Act (DSA) requires platforms such as TikTok to share certain data with certain qualifying researchers approved as part of the DSA (known as "Vetted Researchers"). In order to help set up this process under the DSA, TikTok is one of the few platforms that has participated in a pilot run by the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) to test sharing data with researchers under the DSA.

TikTok's contributions to this project build on EDMO's earlier initiatives to drive discussions and produce reports on access to platform data by researchers, including recommendations on data protection safeguards.

Throughout the pilot, TikTok has remained committed to protecting its users' privacy while facilitating and supporting independent research. On completion of the pilot, EDMO will produce a report on the pilot, which TikTok has provided input on.