Shifting platform values in community guidelines: Examining the evolution of TikTok’s governance frameworks

Social media can establish governance frameworks for their users through public-facing documents and policies. Such governance frameworks are value-laden and embody platform values. As a newly dominant platform in the United States, TikTok serves as an exemplary medium to study the evolution of platform values. Based on the iterations of TikTok’s Community Guidelines from 2018 to 2022 (N = 25,641), we conducted longitudinal lexical analyses to determine changes in their structure and value salience. Then, through network analysis, we demonstrated how values co-exist by constructing co-occurrence networks. Our results reveal that the lexical complexity and value interconnection of these policies have increased over time. Certain values are more central in the networks than others (e.g. privacy, safety, and fairness), which may be attributed to a public outcry for change. The evolution of TikTok’s governance frameworks follows three mechanisms (mediation, reversion, and founding paths) in shaping the core-periphery structures of platform values.