Throughout 2020, we were constantly inspired by the TikTok community. Bringing some much-needed light to a tough year, they shared poignant moments from their lives, connected with others, and expressed themselves creatively.
Communities, families and friends came together to take part in fun challenges and help those in need longing for solidarity and connection. The #isolationgames partnership with Team GB got the nation adapting sports to play at home and raising funds for the British Red Cross. #lockdownlife encouraged people to talk about mental health, self-care tips and useful websites. Galvanising around these initiatives, many found the motivation they needed to keep going despite our lives being turned upside down by the pandemic, including national treasure Dame Judi Dench who said thanked the TikTok community for 'saving her life' throughout lockdown.
Whilst everyone was turning to TikTok for some much needed joy and action, our team focused on supporting our community through these challenging times. The mental health of our users and education support for our key younger audiences were top priorities.
We partnered with youth charity Partnership for London to run a listening project with young people aged 14-24 to better understand their experience of lockdown and give them a voice. Young people want to use lockdown as a moment for self-reflection about what's really important to them, and mental health was a key priority.
In May, for Mental Health Awareness Week, we joined forces with the mental health charity Mind for the #SpeakYourMind challenge, which encourage people to share day-to-day challenges we’re all facing and remind loved ones how much we care about them.
With schools across the country closed and children learning at home and online, TikTok launched #LearnOnTikTok, a series of initiatives and partnerships to help children and young people learn on the platform, including with The Prince's Trust who give young people the confidence and skills they need to go into work.
At TikTok we believe it essential to give a platform to experts and reliable sources that can support our community make sense of the new world we live in, and giving access to factual and accurate information about Covid-19 was and is our top priority. As well as partnering with the World Health Organisation to provide credible information, #TeamHalo, a group of top scientists and clinicians developing the vaccine joined forces with TikTok to tell their incredible stories, showing the public what they are up to as the global community seeks to develop a vaccine and answer important questions from our community.
Looking ahead, we will continue focusing our efforts to better support our community. Together, we will persevere through this crisis and emerge a better community, part of a world that we fervently hope will be more united in common purpose than before.
Liz Kanter, Director Government Relations and Public Policy, TikTok