According to TikTok,some terms are restricted due to local laws and it has identified and fixed an issue where some phrases in Arabic were being incorrectly moderated.

A spokeswoman for TikTok said the company"believes accountability and transparency are essential to facilitating trust with our community".

"As part of this,we've committed to making our moderation policies,algorithm and data security practices available to experts,which no other company in our space has been willing to do,"the company spokeswoman said.

"As we've said before,TikTok user data is stored in the US and Singapore,with strict controls on employee access. We have never shared user information with the Chinese government and wouldn't do so if asked."

The report also found Chinese social media platform WeChat was censoring content and being used by the Chinese Communist Party to harass and threaten the families of overseas Chinese activists,particularly Uighurs.

The owners of WeChat and TikTok are both subject to China's security and cyber-security laws,which force them to co-operate with requests for information from Chinese authorities.

The ASPI report called on governments to put in place a set of"transparency"rules for all social media companies. This would include making platforms disclose the guidelines used by their human moderators and the impact their decisions had on their algorithms.

It also recommended all social media companies be required to investigate and disclose information operations being conducted on their platforms by state and non-state actors.

WeChat has about 1.2 billion monthly users worldwide,including 100 million installations outside China,while TikTok has a global audience of nearly 700 million including an estimated 1.6 million users in Australia.

While Chinese social media platforms such as WeChat have been building their reach among the Chinese diaspora for years,TikTok is the first Chinese tech giant to have a truly international user base.

Microsoft is in discussions to buy TikTok in the US – and possibly its operations in Australia,Canada and New Zealand – afterUS President Donald Trump gave ByteDance 45 days to sell TikTok or face being banned in America.