What does TikTok ban as harassment or hate in ads?

Direct answerTikTok does not allow ads that bully, harass, threaten, or dox an identifiable person, or that attack people because of a protected characteristic. The discrimination, harassment, and bullying policy, reviewed October 13, 2026, applies to ad creatives, landing pages, branded content, and other promotional tools. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988.

Profanity before the personal attack

TikTok lists inappropriate or unsuitable content separately from harassment. The examples are content that is distasteful, disrespectful, or profane, and content with coarse language or insulting actions. A slur is also capable of failing the hate-speech section when it targets a protected characteristic. Google’s shocking-content rule is a different label, on the clickbait and shocking-content page.

Bullying and harassment

TikTok does not allow language or behavior that bullies, harasses, humiliates, threatens, or doxes any identifiable individual. The person can be identified by name, username, or other identifying information, and can be a public or private figure. TikTok says it weighs context, intent, and whether the conduct is coordinated. It defines doxxing as publishing or threatening to publish personal information about someone online with malicious intent, and it says captions and hashtags are among the objective indicators it uses because intent can be subjective.

Named examples of what is not allowed:

• Degrading someone, or expressing disgust or hostility, because of personal characteristics or circumstances such as appearance, intellect, personality, or hygiene.
• Showing someone being physically or verbally bullied.
• Expressing a desire that a person die, including by suicide, get a serious disease, or suffer other severe physical harm.
• Threats of attack or assault against a person or their property.
• Inciting others to bully, exclude, or segregate someone.
• Promoting coordinated harassment, or trying to create conflict, such as calling for others to flood comments with abusive language.
• Threatening or encouraging others to dox, share account information, blackmail, or hack someone’s account.
• Unwanted sexual comments or sexual behavior, sexual harassment, objectification, or sexually demeaning portrayals. TikTok describes sexual harassment here as sexualizing or sexually degrading a person through language or behavior related to sexual activity, intimate body parts, or sexual-health information.
• Degrading victims of violent tragedies, including claims that they deserved to die or that surviving members are lying about the event.

TikTok says these may be allowed:

• Awareness content about bullying, harassment, threats, or doxxing with a clear message of help or support.
• A movie trailer, TV show, or game that includes the behavior as part of a narrative, and does not praise, glorify, promote, or advocate it.

Who counts as a public figure

Public figures are people 18 or older with a significant public role. TikTok’s examples are a government official, politician, business leader, or celebrity. TikTok does not identify anyone under 18 as a public figure. Private figures are all people under 18, and adults who are not public figures. The harassment ban covers both groups.

Hate speech and protected characteristics

Ads must not attack, incite hatred against, or discriminate against a person or group based on protected characteristics. TikTok’s list, which it ties to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international conventions, is: race or ethnicity; color or skin tone; nationality, national origin, or national identity; citizenship, immigration, or refugee status; religion or belief, or the lack of one; political or union affiliation; gender or gender identity; sexual orientation; age; family status, caste, socio-economic or cultural background; veteran status; and physical, mental, or emotional disability or health conditions.

Content TikTok says it does not allow includes:

• Hatred, contempt, or disgust based on those characteristics, including dehumanizing comparisons, harmful stereotypes, slurs, or derogatory language.
• Mocking or exploiting people because of disability or health status.
• Depicting, justifying, glorifying, or inciting violence, exclusion, or discrimination, including wishes for harm such as death, illness, or disaster, and praising or belittling violence against these groups.
• Misgendering or deadnaming transgender or non-binary people.
• Promoting or advertising so-called conversion therapy or related practices.
• Denying, minimizing, praising, justifying, or trivializing violence against people based on protected characteristics, including established historical mass violence. TikTok’s example is the Holocaust.
• Harmful generalizations about religious beliefs, derogatory comparisons of religions, insults based on perceived faith or lack of faith, and disrespect toward religious sites, ceremonies, figures, symbols, or traditions.
• Attempts to convert others from one religion, belief system, or religious opinion to another.

Hateful ideologies, in TikTok’s words, are systems of belief that exclude, oppress, or discriminate based on protected attributes. Content must not praise, promote, justify, or support those ideologies. It also must not feature names, symbols, slogans, uniforms, gestures, music, or imagery widely recognized as associated with ideologies or movements that promote hatred, discrimination, or violence based on protected characteristics. This article does not add a symbol list. TikTok did not print one in the section reviewed here.

Google’s account-level version of hatred, harassment, and threats is dangerous or derogatory content. Use the label on the rejection you received.

Sources

• TikTok: Discrimination, harassment, and bullying

Reviewed October 13, 2026. Policies change. This is not legal advice.

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