UPDATE 1-TikTok removes over 104 mln videos in first-half for violating guidelines

(Adds details from transparency report, background)

Sept 22 (Reuters) - ByteDance-owned short-video app TikTok said on Tuesday it removed over 104 million videos from its platform globally in the first half of the year for violating guidelines or terms of service.

"Of those videos, we found and removed 96.4% of videos before a user reported them, and 90.3% were removed before they received any views," TikTok said in a transparency report. (https://bit.ly/3iTy0vl)

TikTok started fact-checking programs in the first-half of the year to verify content related to the novel coronavirus and elections.

The report comes at a time China's ByteDance has been racing to avoid a crackdown on TikTok after the U.S. Commerce Department said it would block new downloads and updates to the app.

U.S. officials had expressed concern that personal data of as many as 100 million Americans that use the app was being passed on to China's Communist Party government.

The company said on Tuesday it got 1,768 requests for user data, with 290, or 16.4%, of those from U.S. law enforcement agencies. (Reporting by Rama Venkat in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)