August 18, 2022 – TikTok has announced new measures to tackle misinformation and limit the violation of its policies ahead of the 2022 US midterm elections. The company has also rolled out an in-app Elections Center, which will provide reliable voting information to its users.
Influencers on TikTok will not be allowed to post paid political content and any content identified as such will be removed from the platform. Although TikTok does not allow political advertisements (which were banned in 2019), Eric Han, the head of US safety at TikTok, said in a blog post Wednesday that the company is emphasising its existing policy on the prohibition of political content.
“After the 2020 election, we set out some lessons learned from our approach that we wanted to improve on in future elections,” said Han. “We’re already meeting one of them by launching our in-app center six weeks earlier than in 2020 to capture more of the midterms conversation over the summer months.”
Additionally, TikTok will publish a series of educational videos on its Creator Portal and host briefings with creators and advertising agencies so that influencers are fully aware of the rules around paid political content.
“We’ll also provide access on popular elections hashtags, like #elections2022 and #midtermelections, so that anyone searching for that content will be able to easily access the center,” said Han. “At any time, viewers can use our tools to automatically filter out videos with words or hashtags they don’t want to see in their For You or Following feeds.”
The Elections Center, on the other hand, will provide information to users regarding their polling places, ballots, and results once they are reported by the Associated Press. TikTok will also monitor for content containing misinformation regarding the voting process, harassment of election workers, and posts inciting hatred and violence.
“To bolster our response to emerging threats, TikTok partners with independent intelligence firms and regularly engages with others across the industry, civil society organizations, and other experts.”
Last month, TikTok announced a new set of initiatives to strengthen transparency and accountability on the video-sharing platform.The app said it would also grant independent experts on the US Content Advisory Council and regional Safety Advisory Councils access to confidential information, including keywords which, helps detect and flag potentially violative content.
