TikTok announced plans to censor conspiracy theories and misinformation during the 2022 midterm elections.
On Wednesday, the app said that it would monitor the platform for false videos regarding how to vote, election worker harassment, deepfakes of candidates, and incitement of violence and track the algorithm‘s promotion of political content.
“At TikTok, we take our responsibility to protect the integrity of our platform – particularly around elections – with the utmost seriousness,” wrote Eric Han, head of U.S. safety at the company. “We’re proud to be a place that brings people together over creative and entertaining content, and we work hard to keep harmful misinformation and other violations of our policies off our platform.”
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TikTok intends to enforce its policies through a “combination of people and technology.” However, Han did not provide additional information on how many employees would oversee the misinformation efforts. TikTok also said that it was partnering with fact-checking organizations such as Politifact and Lead Stories, according to TechCrunch. TikTok’s trust and safety team will take down any videos that the fact-checking firms call false. If its content is categorized as “unverified,” the algorithm will reduce its reach through the For You page, label it unverified, and make sharing it more challenging.
The platform’s election center will partner with other noteworthy elections organizations, including the National Association of Secretaries of States and Ballotpedia. TikTok also said it was collaborating with an assortment of advocacy organizations to help citizens overseas, the deaf, and students vote. The center will be accessible through content labels on videos, a banner in the Friends tab, and relevant search pages.
“We believe the world will be a better place if every citizen has access to accurate, unbiased, and non-partisan election information — who is on the ballot and what they stand for — so they can make informed decisions about their vote,” said Leslie Graves, CEO of Ballotpedia. “We are pleased to work with TikTok to help their community not only understand the candidates and their positions but also to empower them to feel confident when they cast their ballot.”
While the center will provide information on how to vote to users, it will not gather voter-related data and will instead forward users to appropriate third-party registration websites if they decide to register.
The company also said it would continue to ban political advertising on the platform. This includes ads paid for through its ads platform, as well as branded content posted by creators.
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The election center plans arrived days after TikTok confirmed that its algorithms and content moderation practices were being audited by Oracle, the server service that the company uses to host all U.S. personal information. “As part of Oracle’s work, they will be regularly vetting and validating both our recommendation and our moderation models,” Han said. “What that means is there’ll be regular audits of our content moderation processes, both from automated systems … technology — and how do we detect and triage certain things — as well as the content that is moderated and reviewed by humans.”
The company has come under scrutiny from lawmakers over reports that it was sharing U.S. data with Chinese employees. TikTok’s CEO confirmed the allegations but said the information was only accessible through secure platforms and that TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, was not sharing the data with the Chinese Communist Party.
TikTok is not the only tech company preparing for the 2022 midterm elections. Twitter unveiled its plans for handling election misinformation on Aug. 11, including intentions to release “pre-bunks” before election night and special labels to identify political candidates.
