A new investigation has found that video-sharing platform TikTok approved 16 advertisements targeting Ireland that contained election disinformation.
Campaign group Global Witness submitted adverts containing false information encouraging people to vote online and by text; false information around the voting age; and incitement of force against immigrant voters.
TikTok approved all of the ads for publication but they were withdrawn by Global Witness before anyone could see them.
In response to the investigation, TikTok said all 16 of the ads violated its advertising policies and were correctly identified by its systems, but were approved after additional review due to human error by a moderator, who has since received retraining.
The company said it has instituted new practices for moderating political ads.
As part of the investigation, adverts were also submitted to YouTube and X.
X rejected all the adverts, and YouTube rejected all but two.
“The 2024 European elections couldn’t come at a more critical juncture on key issues for people and planet,” said Henry Peck, Senior Campaigner, Digital Threats at Global Witness.
“It is therefore absolutely vital that social media platforms can safeguard against threats to the democratic process. TikTok has failed miserably in this test,” Mr Peck said.
In February, the European Union’s set of online safety rules known as the Digital Services Act (DSA) came into force, requiring platforms to tackle the spread of disinformation.
Global Witness said that it is filing a complaint to the EU regulator and will share the findings of its investigation into TikTok.
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TikTok response
In response to the Global Witness investigation, TikTok said its policies explicitly prohibit any form of political content in any form of advertising including references to an election, voter registration, voter turnout, and appeals for votes.
“Additionally, our policies against misinformation prohibit inaccurate, misleading, or false content that may cause significant harm to individuals or society, regardless of intent,” the company said.
“All 16 of the ads that Global Witness submitted violated TikTok’s advertising policies. We have conducted an internal investigation to identify the cause of the leakage and determined that our systems correctly identified that all these ads may violate our political ads policies.
“They were then sent for additional review, where they were approved due to human error on the part of one moderator. That moderator has since received retraining, and we have instituted new practices for moderating ads that may be political in nature to help prevent this type of error from happening in the future,” TikTok said.
“We will continue to regularly review and improve our policies and processes in order to combat increasingly sophisticated attempts to spread disinformation and further strengthen our systems,” it added.
In recent days, concerns were expressed in Ireland about paid-for political campaign advertisements appearing on TikTok.
In response, it said it does not allow such ads and that this content has been removed from its platform.
The company said it complies with all EU laws and regulations and is committed to complying with future regulations when they are introduced.
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