TikTok’s moving to eliminate direct political influence in the app by enacting new restrictions on what politically-affiliated accounts can do, which does include the total removal of donation and ad tools for political groups.
No Politics
To start, TikTok will now require that all accounts representing governments, politicians, and political parties be verified to avoid potential confusion and misinformation. As TikTok explains:
“If our community is watching content from an account belonging to a government, politician, or political party, we want them to know the account is genuine. Verification lets our community know an account is authentic and belongs to the user it represents, which is a way to build trust between high-profile creators and their community.”
TikTok says that it will roll out this new policy in the US starting July 22, 2022, to have it set ahead of the upcoming US Midterms. Meanwhile, TikTok will also be implementing new ad restrictions on political-related accounts.
“TikTok has long prohibited political advertising, including both paid ads on the platform and creators being paid directly to make branded content. We currently do that by prohibiting political content in an ad, and we’re also now applying restrictions at an account level.”
The expanded restrictions will see advertising features switched off for accounts belonging to politicians and political parties, further limiting their capacity to bypass TikTok’s political ad rules. TikTok will continue to allow government agencies to advertise, but only in limited circumstances. They will be, however, required to work with a TikTok representative on such. On that note, TikTok is also eyeing political fundraising, by removing access to features such as gifting and tipping for these accounts. TikTok will also be banning uploads from politicians that solicit donations and political parties who direct people to a donation page.
These changes reflect the ongoing concerns around how social platforms can be used to advance political agendas and influence public opinion via posts and amplification strategies. TikTok itself remains highly scrutinized due to its perceived relationship with the Chinese Government, with all Chinese-owned companies subject to the CCP’s audits, which could involve CCP officials extracting data on TikTok users. TikTok has, of course, repeatedly denied this.
TikTok continues to work with US authorities to address ‘national security concerns’, which includes moving all US user data to Oracle data centers in the US. But concerns still linger around the potential for TikTok to be used as a vehicle for CCP propaganda or for CCP officials to gather intelligence through the app.
The Wrap
The former elements links into these new rules, and with its Chinese sister app being used as a direct channel for the Chinese Government to influence the youth, concerns around the CCP looking to use TikTok to do the same do seem valid and are at least worthy of consideration. These new rules would prohibit direct political influence, but whether or not that extends to algorithmic interference by the CCP is another thing entirely. Best we simply keep an eye out for any fishy activity happening on TikTok moving forward.
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