Can You Trust What You See on TikTok?

TikTok is quietly becoming a political force all over the world. In the United States, more people, especially teens, are using the platform. They rely on it for election information, news updates, and fact-checking.

TikTok can be a great option to learn about political topics that interest you. But there’s a problem: Experts say that the platform is also full of misinformation that could be harmful.

During recent elections around the globe, this misleading information has caused real trouble. For example, TikTok accounts posed as key political figures during Germany’s last national election. In Colombia, TikTok posts allowed a woman to pretend to be a candidate’s daughter. In the Philippines, TikTok videos fueled myths about the country’s former dictator and helped his son win the country’s presidential election.

Now the U.S. is facing similar issues as November’s midterm elections approach. The same qualities that allow TikTok to fuel viral dance fads can also make inaccurate claims hard to contain. These qualities include its enormous reach and its powerful but poorly understood recommendation algorithm.

TikTok has more than 1 billion active users from across the globe each month. As a result, conspiracy theories are widely viewed on the platform. The platform has blocked some political topics, such as the #RiggedElection hashtag. Still, there are videos urging viewers to vote in November while repeating rumors that have been disproven. For example, there have been predictions that Covid-19 infections will surge this fall. TikTok posts have gotten thousands of views by claiming these predictions are an attempt to block in-person voting. And these claims have been made without evidence.

Other social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have struggled with free speech and moderation issues too. But experts point out that it’s particularly challenging for TikTok. They say that’s because video and audio can be harder to moderate than text. When a post’s tone is sarcastic, moderation becomes even more difficult.

“When you have extremely short videos with extremely limited text content, you just don’t have the space and time for nuanced discussions about politics,” says Kaylee Fagan, a research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.

During the 2020 presidential election, TikTok was still viewed as an entertainment app for younger people. But today, it’s becoming more important as a destination for political content. And its use has grown. Its American user base spends an average of 82 minutes a day on the platform, according to app analytics firm Sensor Tower. That’s twice as long as Americans spend on Instagram or Facebook.

TikTok insists it’s committed to combating false information. In the second half of 2020, it says, it removed nearly 350,000 videos that included false election information and manipulated media, and the platform’s filters kept an additional 441,000 videos with unsubstantiated claims from being recommended to users. In addition, the service announced this August that it would be launching an election information portal, which will pop up when a user searches for an election-related hashtag and connect them with authoritative election information, such as how to register to vote. Researchers including Fagan also say TikTok has worked to shut down problematic search terms, although its filters remain easy to evade with creative spellings.

“We take our responsibility to protect the integrity of our platform and elections with utmost seriousness,” TikTok said in a statement. “We continue to invest in our policy, safety, and security teams to counter election misinformation.”

TikTok insists it’s committed to combating false information. The platform says that it removed nearly 350,000 videos that included false election information and manipulated media in the second half of 2020. Its filters also kept 441,000 other videos with questionable claims from being recommended to users during that period. And the service announced this August that it would be launching an election information portal. The portal will pop up when a user searches for an election-related hashtag. It will connect them with verified election information, such as how to register to vote. Researchers including Fagan also say TikTok has worked to shut down problematic search terms. Still, users can bypass the platform’s filters with creative spellings.

“We take our responsibility to protect the integrity of our platform and elections with utmost seriousness,” TikTok said in a statement. “We continue to invest in our policy, safety, and security teams to counter election misinformation.”

TikTok has also struggled to contain nonpolitical misinformation. Myths about Covid-19 have spread quickly on the platform. Rumors and falsehoods about other topics like diets and health conditions have also gone viral. A video making the bogus claim that the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in May had been staged drew more than 74,000 views before TikTok removed it.

Posts on TikTok about Russia’s war in Ukraine have also caused issues. Even experienced journalists and researchers struggle to separate truth from rumor or fabrication, according to a Shorenstein Center report.

Researchers found that TikTok’s design makes it a breeding ground for misinformation. Videos can easily be altered and republished on the platform and shown alongside stolen or original content. It’s also common for users to use aliases instead of their real names. Parody and comedy videos are often misinterpreted as fact. Popularity affects how and whether comments get featured. And data about publication time and other details is not clearly displayed on the mobile app.

Election season can be very hard for TikTok moderators, says Graham Brookie, senior director of the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C.

“The bottom line is that all platforms can do more and need to do more for the shared set of facts that social democracy depends on,” Brookie says. “TikTok, in particular, sticks out because of its size, its really, really rapid growth, and the number of [unresolved] issues about how it makes decisions.”

Tiffany Hsu is a tech reporter for The New York Times. With reporting by Chrisanne Grisé.

Tiffany Hsu is a tech reporter for The New York Times. With reporting by Chrisanne Grisé.