TikTok Approved Disinformation Ads Despite Political Ad Ban, Report Finds

A Global Witness investigation reveals TikTok's failure to block election misinformation ads, raising concerns ahead of the U.S. presidential election.

• Global Witness submitted test ads to evaluate social media platforms' ability to detect election misinformation.
• Despite a ban on political ads, TikTok approved four out of eight test ads containing false election information.
• The ads included false claims about voting processes and were pulled before they went live on TikTok.
• Facebook showed improvement, approving only one of the eight test ads, while YouTube required additional identification before publishing.
• Global Witness used 'algospeak' to bypass moderation, highlighting challenges in automated content detection systems.

3 Articles

Orlando Sentinel The Canadian Press Associated Press