Before the 2022 midterm elections, Tik Tok It announced Wednesday that it would ban campaign fundraising on its platform. It also announced new policies for political accounts, including “mandatory verification.”
Blake Chandlee, president of TikTok Global Business Solutions, said in a statement blog postThe ban would include videos asking for donations, as well as videos of political parties directing people to donation pages on their websites.
The China-based video-sharing app will also begin “mandatory verification” of government, politician and political party accounts to “keep harmful misinformation off the platform.”
Verification will ensure that anyone viewing content belonging to an account belonging to a government, politician or political party knows that the account is “authentic” and that the source is “authentic,” Chandlee wrote.
“While many political accounts already add verified badges to their profiles, doing so is currently optional,” Chandley wrote. “Starting today, in the United States, we will have mandatory verification of accounts belonging to governments, politicians and political parties through midterm elections.”
The app will also make political accounts ineligible for the “Creator Fund” and block access to gifts, tips and e-commerce, the blog post said. The Creators Fund is a monetary fund where users receive funds for publishing content to the platform.
“These changes, combined with our existing ban on political advertising, mean that accounts belonging to governments, politicians and political parties will be largely unable to provide or receive funds through TikTok’s monetization features, or spend money promoting their content,” Chandlee wrote.
A month ago, researchers discovered that TikTok accounts had been used to spread misinformation ahead of elections in Europe, Asia and South America.
The new policies are designed to make TikTok “a positive environment that brings people together rather than divides them,” Chandlee wrote.
“TikTok is an entertainment platform first and foremost, and we’re proud to be a place for creative and entertaining content that brings people together,” he wrote. “By banning campaign fundraising and limiting access to our monetization features and verified accounts, our goal is to strike a balance between getting people to discuss issues relevant to their lives and protecting the creative, entertaining platform our community wants.”
