TikTok has shared more about its plans to fight misinformation ahead of the 2024 presidential election. And, like many of its social media peers, the company’s 2024 efforts will closely resemble what it’s done in the past.
To start, the company is introducing its in-app election guide, which will point users to information about voting, including how to register and how to vote by mail. While the election guide will look similar to years past, the company is introducing it earlier than it has in past elections (its election resources for 2020 and 2022 debuted much closer to their respective contests than this year’s, which comes just as the presidential primaries are getting underway).
TikTok’s approach to misinformation in 2024 hasn’t changed much since 2022. The company will continue to bar political ads, including those that come via creators’ branded content. It will also keep working with fact-checking organizations, which help determine whether content is eligible for recommendations or warrants an “unverified” label. The company says it will “expand media literacy resources to these labels” later this year, which could make the notices more useful to users who encounter them, though it’s unclear what that will look like just yet.
TikTok’s plan for 2024 comes as experts warn that the rise of generative AI could fuel a new wave of viral election misinformation. On its part, TikTok acknowledges that generative AI has created “new challenges” for the social media industry, but stopped short of offering any new policies to address it. Instead, the company says it will keep enforcing its existing rules, which prohibit “misleading” AI-generated content and require creators to disclose when videos use “realistic” AI-generated content.
“As the technology evolves in 2024, we’ll continue to improve our policies and detection while partnering with experts on media literacy content that helps our community navigate AI responsibly,” the company wrote in a blog post.
When it comes to disinformation and coordinated efforts to manipulate its platform, TikTok is making a notable change. The company says it plans to release detailed reports on covert influence campaigns ahead of the 2024 contest It already discloses some information about influence campaigns it uncovers in its quarterly transparency reports, but the disclosures are typically short on details. That should change this year, according to TikTok, which says it will begin releasing “dedicated covert influence operations reports” later this year.
