TikTok Is Fighting Political Misinformation With Its Own ‘Elections Center’

With the upcoming midterm elections, TikTok is fending off misinformation on its platform by setting up an Elections Center for users to access news about the political campaigns. 

The social media platform is working with the National Association of Secretaries of State to provide its users with valuable information such as curated state-by-state election information, how to register to vote, how to vote by mail, how to find polling places, and more.

The Election Center can be accessed through different areas on the app, including the hashtag, content labels found on videos, and a banner on the Friends tab. 

Content created directly by politicians, political parties, and government accounts will receive a link to the Election Center. 

TikTok is also partnering with various associations to aid voters in and out of the country, those with disabilities, and students.

Since TikTok has amassed such a wide audience in the last few years, it bears some responsibility to provide accurate information to its users. 

In order to do so, TikTok is releasing its Elections Center six weeks earlier than it did for the 2020 elections. 

According to the Washington Post, it is also working with a dozen fact-checking groups such as LeadStories and PolitiFact.

A team of humans and AI tools will be working to examine these videos. Threats made against election workers will also be removed from the site. 

The company will also take action on influencers who accept money to promote political campaigns, as political advertising goes against TikTok’s guidelines.

The information page will be launched on August 17 and will be available in 40 different languages. 

[via The Washington Post and TechCrunch, images via various sources]