TikTok Reinforces Ban On Political Paid Advertising Including Sponsored Content From Creators
Source: TikTok
With the midterm elections around the corner, TikTok recently outlined the measures it’s taking to help protect the integrity of the election.
These measures include:
A new in-app Election Center featuring official updates and information about the midterms
New labels to identify content related to elections and accounts belonging to governments, politicians, and political parties
Third-party fact-checking organizations to help assess the accuracy of content
But, a big area of focus for TikTok is making it known that it doesn’t allow paid political advertising, including sponsored content from creators. Due to some of the mishaps around misinformation during the 2020 election, TikTok is heavily emphasizing creator education.
Over the coming weeks, it will educate creators about their responsibilities to abide by Community Guidelines, advertising policies, and FTC guidelines. Along with publishing educational resources across its website and the Creator Portal, it will host briefings with creators and partnered agencies on rules around paid content for the elections. It’s also committed to promptly removing any paid political content it discovers.
Despite political advertising being banned since 2019, that hasn’t stopped it from happening when it comes to creators. In 2020, there was an influx of political organizations and parties engaging creators to promote running politicians and their causes, including pro-Joe Biden organizations to more conservative groups.
While TikTok may fare better this time due to its proactive policies and learnings from the last election, it will have its hands full this coming cycle.
First, moderating video content is a lot harder than text, so it may take TikTok longer to be able to identify sponsored political content. Second, there are a lot of loopholes when it comes to branded political content. As long as creators abide by Community Guidelines, they can share political content organically, opening up the door for creators to still push messages on behalf of parties and organizations without officially receiving payments.
It's just the beginning for creators and politics.
