TikTok to ramp up fight against fake news, covert influence ahead of EU elections

TikTok, the social media platform owned by ByteDance, announced on Wednesday that it will increase its fight against fake news and covert influence operations in the run-up to the European Parliament elections in June by launching a local language app in all 27 countries.

TikTok stated that the specific local language “election centers” expanded on work begun in 2021 and intensified last year when Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, and Spain went to the polls.

The app aims to better inform Europeans about the political process.

Governments and politicians throughout the world are concerned about the spread of misinformation and the use of artificial intelligence-generated deepfakes to influence elections, as well as the involvement of social media platforms. 

TikTok is used by approximately 30% of European Parliament MPs, according to the business.

“Next month, we will launch a local language Election Centre in-app for each of the 27 individual EU member states to ensure people can easily separate fact from fiction,” TikTok’s head of trust and safety EMEA, Kevin Morgan, stated in a blog post.

“Working with local electoral commissions and civil society organizations, these Election Centres will be a place where our community can find trusted and authoritative information,” he went on to say.

During prior national elections, the business collaborated with news organizations to create instructive movies about the political process and misinformation distributed through election centers. 

Morgan stated that TikTok, which now collaborates with nine fact-checking organizations in Europe, intends to extend its fact-checking network and launch nine new media literacy programs this year.

It plans to introduce specific covert influence operations reports in the coming months to improve transparency and accountability.

- Published By Team Nation Press News