TikTok approved Irish election disinformation ads - probe

An investigation by campaign group Global Witness has found that video-sharing platform TikTok approved ads containing disinformation about the upcoming General Election.

Global Witness submitted 14 ads in English and 14 ads in Irish containing disinformation about voting.

TikTok approved three of the English ads and eight of the Irish ads.

Global Witness withdrew the adverts before they could be published on the platform.

Among the falsehoods contained in the ads were fake claims that people would need to provide proof of two Covid vaccinations to be allowed to vote, that they can vote by post after the polls have closed, and that they can cast their vote on Facebook.

Global Witness said that there is a blind spot in TikTok's moderation system when it comes to the Irish language.

According to the platform's most recent transparency report under the EU Digital Services Act, TikTok has no dedicated Irish language moderators.

"Social media platforms have a responsibility to keep elections safe," said Ava Lee, Campaign Lead, Digital Threats, Global Witness.

"As more and more people get their news from their social media feeds, the least platforms should do is ensure that this content is free from the most obvious forms of disinformation," Ms Lee said.

In response to the investigation's findings, TikTok told Global Witness that all of the ads that were submitted violated its advertising polices and that it has conducted an investigation into why some of the ads were not rejected.

The company highlighted that ads may go through additional stages of review as certain conditions are met, such as reaching certain impression thresholds or being reported by users once the ad has gone live.

"None of these ads ever appeared on TikTok and the majority were correctly rejected at the first stage of moderation," a TikTok spokesperson said.

"We will continue to enforce our longstanding position that we do not allow political advertising on TikTok and have launched a dedicated, in-app election centre to provide our users with authoritative information about the elections," the company added.

Meanwhile, the media regulator Coimisiún na Meán said it has so far received six queries to its contact centre regarding the General Election from candidates and/or political parties which include concerns regarding both broadcasting and online platforms.

Three of the contacts related to digital platforms but An Coimisiún said it does not comment on the nature of individual complaints.

Separately, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said that at this time, it has no evidence to suggest that any election-related systems have been effectively targeted or compromised by cyberattacks.

The NCSC said that its assessments indicate a medium risk of potential cyber incidents around the election and that it continues to operate in an enhanced monitoring posture.