Forward of the 2022 midterm elections, TikTok introduced Wednesday it's banning of marketing campaign fundraising on its platform. It additionally introduced new insurance policies for political accounts, together with "necessary verification."
In upcoming weeks, the app, which already bans political promoting, may also ban marketing campaign fundraising, Blake Chandlee, president of world enterprise options for TikTok, stated in a weblog submit. The ban will embody movies asking for donations, and movies from political events directing individuals to a donation web page on their web site.
The China-based video sharing app may also begin testing "necessary verification" for governments, politicians and political occasion accounts in an try to "hold dangerous misinformation off the platform."
Verification will make sure that anybody watching content material belonging to a authorities, politician, or political occasion account will know that the account is "real" and that the supply is "genuine," Chandlee wrote.
"Whereas many political accounts have added the verified badge to their profile already, doing so is at the moment optionally available," Chandlee wrote. "Beginning immediately within the U.S., we'll be trialing necessary verification for accounts belonging to governments, politicians, and political events via the midterm elections."
The app may also make political accounts ineligible for the "Creator Fund," and block entry to gifting, tipping and e-commerce, the weblog submit stated. The Creator Fund is a financial fund that customers can obtain for posting content material to the platform.
"These modifications, together with our present ban on political promoting, imply that accounts belonging to governments, politicians, and political events will largely not have the ability to give or obtain cash via TikTok's monetization options, or spend cash selling their content material," Chandlee wrote.
The announcement comes one month after researchers discovered TikTok accounts have been used to unfold misinformation forward of elections in Europe, Asia and South America.
Chandlee wrote that these new insurance policies are an effort to make TikTok "a optimistic atmosphere that brings individuals collectively, not divide them."
"TikTok is firstly an leisure platform, and we're proud to be a spot that brings individuals collectively over artistic and entertaining content material," he wrote. "By prohibiting marketing campaign fundraising and limiting entry to our monetization options and verifying accounts, we're aiming to strike a steadiness between enabling individuals to debate the problems which might be related to their lives whereas additionally defending the artistic, entertaining platform that our group desires."