Researchers have found that TikTok’s design is a breeding ground for misinformation. They wrote that the videos could easily be manipulated, republished on platforms, and exhibited alongside stolen or original content. Parody and comedy videos are often misinterpreted as facts. Popularity affects comment visibility. Data about publication time and other details are not clearly displayed in the mobile app.
(However, researchers at the Shorenstein Center say TikTok is less susceptible to so-called brigading, where groups work together to spread posts more widely, than platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.)
According to TikTok, in the first quarter of 2022, over 60% of videos containing harmful misinformation were watched by users before being removed.Last year a group behavioral scientist One person who worked at TikTok said that efforts to attach warnings to posts with unsubstantiated content resulted in a 24% decrease in shares, but only 5% of views were restricted.
Researchers say misinformation will continue to thrive on TikTok as long as it refuses to release data about the provenance of its videos or share insights about its algorithms. Last month, TikTok said it would offer access to a version of its application programming interface (API) this year, but did not say if it would do so before the midterm elections.
Filippo Mentzer, a professor of informatics and computer science at Indiana University and director of the Social Media Observatory, said he proposed a collaboration to TikTok and was told “absolutely not.”
“We have some transparency, at least on Facebook and Twitter, but for TikTok, we have no clue. We don’t know what the criteria are, it’s completely opaque and we can’t independently assess it.”
