On TikTok, election misinformation thrives before US midterms

NEW YORK - In Germany, TikTok accounts impersonated prominent political figures during the country's last national election. In Colombia, misleading TikTok posts falsely attributed a quotation from one candidate to a cartoon villain and allowed a woman to masquerade as another candidate's daughter. In the Philippines, TikTok videos amplified sugarcoated myths about the country's former dictator and helped his son prevail in the country's presidential race.

Users cannot search the #StopTheSteal hashtag, but #StopTheSteallll had accumulated nearly 1 million views until TikTok disabled the hashtag after being contacted by The New York Times. TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, also faces many doubts in Washington about whether its business decisions about data and moderation are influenced by its roots in Beijing.

TikTok is becoming increasingly important as a destination for political content, often produced by influencers. The company insists that it is committed to combating false information. TikTok has also struggled to contain nonpolitical misinformation in the United States. Health-related myths about Covid-19 vaccines and masks run rampant, as do rumors and falsehoods about diets, pediatric conditions and gender-affirming care for transgender people.

Researchers said that misinformation would continue to thrive on TikTok as long as the platform refused to release data about the origins of its videos or share insight into its algorithms.

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