As both the UK and the US prepare for national elections, TikTok is about to get a lot more political.
But how can brands navigate that? Should brands be cautious about advertising on TikTok amid rising disinformation? A number of experts answered these questions for Campaign.
Linn Frost, co-CEO of The Social Element, said the key thing brands must do is “remain vigilant and ensure that TikTok continues to increase investment and its efforts to protect people from anything that is not a genuine human, providing an environment that promotes positive, unbiased views and constructive conversations.”
By contrast, Jenny Jones, founder of Craft Media, argues that it’s more of a team effort. “As advertisers, we are in partnership with media owners to reach and engage consumers. As this is a partnership, we should be tackling this problem together, rather than standing on the sidelines and pointing at the thing that’s going on and shaking our head and tut-tutting,” she said.
She continued: “I think we should all be tackling this and taking responsibility as a collective, rather than taking our ball off the pitch; and this should be true when tackling political as much as environmental, social or cultural disinformation.”
What did TikTok say about rising misinformation?
Kris Boger, TikTok UK’s General manager of global business solutions, affirmed that during this politically divisive time, the platform is being as proactive as possible. “For years, TikTok has not allowed paid political advertising and accounts belonging to politicians or political parties are not able to advertise or make money on TikTok,” he said.
“We have also recently introduced more policies to aggressively counter foreign election interference, and regularly report on these to further increase transparency, accountability and sharing with the industry,” he added. “For brands that are sensitive to political content, they can leverage the TikTok Inventory Filter to limit exposure to political content of any type appearing next to their ads.”
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