TikTok fails 'disinformation test' before EU vote, study shows

PARIS, France — Wildly popular social network TikTok approved adverts containing political disinformation ahead of European polls, a report showed Tuesday, flouting its own guidelines and raising questions about its ability to detect election falsehoods.

International campaign group Global Witness created 16 ads targeting Irish audiences with false information about this week's EU elections and tried to get them approved by three platforms -- TikTok, Google-owned YouTube and Elon Musk's X (formerly Twitter).

TikTok, which is particularly popular with young voters, approved all 16 for publication, YouTube caught 14 while X filtered all the ads and suspended the group's fake accounts, Global Witness said in its report.

"TikTok has failed miserably in this test," Henry Peck, a senior campaigner at Global Witness, told AFP.

The fake ads, submitted by the group last month, all contained content that could pose a risk to electoral processes -- including warnings to voters to stay home over a danger of poll violence and a spike in contagious diseases.

They also included a fake notice raising the legal voting age to 21 and appeals for people to vote by email, which is not permitted in European elections.

In TikTok's response to the study, which Global Witness shared with AFP, the platform acknowledged the ads violated its policies.

Citing an internal investigation, the Chinese ByteDance-owned app said its systems correctly identified the breach, but the ads were approved due to "human error" by a moderator.

"We immediately instituted new processes to help prevent this from happening in future," a TikTok spokesman told AFP.

- 'No friction' -

The failure to detect the ads comes as tech campaigners implore platforms to address growing concerns over a deluge of disinformation plaguing elections worldwide.

Peck insisted it was "absolutely vital" that social media sites acted against threats to democracy in a year packed with major elections culminating in the US presidential vote in November.

"I was surprised because TikTok has in the past caught content that goes against its rules and, in this instance, caught nothing," Peck said.

"It seems like it has the systems, it has