KUALA LUMPUR: Politicians or parties hoping to use TikTok as a means of spreading misleading content, disinformation or ‘political advertising’ in the 15th General Election (GE15) could see themselves flagged or even banned from the social media platform.
Tiktok Head of Public Policy (Malaysia and Philippines), Kristoffer Rada, said the platform will prohibit any misinformation that could create harm to the community, including misleading information relating to the election and other civic processes.
“We recognise that online information relating to misinformation about the electoral process is a multi-sectoral problem that requires a multi-sectoral solution.
“Hence, through our community guidelines, we have set the common code of conduct and guidance on what’s allowed and prohibited to welcome the space for everyone.
“We have also partnered with a leading global agency, Agence France-Presse (AFP) to help verify harmful information so that it can be removed from our platform,” he said during a media briefing on the #BeliaSudiUndi campaign launch today.
The campaign aims to combat misleading content and information on political developments in the country.
Rada said, under the campaign, TikTok has also provided four initiatives to combat election misinformation, namely the election report button, fact-checking tools, election guide, and youth-to-youth outreach through university collaboration.
He said that through the Global Policy Changes for Government, Politicians and Political Party Accounts (GPPPA), the platform would also suspend or ban politicians’ or political parties’ accounts that are recognised to be involved in severe or repeated violations, namely political advertisements.
“We have long prohibited political advertising, including both paid advertisements on the platform and creators being paid directly to make branded content.
“That being said, political content is prohibited in advertisements, and this restriction is now applied at an account level.
“These accounts will be prohibited from any form of monetisation or solicitation for fundraising to prevent misuse of the platform,” he said, adding that the ban would maintain election integrity among young voters.
Citing activist and graphic designer Fahmi Redza’s case being suspended on the platform last month, he mentioned that a ‘Trust and Safety’ team has been established to ensure the platform’s content moderation and adherence to its community guidelines.
“There is a huge amount of action that happens on the back end where no one sees it. Based on transparency reports, the data shows that an average of 84.5 per cent of violative videos are taken down even before it is seen on the platform.
“Fahmi’s situation is a great example of how TikTok as a platform allows genuine political expression — we are not prohibiting people from putting up their expressions or sentiments.
“However, it will be moderated by the team if it is considered to cross the line and tries to violate the community guidelines around hate speech and harmful misinformation,” he said.
Last month, the activist went live on the platform to explain the fundamentals of the parliamentary system and electoral process in Malaysia. His live stream, however, was flagged and received a violation warning.-NST