Social media platforms TikTok and Facebook are under scrutiny for failing to detect harmful disinformation advertisements ahead of the U.S. presidential election. A new investigation by Global Witness reveals that these platforms are still allowing misleading content to slip through their moderation systems.
In a report, Global Witness tested the election integrity commitments of TikTok, Facebook and YouTube by submitting eight advertisements containing false election claims.
The ads were deliberately designed to breach the platforms’ policies and were submitted using “algospeak,” a technique that employs numbers and symbols to bypass content moderation filters.
TikTok approved 50% of the submitted ads. Facebook accepted one ad with harmful disinformation, an improvement from its previous performance during the 2022 midterm elections. YouTube initially approved 50% of the ads but later blocked all of them until formal identification was submitted, a more robust barrier against disinformation compared to the other platforms.
Although TikTok has improved from approving 90% of submitted disinformation ads in 2022, its ongoing issues are particularly notable given its strict policy against political content.
The platform, already under scrutiny due to potential foreign interference, faces further examination for its role in U.S. political discourse.
TikTok acknowledged that the ads submitted by Global Witness breached its advertising policies and stated that its machine moderation system had erroneously approved them.
The platform indicated that it would use the findings to retrain its moderation system. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, did not respond to requests for comment.
