In anticipation of the EU elections, TikTok to step up battle against fake news & hidden influence

ByteDance-owned social media app TikTok announced that it will strengthen its efforts to combat fake news and covert influence operations ahead of the June elections for the European Parliament.

The company intends to do so by releasing a local language app in each of the 27 countries.

The individual local language "election centers," according to Tiktok, are an extension of the work that was initiated in 2021 and accelerated by the elections that were held in Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, and Spain last year.

The goal of the app is to provide Europeans with more information about the election process.

The dissemination of false information, the use of deepfakes created by AI to sway elections, and the impact of social media platforms on these issues are concerns shared by governments and politicians worldwide.

The company stated that about 30% of MPs in the European Parliament use TikTok.

In a blog post, Kevin Morgan, head of trust and safety for TikTok in Europe, announced that the company will introduce a locally language Election Center app for each of the 27 EU member states the following month to make sure users can quickly distinguish between reality and fabrication.

He continued by saying that these election centers, in collaboration with local electoral commissions and civil society organizations, would serve as a resource for reliable and knowledgeable information for the local community.

In order to create instructional videos about the electoral process and disinformation distributed by election centers during previous national elections, the company collaborated with news checkers.

In addition to launching nine more media literacy campaigns this year, Morgan stated that TikTok intends to grow its network of fact-checkers and collaborate with nine fact-checking organizations in Europe.

In order to improve accountability and transparency, it will launch specialized covert influence operations reports in the upcoming months.