(Jan 15): Social media platform TikTok said it would block Thai election candidates from paying for advertising or monetising their content during the election campaign period.
While political advertising and collecting revenue from politically branded content is already banned by the video-sharing platform, the rules will extend to the accounts of all candidates taking part in the Feb 8 vote.
TikTok, owned by Chinese firm ByteDance Ltd, said on Thursday that it would also partner with fact-checking organisations to validate political claims, and its in-house monitoring staff will remove disinformation and misinformation. It anticipates a higher volume of misleading posts, including AI-generated content and videos instigating hatred or violence as the election nears.
“Such content will be removed from the platform. It’s unavoidable that we may see more of it as more users express opinion about politics,” said Siriprapa Weerachaising, TikTok’s manager for outreach and partnership. “Any political content, whether from political parties or content creators including media, cannot be promoted by paid advertising at all.”
There are about 50 million TikTok users in Thailand — almost as many as the 53 million people eligible to vote.
TikTok said it removed 4.4 million videos from its platform in the third quarter of last year for violating its community standards. It didn’t say how many posts were classified as political content.
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Candidates from 57 political parties are contesting for a total of 500 seats, including 100 party-list positions to the House of Representatives, according to data from the Election Commission.
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