Sign up for our daily briefing
Make your busy days simpler with Axios AM/PM. Catch up on what's new and why it matters in just 5 minutes.
Stay on top of the latest market trends
Subscribe to Axios Markets for the latest market trends and economic insights. Sign up for free.
Sports news worthy of your time
Binge on the stats and stories that drive the sports world with Axios Sports. Sign up for free.
Tech news worthy of your time
Get our smart take on technology from the Valley and D.C. with Axios Login. Sign up for free.
Get the inside stories
Get an insider's guide to the new White House with Axios Sneak Peek. Sign up for free.
Catch up on coronavirus stories and special reports, curated by Mike Allen everyday
Catch up on coronavirus stories and special reports, curated by Mike Allen everyday
Want a daily digest of the top Denver news?
Get a daily digest of the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Denver
Want a daily digest of the top Des Moines news?
Get a daily digest of the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Des Moines
Want a daily digest of the top Twin Cities news?
Get a daily digest of the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Twin Cities
Want a daily digest of the top Tampa Bay news?
Get a daily digest of the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Tampa Bay
Want a daily digest of the top Charlotte news?
Get a daily digest of the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Charlotte
TikTok
TikTok will begin asking users to seek credible information about a topic if they try to share a video that carries a misleading information label, the company announced Wednesday.
Why it matters: It's one of the most dramatic steps TikTok has taken to reduce the spread of misinformation on its platform.
How it works: TikTok partners with fact checkers to help assess the accuracy of content. If fact checks confirm content to be false, the content gets removed. If the facts checks are inconclusive, TikTok may notify users to consider the video before sharing it.
- The viewer will be notified via a banner on the video if the reviewed content can't be conclusively validated.
- If the user tries to share the flagged video, they’ll see a prompt reminding them that the video has been flagged as unverified content.
- The feature, which was designed and tested with Irrational Labs — a behavioral science lab — will roll out globally over the coming weeks, starting Thursday in the U.S. and Canada.
The company will also disincentive creators from uploading this kind of content by making it harder for false content to go viral.
- If a video is deemed false by a fact-checker, the video's creator will be notified that their video was flagged as unsubstantiated content, potentially making it ineligible to appear in users' main "For You" feed.
Be smart: TikTok is hoping that this extra friction will get users to consider their next move before choosing to "cancel" or "share anyway."
- Twitter rolled out a similar feature ahead of the election, which the platform said reduced engagement but was effective in slowing the spread of misinformation.
- Twitter asked users to add a thought, or a "quote tweet," when they attempted to share someone else's tweet.
By the numbers: TikTok said the feature decreased the share rate of flagged videos by 24% during testing. Likes on unsubstantiated content also decreased by 7%.
The big picture: TikTok has taken a series of incremental steps to help reduce the spread of misinformation, hate speech and other bad content on its platform over the past year.
- Most notably, the company significantly tightened its misinformation rules before last year's election by updating its policies on misleading content and partnering with fact-checkers to help validate content (Those fact-checking partnerships will help drive the new update).
Yes, but: The platform, which was sidetracked by the threat of a potential Trump ban last year, hasn't implemented the same number of changes to address misinformation as some of its more high-profile rivals, like Facebook and Twitter.
What to watch: The policy could open TikTok up to the same criticisms of censorship that some of its peers have faced in the past few months as they have tried to tighten their misinformation rules.