(San Francisco) According to research published by NewsGuard on Wednesday, misinformation about TikTok has reached alarming levels, especially among teenagers who are increasingly using the app as a search engine.
Posted yesterday at 6:17 pm.
The organization conducted research in early September on a variety of hot topics, from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to COVID-19 vaccines, and concluded that 20% of the videos found in the results were false or misleading.
She highlighted a video in which a young woman revealed her recipe for hydroxychloroquine, a “cure-all remedy” that has proven ineffective against COVID-19.
According to NewsGuard, “TikTok toxicity is a significant risk now, as Google’s research shows that TikTok is mostly used by young people. […] To find information.
“In 2021, TikTok will surpass Google as the most popular website in the world, Cloudflare, a company specializing in infrastructure and services on the Internet, will add a company specializing in tools. Evaluation of news sites.
Overall, NewsGuard researchers say even search results that don’t contain misinformation are “more often divisive than Google.” They quoted insulting comments on several videos related to the US election.
“Our rules make it clear that we will not allow harmful misinformation, including medical misinformation, and we will remove content that falls under it from the platform,” responded a TikTok spokesperson contacted by AFP.
Yap believes the study’s methodology is flawed because conclusions are drawn from limited research.
