Last month TikTok, an increasingly popular video-sharing app, made changes to its community guidelines and policies to include a section called “Misleading information,” which prohibits the use of the app to create videos that spread false information. However, TikTok has been involved in recent incidents pertaining to the distribution of inaccurate information about Clearblue pregnancy tests and the Coronavirus.
Source: https://www.tiktok.com/community-guidelines?lang=en
Social media has become an effective and powerful tool for disseminating information. In fact, more people are starting to get their news from social media. A 2018 study from the Pew Research Center revealed that two-thirds of American adults get their news from social media.
Although social media has improved our access to information, some of it can be inaccurate. A 2018 MIT study on the spread of true and false news on Twitter, revealed that false news stories are 70% more likely to be retweeted than true news stories. The study also found that it takes true news stories six times longer to reach 1,500 people than it does for false news stories.
Even though these findings are linked to Twitter, I think that other social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram face the same issues of false content becoming more viral than true information. Since its introduction in early 2018, TikTok has been dealing with these issues as well.
Certain TikTok users have been involved in spreading a rumor about Clearblue pregnancy tests containing an emergency contraception pill on the inside. The videos showed young teens prying open the tests and revealing a tablet that they believed to be the morning-after pill. In a released statement, Clearblue clarified that this tablet is not “Plan B” and is used to absorb moisture, advising consumers not to eat the tablet:
Source: https://www.clearblue.com
More recently, users have taken to TikTok to create and spread false information regarding the Coronavirus outbreak. Since the news broke about the outbreak, several social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit, have had issues with the circulation of this misinformation and are actively trying to combat it, according to a BBC article. In one TikTok video, a user claims that the Coronavirus has already affected 90,000 people in China but according to Media Matters, the user has been identified as an unreliable source:
Reliable news outlets such as The New York Times and CBS News are providing the public with live updates and correct statistics about the Coronavirus that do not match the numbers provided in this user’s TikTok video.
These incidents are examples of how false information can pose harm to individuals while undermining social media’s role – for better or worse – as a news source. In the case of the Clearblue pregnancy test rumor, the consumption of the moisture tablet is unsafe and harmful. False news about the Coronavirus causes unnecessary fear and anxiety.
As social media users, we are met with the responsibility of ensuring that the information we are sharing is correct. Virality should not take precedence over accuracy. In the same Pew Research Center study, 57% of those they surveyed said that they expect news on social media to be inaccurate.
These recent controversies involving TikTok may illustrate why our most common source of information is widely distrusted for accuracy. However, I don’t think these recent events should discourage our use of social media for information. When we turn to our devices for news, I think we should be open to the new innovative and creative methods of news delivery, such as video-sharing like TikTok provides, but at the same time remain cautious and double-check the facts when we need to.
