TikTokBerlin, December 20, 2024 – With the next German Bundestag elections scheduled for February 23, 2025, we are committed to supporting our community throughout this important time. To do so, we’ve created a dedicated Election Center, accessed directly within the app.
This initiative builds on the success of similar hubs created for the 2021 Bundestag elections, the European elections last June, and state elections in Saxony, Thuringia, and Brandenburg, as well as Austria’s National Council elections in September. In addition to providing trustworthy information, we are committed to maintaining the integrity of our platform through comprehensive measures. These include removing harmful content, partnering with experts such as the German Press Agency (DPA), and vigilantly combating covert influence operations. Our global efforts have helped us protect more than 150 elections, including the recent European elections and various state elections in Germany.
A source for trustworthy election information
As part of our standard process, we will label election-related videos, livestreams, and searches with banners that link to the election center. The 2025 Bundestag election center will offer a wealth of information, including details on how German citizens can vote, how to spot misinformation, and the rules for governing candidates. Additionally, it will provide direct links to resources such as the Federal Returning Officer’s official information page and their relevant TikTok account.
Protecting the integrity of our platform
Creating the Election Center is just one part of our broader efforts to safeguard TikTok’s integrity. Leading up to the election, we will establish a dedicated Mission Control Center where our teams of safety, security and election specialists will collaborate to protect our platform both before and during the election season. They apply a variety of measures to protect our platform's integrity and authenticity, and connect our community to reliable information. This includes:
- Removing harmful misinformation: We are committed to consistently removing harmful misinformation related to elections and collaborating with more than 20 IFCN-accredited fact-checking organizations in more than 50 languages. In Germany, we work closely with the news agency dpa for fact-checking. In the four weeks leading up to the 2024 European Parliamentary elections, we removed more than 45,000 pieces of content violating our guidelines on electoral integrity and combating misinformation. In Q1-Q3 of 2024 alone, we removed a total of 9,874,006 videos globally that violated our integrity and authenticity guidelines.
- Labeling unverified content: We label unverified content and may make it ineligible for For You feeds, or prompt people to reconsider before sharing it. We add labels to election-related searches and videos, which direct people to factual information in our Election Center. To support authentic interactions on TikTok, notable accounts can apply for Verified badges, which help indicate the account really belongs to the person it represents. TikTok is one of the few platforms where verification badges are granted based solely on authenticity and cannot be purchased.
- Labeling state-affiliated media accounts: We label state-affiliated media accounts and restrict their ability to advertise to audiences outside their registered country. Additionally, we make such accounts ineligible for recommendation in the For You feed if they attempt to influence foreign audiences on current affairs. We have also geo-blocked Russian state-affiliated media accounts and content for EU audiences. This year, we have removed more than 150 accounts associated with Rossiya Segodnya and TV-Novosti for engaging in covert influence operations on TikTok.
- Policies for news, government, politician, and political party accounts: We moderate content from news, government, politician, and political party accounts the same way we do for other accounts. Any content violating our policies will be removed or made ineligible for recommendation. However, because of the role these public interest accounts play in civic processes and civil society, we enforce different account restrictions to align with our commitment to human rights and free expression. If a public interest account repeatedly posts content that violates our policies, we may temporarily make it ineligible for recommendation. If it posts content during high-risk times that promotes violence, hate, or misinformation that could undermine a civic process or contribute to real-world harm, we may temporarily restrict it from posting. We consider behavior outside of TikTok in these decisions and inform accounts of the action taken. Learn more here.
- Political advertising ban: TikTok prohibits political advertising, including paid ads from governments, politicians, and political parties, as well as the payment of creators for branded political content. This includes the use of TikTok’s advertising tools. Accounts belonging to members of government or politicians also cannot access gifting, tipping, e-commerce, or advertising functions. In Q1-Q3 of 2024, we removed 20,479,006 ads that violated our advertising guidelines. We continuously review and refine our systems to quickly and accurately identify and remove ads that violate our guidelines.
- Combatting covert influence operations: We prohibit covert influence operations and remain vigilant against attempts to manipulate the platform through misleading behavior. This year alone, we’ve removed more than 40 networks with covert influence intentions, including three from Germany. You can read more about how we do that here.A network of 42 accounts in Germany which coordinated outside of TikTok, through a messaging platform, where they shared tactics to amplify the reach of pro-AFD (Alternative für Deutschland) political content targeted towards the 2024 German state elections (reported September 2024).A network of 29 accounts in Germany which created inauthentic accounts in order to amplify narratives favorable to Russian foreign policy (reported July 2024).A network of 46 accounts in Germany which created opaque entities in order to artificially amplify narratives in German language favorable to the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) political party (reported February 2024).
- Promoting media literacy: We continue to invest in media literacy initiatives as a strategy to combat disinformation. For example, ahead of the European elections, we educated users about voting and provided country-specific election hubs. During the four weeks surrounding the election, more than 7.5 million users across Europe visited these in-app hubs, including more than 1.3 million visits in Germany and Austria. In November, we launched a campaign to raise awareness about AI-generated content, helping users identify, label, and report it using TikTok's tools. This campaign reached nearly 8 million users in-app. We will continue to sensitize our users to trustworthy sources of information.
- Mandatory labeling of realistic AI-generated content: We require users to label realistic AI-generated content (AIGC) and remove content that may mislead users. This includes AIGC that falsely depicts public figures making endorsements, or falsified authoritative sources. We have introduced a tool to help users label content correctly. In Q1-Q3 of the year, we removed 2,596,863 videos globally for violating our guidelines on AI-generated or manipulated media.
- Firm stance against hate: TikTok prohibits violent and hateful organizations or individuals from using the platform and discourages incitement to violence, hate speech, and harmful ideologies. In Q1-Q3 of 2024, we removed 16,263,476 videos globally that violated our hate speech guidelines.
Through these measures, we aim to provide a secure space for our community to exchange information on political contexts and important events like the upcoming German federal election.
We will continue to invest in our policy enforcement to ensure the highest standards of platform integrity.
This post was originally published in German on 20 December.
