Raise your hand if your spam folder is full of unanswered pleas for campaign donations!
Hands up? Ok, well, the bad news is, those e-mails might keep coming. But the good news is that your TikTok feed will be free of politicians begging you for money.
What happened: TikTok is banning accounts for politicians, parties, and governments from asking for donations or using monetary features like tipping, gifting, and e-commerce.
- TikTok is also tightening its ban on political ads on the platform by making all political accounts automatically unable to access any advertising features.
- TikTok has not disclosed how many political accounts use monetization features, but there’s no doubt it’s become a vital tool for reaching younger voters.
Why it’s happening: TikTok seems to be learning from the mistakes of its predecessors (*cough* Facebook) by getting ahead of political grifting—it has enough controversies to worry about.
- A company post writes that TikTok is an entertainment platform that wants to “foster and promote a positive environment that brings people together, not divide them.”
Bottom line: TikTok’s view of itself as just a silly video app is not exactly accurate: Whether it admits it or not, it’s a major hub for news and disinformation is a global problem on the app.