TikTok announced to fight misinformation through its twitter handle @tiktok_comms which is often used for posting public updates about the app and company. https://twitter.com/tiktok_comms/status/1295399800557502465
Despite the efforts of President Trump to ban TikTok in the US, the viral video app has launched a new website to pushback false information that is rampant on the internet. The company describes this website as a source of truth which will share accurate information about crucial matters.
The misinformation is not limited to crises, lot of sources have accused the company for many illegal acts such as providing US citizen data to Chinese authorities.
Tik Tok Aims To Set The Record Straight With Its New Website
The website is not just a platform to spam press releases, it seems like a full-fledged activist campaign to stand against the efforts to ban TikTok in the US.
According the homepage of this website, the company comes clean with respect to rumors about TikTok. It claims that the app is not available in China and the user data of US is stored in the state of Virginia. The back-up of the data is kept in Singapore with limited employee access and parameters to ensure user privacy.
They have denied the accusations of providing any data to Chinese government and asserted that they will never do such a thing even if the government asks them. For now it continues to stand firm against the threats by President Trump.
The Challenge Of Tackling Misinformation
With the advent of outrageous conspiracy theories behind every event, social media platforms faced a difficult challenge to protect its users from falsehood. Citizens of the US are increasingly shifting towards social media to get news and information due to which they become vulnerable to several lies. Most popular social media platforms have contradictory policies that allow misinformation to stay live for a significant period of time.
This makes it difficult for users to decide where to get authentic information if all platforms can be unexpectedly wrong about a particular news. A summary of a survey conducted by Consumer Reports shows the number of platforms which allow most misinformation regarding socio-political issues, health crises like coronavirus, doctored media, and encouragement to vote.
It shows that currently only Pinterest, Snapchat, and TikTok are relatively safer in terms of harmful misinformation. Still there can be some content which is intended to distort the political and social stance of an average citizen. The new website contains different articles written by experts who support the goal of TikTok by establishing that it is not a threat to US and its citizens. The video sharing platform has always marketed itself as a major player in promoting civil liberty. Therefore, the threats of ban by Trump were irrelevant
TikTok Is Not Going Down Without A Fight
Creating this website as an information hub is not its last gasp effort to save itself from ban. Apart from Microsft, Twitter is also interested in acquiring the business of TikTok in the US. Trump’s administration has been threatening the ban since July but it is further delayed until after the elections in November.
Meanwhile the app sued the US government to defend against ban and will go through the possible acquisition by either tech giant. The General Manager in US proudly addressed the followers and told them that TikTok was not going anywhere.
