Chinese video app TikTok said on October 3 that it would not allow paid political ads on its platform as they do not fit into the experience it aims to provide to millions of its users. Created by Beijing Bytedance Technology Co, TikTok allows users to create and share short videos with special effects, and is hugely popular in Southeast Asia, including India. "We will not allow paid ads that promote or oppose a candidate, current leader, political party or group, or issue at the federal, state, or local level, including election-related ads, advocacy ads, or issue ads," Blake Chandlee, vice president of TikTok's Global Business Solutions said in a blog post.
TikTok hit the 500 million mark in monthly active users globally, according to a report in July by the South China Morning Post. With the presence of celebrities like Ariana Grande and Katy Perry, the platform is a hit among teenagers and post-millennials.
Recently, the popular social media app TikTok was in the news for attempting to export some of China's censorship policies to the rest of the world with policy guidelines instructing moderators to take down content that refers to incidents like the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. The company lists Tiananmen Square alongside other "incidents" such as the 1998 riots in Indonesia and the Cambodian genocide as topics that aren't acceptable to broach. In fact, the guidelines list specific world leaders TikTok users can't mention as well.
The action TikTok recommends against users who create a video about a banned topic is to limit the visibility of the post. While the company wouldn't outright delete a post, it also wouldn't allow it to be picked up by its algorithm.
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