Misinformation about TikTok has reached alarming levels, especially as the app is increasingly used by teenagers as a search engine, according to research published by NewsGuard on Wednesday (September 14).
The organization conducted research in early September on a variety of hot topics, from Russia's invasion of Ukraine to Covid vaccines, and determined that 20% of the videos obtained in the results contained false or misleading information. .
She highlights a video in which a young woman reveals her recipe for a
"remedy that can cure everything"
, hydroxychloroquine, a controversial treatment that has proven ineffective against Covid.
According to NewsGuard,
“TikTok toxicity is now a significant danger because Google research suggests that TikTok is increasingly being used by young people (…) to find information”
.
"In 2021, TikTok overtook Google as the most popular website in the world, according to Cloudflare"
, a company specializing in infrastructure and services on the Internet, adds the company specializing in evaluation tools. news websites.
"Insulting remarks"
Overall, NewsGuard researchers say even search results that don't contain misinformation
"are often more divisive than Google's
. "
They quote insulting remarks on numerous videos about the American elections.
“Our rules make it clear that we do not allow harmful misinformation, including medical misinformation, and we remove content that falls under it from the platform
,” responded a TikTok spokesperson, contacted by AFP.
The app further believes that the study methodology is flawed as it draws conclusions from limited research.
