Big-Money Political Groups And Influencers Are Circumventing TikTok’s Ad Ban

The viral video-sharing app is acutely vulnerable to covert disinformation campaigns, a new report warns.

Since banning political ads in late 2019, TikTok has presented itself as an entertainment-only space to “inspire creativity and build joy.” But the viral video-sharing app is still home to content that’s quietly funded by partisan groups, according to a new report. Influencers are exploiting loopholes in TikTok’s advertising policies to promote political organizations’ agendas without disclosing their paid partnerships with those entities, an investigation from the global nonprofit Mozilla Foundation reveals. The report, titled “Th€se Are Not Po£itical Ad$,” identifies a number of active and partisan videos from creators who are sponsored by groups across the political spectrum, including Turning Point USA, Prager University and Today Is America on the right, as well as The 99 Problems on the left. The 700-million-user platform’s vulnerability to shadowy political influence operations could ultimately have a malignant effect on its users, advocates warn.