Banned political ads found on TikTok weeks ahead of 2024 election

TikTok has banned all political advertising on the app, but that hasn’t stopped advertisers from running paid political messages on the platform.

TikTok has banned all political advertising on the app since 2019, but that hasn’t stopped advertisers from running what appear to be paid political messages on the platform.

NBC News found 52 videos on the platform tagged with either a “Paid Partnership” label, #ad or #sponsored that have received up to hundreds of thousands views per video while spreading political messages that appear to violate TikTok’s rules.

According to TikTok, the company does “not allow ads featuring political content across any of our monetization features, including paid ads, creators being paid to make branded political content, and other promotional tools on the platform.”

TikTok stands apart among its big tech peers in banning political ads —  Facebook, Instagram, X and Google all allow political advertisements. But TikTok, owned by Chinese-based parent company ByteDance, has also faced a unique level of scrutiny from lawmakers over national security concerns, facing down a law that the company is currently challenging in court that would ban the platform if it’s not sold to a U.S.-approved company.

The continued presence of political ads on TikTok illustrates the difficulties in patrolling its own platform just weeks ahead of the 2024 presidential election and amid the court proceedings over its potential ban.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/tiktok-ads-videos-election-politics-2024-rcna161234

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