TikTok will soon let some of its users help fight misinformation on the app, it said on Wednesday, following similar moves from Meta and X.
With a new feature, Footnotes, TikTok will let a select group of users add context and background information to some of the short videos on the app, along with links to the information’s sources. That group — for now, nearly 80,000 qualified users — will be able to rate those notes for helpfulness. Those with the highest ratings will be displayed at the bottom of all U.S. users’ screens.
Meta and Elon Musk’s X previously rolled out “community notes” programs, which have allowed the social media giants to back away from making decisions about what content to remove from their sites, and to avoid making fraught and sometimes politically loaded choices.
Unlike Meta and X, TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, said it was not ending any of its fact-checking programs or partnerships as it introduced Footnotes. Meta and X drew criticism for reducing investments in fact-checking and moderation that they had made in response to the viral spread of misinformation online, especially around the 2016 presidential election.
“Footnotes is not a replacement for content moderation. Rather, it adds context to content on TikTok,” a company spokeswoman said in an email.
At least initially, TikTok will let its contributors cite any sources to back up their Footnotes. The contributor program is open to U.S. users who are 18 or older, had been on the app at least six months as of April and had no recent history of violating TikTok’s community guidelines.
“We do expect that links to fact-checking articles, links to Wikipedia, these will be among some of the examples of what our users are directing to,” Erica Ruzic, TikTok’s head of integrity and authenticity, said on Tuesday at a company Trust and Safety event before the launch. “But we will let our users decide what they’re deeming an authoritative source, to begin.”
TikTok is drawing attention to safety on its platform after a tumultuous few years in the United States. The app, which boasts 170 million American users, has been fending off a ban under a new federal law that demanded that the company find a non-Chinese owner. President Trump has extended the deadline repeatedly, most recently to mid-September.
At the event on Tuesday, panelists discussed other harm-reduction efforts on the app, including new features that allow parents to have more oversight of their child’s account. It’s a reminder that amid all the political turmoil, TikTok also faces the same problems that any other social media company does, including disinformation and safety issues involving children and teenagers.
Emmett Lindner is a business reporter for The Times.
Sapna Maheshwari reports on TikTok, technology and emerging media companies. She has been a business reporter for more than a decade. Contact her at [email protected].
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