As we get closer to the U.S. midterm elections, TikTok and other social media platforms have been ramping up changes to their apps and their policies in an effort to curb misinformation and clean up other problems plaguing their platforms. And now, TikTok is issuing a few more changes to its policies that are specifically targeted at political party, politician, and government TikTok accounts. The biggest change? It plans to ban campaign fundraising on the app.
On Wednesday, TikTok published a blog post in which it announced a ban on campaign fundraising and mandatory verification for certain political accounts (in the U.S.).
The new ban on political fundraising shouldn’t come as a surprise. TikTok had already banned political advertising on its app and even forbids its influencers from creating paid political ads. TikTok’s new ban on campaign fundraising seems to be a progression of existing policies. The ban on political fundraising will mean that content that asks for donations to politicians or content that directs people to a political party’s donation page will no longer be allowed.
Alongside the campaign fundraising ban, another related but separate policy change was also mentioned: Accounts that belong to politicians and political parties will no longer have access to “advertising features.” (Government entities will still be able to run ads for things like public health announcements.) Political accounts also won’t be able to access other forms of monetization: tipping, gifting, e-commerce, or the Creator Fund.
According to the announcement, TikTok will also be “trialing mandatory verification” beginning today, but only for political party, politician, and government TikTok accounts. If you’re not familiar, “verification” in this sense are those little blue check verification badges on TikTok account profiles that tell other users they’re viewing the official account that represents the person or entity listed on the account. In the past, verification on TikTok for these kinds of political accounts was optional.