TikTok is one of the top five social media platforms in the world this year.
In Southeast Asia last year, 198 million people, about 29% of the region’s population, used TikTok. It is not an exaggeration to say the platform has become one of the souk of ideas and opinions for the people in the region.
Like other interested scholars, my research team was also intrigued to look into TikTok. Specifically, we wanted to look at how information, including political misinformation and disinformation, flows on the platform. The distinction between the two forms of false information is that disinformation is intentionally, maliciously misleading.
During our eight months’ research, we found tracking political misinformation and disinformation on TikTok quite challenging. This was despite the fact the platform launched a fact-checking program in 2020 in partnership with independent fact-checking organizations that would “help review and assess the accuracy of content” on the platform.
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