Mr. Israel,
Thank you so much for reaching out.
On April 12, 2023, we released a newsroom post to highlight the seriousness with which we are approaching the upcoming Turkish elections, where millions of voters will cast their votes for both the new parliament and president.
While TikTok isn't an app built around political debates or real-time news, we recognise that elections are important moments of community conversation, and we're focused on supporting our community with access to factual information.
We are investing in a three-point strategy to protect our community during the voting period:
- Protecting the integrity of elections through robust policies and enforcement strategies
- Connecting our community to authoritative information
- Partnering with local and international experts to respond to emerging threats
Protecting the integrity of elections through robust policies and enforcement strategies
TikTok's Community Guidelines, which apply to everything and everyone on our platform, are informed by our Community Principles, which are rooted in international legal frameworks, including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the Santa Clara Principles and the International Bill of Human Rights among others. In moderating content on TikTok, we seek to balance freedom of expression with harm prevention.
We do not allow misinformation about civic and electoral processes, regardless of intent. This includes misinformation about how to vote, registering to vote, eligibility requirements of candidates, the processes to count ballots and certify elections, and the final outcome of an election. We do not allow paid political promotion, political advertising, or fundraising by politicians and political parties (for themselves or others). We safeguard the platform from covert attempts to influence civic and electoral processes.
We have robust policies for accounts belonging to a government, politician, or political party. We restrict their ability to give or receive money, for example by withdrawing access to advertising features, and gifting, tipping or e-commerce features.
Our policies apply year-round and to everything on TikTok, and our teams have been preparing for potential risks and emerging trends related to the elections in Turkiye since August 2022. We have more than 40,000 safety professionals who work alongside technology to enforce our policies, and we work with native Turkish, Kurdish and Arabic speakers to moderate content and to detect local narratives that violate our policies. Community members can also use the in-app reporting function to report violations of our Community Guidelines for review by our moderators.
As part of our commitment to transparency, we publish quarterly reports about our enforcement efforts to our Transparency Centre, and every six months we report on the number of Government removal requests we have received and the action we have taken.
Connecting our community to authoritative information
Providing access to authoritative information is an important part of our overall strategy to counter election misinformation. We have launched our Türkiye Elections Centre for users who are specifically searching for election-related information. By doing so, we will point users to factual information about elections, including providing the specifics around how and where to vote, and more.
To ensure that our Elections Centre is visible and accessible, we're adding labels to content identified as being related to the parliamentary and presidential elections as well as content from accounts belonging to governments, politicians, and political parties. These labels will allow viewers to click through to our center and get information about the elections. We'll also add a banner pointing viewers to our election guide on content with unverifiable claims about voting or premature declarations of victory.
Partnering with local and international experts to respond to emerging threats
We work with a diverse set of local and international partners to support our election integrity efforts. Specifically, these include:
- Fact-checking partners - who assess the accuracy of content, which helps us take the appropriate action in line with our Community Guidelines on misinformation. In Turkiye, we have partnered with three fact-checking organisations that are signatories to the International Fact-Checking Network (ICFN) code of principles: namely, Teyit.org, Doğrula and Doğruluk Payı.
- Civil society partners - to support market-specific research, trend detection, and open escalation and reporting channels from local experts in the democracy space. Last year, we were an industry leader by launching a Safety Advisory Counsel in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkiye, bringing together experts from academia and civil society, to provide subject-matter expertise and advice on the platform’s content moderation policies and practices, as well as develop safety strategies and hone its approach to safety in the region.
- Electoral management bodies - to obtain and provide our community with access to authoritative information about voting processes, procedures and eligibility requirements.
I hope the above information is useful. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if we can provide any additional insights; we look forward to continuing the conversation.
Warmly,
Lisa A. Hayes
Head of Safety Public Policy & Senior Counsel, Washington, DC
