Misinformation about TikTok has reached alarming levels, especially as teens increasingly use the app as a search engine, according to research published by NewsGuard on Wednesday.
The organization conducted research in early September on a variety of hot topics, from the Russian invasion of Ukraine to Covid vaccines, and found that 20% of the videos found in the results contained false or misleading information.
A video stands out in which a young woman reveals her recipe for a “remedy that can cure everything”, hydroxychloroquine, a controversial treatment that has proven to be ineffective against Covid.
A very popular social network.
“In 2021, TikTok surpassed Google as the most popular website in the world, according to Cloudflare”, a company specializing in infrastructure and services on the Internet, adds the company specializing in news website evaluation tools.
Overall, NewsGuard researchers say that even search results that don’t contain misinformation “are often more divisive than Google’s.” They quote insulting comments in numerous videos about the US election.
The app further believes that the study’s methodology is flawed, as it draws conclusions from limited research.
Source: BFM TV
