TikTok will provide the accounts of, among others, the Dutch public broadcaster with a label. This label indicates that the organization behind the profile is financed by the government. In addition to the Dutch public broadcaster, this concerns the public media of forty other countries.
Since March last year, the accounts of Russian state media have been labeled. Media under the control of the Ukrainian and Belarusian governments have been labeled since May.
TikTok speaks of a “successful test” with the labeling of public broadcasters. That is why the company is now expanding it to forty other countries. In addition to the Netherlands, this includes most other countries of the European Union, the United States and China.
All organizations that are editorially or policy-wise influenced or controlled by a government receive such a label. With this, TikTok says it wants to offer users “the correct, transparent and usable context”.
The social network itself assesses whether media are controlled or financed to a greater or lesser extent by the state. Sixty media experts must carry out that assessment.
According to TikTok, it can happen that organizations are wrongly labeled. In that case there is a possibility to object.
Other platforms and social networks, including YouTube and Facebook, have been labeling or providing information to public media for some time now. For example, YouTube videos of NOS show that NOS is a Dutch public broadcaster.
