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in General Factchecking by Newbie (220 points)
A BBC project investigates the election content promoted by social media by tracking dozens of phones.
by Apprentice (1.5k points)
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This is a good point and, also to add all social media does have certain content that is plain miss spreading of information not only about politics but anything.
by Newbie (270 points)
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This statement could be true, due to the variety of content and "news" that is exposed to viewers within the app. Along with all people with the app having free will on what to post and it not needing to be verified or processed before being posted.
by Newbie (410 points)
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I appreciate that you brought up TikTok as a topic in relation to misinformation, because, as we know, news on TikTok is often unverified. We can't simply trust what is shared there without conducting research from reliable sources.

2 Answers

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by Apprentice (1.7k points)
This statement is slightly misleading. Yes this article and other articles I found do confirm the amount of misinformation that users on Tik Tok spread about political figures/ topics in the UK but nowhere does it talk about "tracking dozens of phones". Also this specific article only refers to Tik Tok users spreading misinformation about election news not social media in general.
Exaggerated/ Misleading
by Newbie (200 points)
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This factcheck is very helpful but lacks credible sources to back up your reasoning. What articles have you found to confirm this as misleading?
by Newbie (290 points)
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While this answer brings up good questions about the claim, using "other articles" as evidence without stating which articles or providing a link makes it feel a little less credible.
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by Novice (660 points)

I believe that the claim of Tik Tok is spreading misinformation about politics is true. This is based on the fact that popular creators did in fact spew misinformation across the platform. Also, AI plays a huge role in the cycle of incoherent nonsense. Author Marianna Spring utilizes a BBC investigation in order to display promotional content dangers. BBC is a solid trustworthy news reporting site although an edu or gov website would've been more thorough.

Content creators once reaching a certain number of followers are given the opportunity to be paid to enforce political parties for large sums of money. Young voters are extremely gullible and TikTok is a slippery slope when it comes to the truth. If I witnessed someone I looked up to raving about a person or product I would be tempted into purchasing or supporting them as well. TikToks main target audience is the younger generations because of the fact it is a more recent social media platform. The article states that a scandal arose which directly caused Rishi Sunak ( US Parliament member) to force an early election. Doing further research I found a CNN article voicing the same claims. The CNN article noted that Newsguard created an experiment on TikTok and the first 20 results under the election were false information. There is an abundance of concrete evidence that highly aids the claim that TikTok spreads misinformation. TikTok is the Wikipedia of social media. 

AI is a tool that our society can benefit from immensely, but also it could be our downfall. AI has the potential to make any scenario into reality. AI can go as far as making any presidential candidate appear to be doing drugs, holstering weapons, or even committing war crimes. The BBC article provided suggests that AI created national service pledges regarding Gaza and Ukraine stating that young people would be sent there; false. The UK election was also a victim of TikTok AI. The BBC Undercover Voter Project created fictional profiles for made up people ejecting nonsense proclaiming the candidate of their choice was a hero and voicing false narratives on the opposing candidate. Tiktok has gone as far as to let their users know they are actively putting in effort to take this misinformation down. 

To wrap my fact-checking up I believe this is the most accurate article I have commented on. My own research only furthered the information already provided to me. I can wholeheartedly claim that TikTok without a doubt is spreading information. Social media needs to put more blocking and walls up in order to put a firm stop on this gross form of manipulation and coercion.   

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