TikTok is allowing users to spread manipulated videos of Biden, despite the platform’s policies

https://www.mediamatters.org/tiktok/tiktok-allowing-users-spread-manipulated-videos-biden-despite-platforms-policies

44 Comments

  1. RemarkableEmu1230 on

    That mean they gonna take down all those funny videos of the presidents trash talking each other while playing xbox?

  2. Nobody needs to manipulate videos of Biden, he’s a train wreck all by himself without it.

  3. hateitorleaveit on

    People keep being surprised TikTok is doing things that were its entire point to begin with lol

  4. These kids dont know what it’s like to wait an hour for an mp3 file only to hear Bill Clinton

  5. Fermented_Butt_Juice on

    Wow. I, for one, am shocked that the Chinese Communist Party would use dishonest means to try and influence American public opinion.

  6. allfriggedup on

    Nobody in this country is dumb enough to believe this kind of misinformation. /s

  7. sextoymagic on

    Foreign governments tampering with elections and pushing division. Glad it’s getting banned.

  8. Mr_master89 on

    But aren’t these on like, every social media platform? Or is it only bad because China?

  9. It’s always so funny to hear redditors talk about Tiktok and then immediately expose all the propaganda that they’ve been consuming.

  10. Telefonica46 on

    TikTok doesn’t enforce its own policies.

    I’ve reported so many videos that equate black people to monkeys and other racist crap and the report always comes back that the video doesn’t violate their policies.

  11. They say TikTok is “allowing” users to post these videos that violate their community guidelines, but they never say what TikTok does when notified about the videos. Do they take them down or leave them up? If the content wasn’t removed then why didn’t they provide links to any of it? And if they’ve been removed then can you really say that they are “allowing” them? Given the enormous amount of content posted to the site, of course some bad things are going to get through. Content moderation is basically impossible to do well at that scale.

  12. Neither_Relation_678 on

    Wouldn’t that be freedom of speech? We’re allowed to make fun of people, regardless of how comically satirical it is.

  13. Fearless_Excuse_5527 on

    Are they spreading Trump AI videos also or is it heavily biased against Biden?

  14. Hmm, let’s read the article:

    >We identified at least **3** TikTok posts of this video with altered audio, none of which were labeled or disclosed as such.

    Fuck China.

    >A separate USA Today investigation found that video of Biden visiting an Allentown, Pennsylvania, business was similarly altered with profanity-filled audio and posted on **Instagram and X (formerly Twitter)** in January. While Biden did receive heckling during his visit, additional profanity was reportedly added to the video.

    ok but Tiktok gets the views. So hot right now. It’s like Algorithim Journalism, it’s all about what headlines drive engagement. Just like Tiktok.

  15. cereal7802 on

    I think a lot of comments here are misrepresenting what the article is talking about. The first paragraphs lays it out.

    > Deceptively altered videos of President Joe Biden with audio added to depict him receiving profanity-filled jeers are spreading on TikTok without any labeling or disclosure, seemingly violating the platform’s policies. TikTok has a history of falling short when it comes to moderating AI-generated or deceptively altered content.

    This isn’t memes orjoke calls hat are obviously fake. These are videos where Biden is giving a speech and they have added in voices from the crowd to make it sound like the audience was heckling him (or in the case of later in the article, it says adding additional heckling to make it seem worse than it was). In this case the videos are being presented as a factual account of what happened, and not being shown as a funny clip.

  16. fall3nmartyr on

    I mean it’s there to sow mistrusts division and misinformation, so it looks like nothing to me

  17. Inevitable_Ad_7236 on

    Aren’t those on every site? I remember YT Shorts with Biden edited to sound even more infirm

    I just saw an Insta Reel with an AI edited Joe Rogan interview where he hypes up a guy who says he’s taking cocaine to overcome the addiction and stop the glorification of recovering addicts. I could tell it was AI edited, but 99% of the comments couldn’t. I’m normally very in touch with IG comment sarcasm, and those comments were not ironic.

  18. SedentaryXeno on

    Lmao, the Biden administration has been attacking TikTok and he’s surprised they’re not friendly???

  19. rotatingchivalry111 on

    That also happens on Facebook, Insta and Twitter. What are they doing about that?

  20. Homersarmy41 on

    If people don’t want TikTok to disappear in the US, they probably shouldn’t be sharing this stuff.

  21. onlyifitwasyou on

    I report scammers all the time and they do not get removed. This will not surprise anyone who knows how weird tiktok moderation is. Coming from the platform that popularized “unalive” to replace “killed” no one should be surprised.

  22. FireFistTy on

    Fb and tiktok can both get launched into the sun. And please take youtube shorts away. I’m beyond tired of “react” content and street interviews.

  23. FinalCisoidalSolutio on

    Don’t worry, young people overwhelmingly hate genocide joe with or without videos of his applesauce brain leeking out of his ears

  24. blueberrykola on

    Well he did call college students protesting genocide as anti semetic so for all I care Biden can get fucked

  25. “Allowing” or failed to detect? Most platforms fail to detect all kinds of things that are against policies. How exactly is TikTok supposed to know? Did they report the videos in question? Not acting on a valid report is a different standard.

    No fan of TikTok, but I see these articles all the time, but it’s like the people writing them have no idea how platforms work and the limits of algorithmic detection. They mostly rely on keywords and are easily fooled. If they “turn up the dial” they end up getting too many false positives. This reminds me of fighting spam when running an email server 20 years ago.