TikTok is rife with viral Voice to Parliament misinformation

Misinformation about the Voice to Parliament is rife on TikTok with many popular videos on the platform containing wrong information or outright conspiracy theories about the upcoming referendum.

TikTok said that it plans to take further steps to combat misinformation as it has during elections, but has yet to roll them out. Its parent company, ByteDance, said earlier this month that 8.5 million Australians use the short video service. Australian users reportedly spend an average of nearly 30 hours a month on the platform, more than Facebook (where Voice conspiracy theories are also spreading) or YouTube.

Among videos about the Voice to Parliament referendum, misinformation is common, particularly among opponents.

Some of these false claims are mundane, such as that the Voice will force Australians into a treaty, as made by @GrantWickham2 in a video seen 30,000 times. Others are more extreme and bizarre, such as a video seen more than 74,000 times about a conspiracy theory that the Voice is a United Nations-backed plot to end private property. 

Clips of known conspiracy theorists — such as sovereign citizen David Cole claiming the referendum will turn Australia into a corporation — and far-right figures such as Blair Cottrell are also spreading across the platform. (TikTok removed an account featuring Cottrell after Crikey’s inquiries.)

ByteDance pointed towards misinformation measures outlined in its transparency report for 2022 as ways it is combating the problem. Notably it will remove inaccurate, misleading or false content “that may cause significant harm to individuals or society”. This includes dangerous, medical and election misinformation (that is, misinformation about the election process and not electoral issues). They removed a total of 15,702 videos in 2022; just 132 were election misinformation. 

It also works with Australian Associated Press and Agence France-Presse fact-checkers. These independent journalists review claims made on the app and, if proved false or not able to be proved, can restrict views of the videos. Despite this, Crikey was able to find multiple videos that contained information that had been reviewed as false by TikTok’s fact-checking partners that still had tens of thousands of videos on the platform.

The company is also set to put in-app information about enrolling and the referendum process in its app, but has yet to do so. 

TikTok’s acting director of public policy AUNZ Ella Woods-Joyce said the company strictly enforces its rules: “We know there is no finish line when it comes to the safety of our platform and our community, so in addition to having strict processes and global teams around the world monitoring and enforcing these rules, we also encourage our community to report posts or accounts that they believe to be in breach of our guidelines.”