EDITORIAL | TikTok is to be commended for running down the clock on political advertising
TikTok’s new policy on political advertising is a timely reminder to us of how social media can be manipulated
The Beijing-based TikTok phenomenon that has left Mark Zuckerberg and co scrambling to catch up, has introduced welcome new policies for political party advertising. A breath of fresh air, this social media app which is four years young, reached one billion users in September. It’s a feat Facebook, YouTube and Instagram took eight years to achieve, according to a recent report by The Economist (https://www.economist.com/interactive/briefing/2022/07/09/the-all-conquering-quaver). Now its owner Zhang Yiming, the Chinese entrepreneur behind the software company ByteDance, has tightened up TikTok’s policies around political advertising, a significant move that places it another step ahead of its competitors...
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