At least 52 political ads have found a platform on TikTok despite the social media company’s decision to ban paid political messaging nearly five years ago.
Several of the videos individually received hundreds of thousands of views and were tagged with “Paid Partnership,” “#ad,” or “#sponsored” labels, according to an NBC report. The news comes just over a month before Election Day as former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris battle to gain young voters’ support on the platform.
TikTok has removed two of the videos in question and told the outlet it is “committed to protecting the integrity of our platform through elections and have long prohibited political advertising, including politically branded content.”
“We will continue to remove content that violates our guidelines on an ongoing basis,” a TikTok spokesperson continued.
The news comes after TikTok decided to ban all paid political advertisements in October 2019 due to efforts to keep the platform a place where creators could continue to “build joy.”
“We want to ensure we’re building a place where our community – users, creators, and brands – can be creative, build trends, and have a whole lot of fun in the process,” Blake Chandlee, TikTok’s vice president of global business solutions, wrote.
Multiple videos that violated the app’s policy catered to left-leaning causes or political figures. Organizations affiliated with Tom Steyer funded 15 ads encouraging people to register to vote. TogetherSF Action and NextGen America were created by Steyer, who ran in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.
One video paid for by NextGen America showed a TikTok influencer urging young people to cast votes favoring expanding abortion laws.
Meanwhile, ActBlue, a left-leaning PAC, paid for multiple videos targeting climate change and gun violence.
While some videos specifically called out House Republicans for allegedly trying to cut Social Security benefits and touted support for President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, other ads were nonpartisan. In one 2022 video, a “paid partnership” from Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles encouraged her audience to make sure their voter registrations were up to date.
Both the Trump and Harris campaigns have relied on the platform to reach young voters this election cycle. Last week, one of Harris’s biggest allies encouraged millions of TikTok users to vote this fall.
Former President Barack Obama took to the platform with appearances with multiple influencers last Tuesday.
“One of the reasons I’m supporting Kamala Harris and Tim Walz is because they know that this is something we need to get done,” he said in one video as he expressed support for a law that would provide a legal pathway to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants.
@carlos_eduardo_espina Una conversación de corazón con el Presidente Obama
Obama’s move comes amid increasing debate over whether the Chinese-owned platform should have a place in U.S. society. Founded in 2016, TikTok has exploded in popularity in recent years, even as critics worry it has a negative impact on mental health and enables Beijing to spy on users.
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Citing concerns over national security concerns, Trump once tried to ban the app during his time in the White House. He has since reversed his position and enjoys a following of over 11 million on the platform.
Unless TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, sells the app, it is set to be outlawed in the United States next year.