TikTok Sounds used to spread COVID vaccine misinformation

A TIKTOK feature that allows users to add another person’s audio to their videos is being used to promote misleading and harmful content about coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines, a think tank said in a new report.

The London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) analyzed 124 videos that used speech from four original TikTok videos, including two that were removed by the company for breaking its COVID misinformation rules, to push misinformation and stoke fears about vaccine side-effects. The 124 videos had more than 20 million views.

“There’s a part of the content which is still able to travel,” said Ciaran O’Connor, an analyst at the counter-extremism think tank. He likened the spread of misinformation though TikTok’s “Sounds” feature to WhatsApp audio messages that proliferated during the pandemic.

Viral trends where users create their own videos by riffing off the same music or speech clip are a central part of TikTok. The popular social video platform, which saw explosive growth during the pandemic, said it reviews the audio of rulebreaking videos and may prevent these being used as Sounds by other users. It said these cases were caused by human content moderation errors. It also said Sounds can be reported on the app. —