Ticked off

Global Witness tested the ad review processes of TikTok, YouTube, and X by submitting 16 advertisements containing election disinformation targeted at Ireland. TikTok approved 100% of the disinformation ads, while YouTube approved 12.5% and X approved none. The report argues that TikTok's failure violates its own community guidelines and the EU's Digital Services Act, which requires platforms to mitigate systemic risks to elections. TikTok attributed the failure to 'human error on the part of one moderator'.

• TikTok approved all 16 of the 16 test advertisements containing election disinformation, representing a 100% approval rate.
• YouTube and X showed a higher capacity to detect the disinformation; YouTube approved two out of 16 ads (12.5%), and X approved zero, suspending the account for a policy violation.
• A separate test revealed that TikTok's review process fails even after an ad goes live; a political ad stating "It’s an election year!" garnered over 12,000 impressions in less than an hour despite TikTok's policy prohibiting all political ads.
• The approved content violated TikTok's own community guidelines, which prohibit misinformation about civic and electoral processes that could result in voter interference or off-platform violence.
• The failure of TikTok to block these ads is presented as a violation of the EU's Digital Services Act, which mandates that large social media companies tackle systemic risks related to elections.
• TikTok responded to the findings by stating that the ads were correctly identified as potential violations but were approved due to 'human error on the part of one moderator'.

APA

Global Witness (2024). Ticked off. https://globalwitness.org/documents/107/Digital_Threats_Ticked_off-June_2024.pdf

Chicago

Global Witness. Ticked off. 2024. https://globalwitness.org/documents/107/Digital_Threats_Ticked_off-June_2024.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Global Witness |title=Ticked off |date=June 2024 |url=https://globalwitness.org/documents/107/Digital_Threats_Ticked_off-June_2024.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{globalwitness2024ticked, author = {{Global Witness}}, title = {{Ticked off}}, institution = {Global Witness}, year = {2024}, month = jun, url = {https://globalwitness.org/documents/107/Digital_Threats_Ticked_off-June_2024.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }