Short-video application TikTok says it can create a safe environment on its platform during the upcoming Thai general election.
The platform provides safety tools for users to obtain accurate and reliable information from official sources, as well as its own election centre feature to serve as a public service announcement platform.
The app has an "election report" button that lets users counter hate speech, harmful behaviour and misinformation related to the election.
The company said it believes in freedom of speech, but content must not violate its community guidelines, said Jirapat Lee, TikTok's product policy lead for Thailand.
The community guidelines do not allow content intended to mislead the community, such as hate speech. TikTok does not permit misinformation that could cause harm to the community or the public.
According to its global community guidelines enforcement report for July to September 2022, 96.5% of videos with content that violated its rules were removed before they were reported, 92.7% were removed within 24 hours, and 89.5% were removed before any views.
Mr Jirapat said TikTok does not accept paid political ads, including branded content. As a result, politicians are banned from any form of monetisation for both paid ads and creators being paid to make branded political content.
The platform remains focused on supporting users with education and authoritative information on important public topics such as the upcoming election, he said.
The company plans to focus on prohibiting misinformation, hate speech, harmful behaviour and violent extremism, said Mr Jirapat.
Previously a roundtable discussion with academics was held to exchange ideas for developing and updating platform policies for the election. This included raising awareness about TikTok's integrity with political parties and their stakeholders via training sessions.
This year has TikTok fought against misinformation through various strategic approaches, including collaborating with trusted partners, creating awareness campaigns, and educating users to reach accurate information.
Locally TikTok established a digital literacy hub to educate the community on safety for minors, cyberbullying, misinformation and digital well-being.
Mr Jirapat said the platform learned about content risks from recent elections in Malaysia and the Philippines, which can be used in preparation for the Thai election.
"We will be introducing election integrity efforts, including developing safety tools to combat misinformation and providing information for users to assess accuracy through collaboration with industry experts on key issues, while also educating users on community guidelines," he said.
Mr Jirapat said TikTok's safety tools enable users to receive accurate and reliable information from official sources, especially the "information hub, information tag and live banner".
The information hub involves building a functionality on the platform that allows access to information sources. One example was during the pandemic when users were directed towards trustworthy information via TikTok's Covid-19 Information Hub.
The information tag provides informative tools displayed on videos and live-streaming to allow users to access official information about social topics by clicking a button.
TikTok classifies relevant political accounts of a government, politician or a political party as GPPPA.
