Sponsored: TikTok Canada is working with the government to secure our election
Every app can be misused. But we have a team here in this country working to keep our platform, and our vote, safe.
By: Steve de Eyre
After nearly a year and a half of work, Justice Marie-Josée Hogue delivered a sobering reality throughout the hulking 860-page final report she released in January: bad actors have, and are likely to continue to, use online platforms to attempt to meddle and interfere in Canada's democracy.
While the evidence presented by Justice Hogue showed how a number of popular platforms were used as tools for foreign interference, TikTok was not among them. Despite the inordinate amount of ink that has been spilled inciting moral panic about the purported (but unsubstantiated) risk posed by TikTok's platform, the inquiry made no finding that TikTok was used to interfere in Canada's elections.
Of course, this doesn't mean that bad actors can't attempt to target TikTok. Covert Influence Operations are an industry-wide challenge that no platform is immune to, which is why we work constantly to detect, disrupt and report them. As Canada prepares for its 45th General Election, girding our platform from being disrupted by these bad actors is our top priority.
TikTok Canada has been at work for months alongside a global team of experts and specialists, building and implementing a comprehensive election integrity program to protect our platform against misuse. We've also worked with the Samara Centre for Democracy to consult with local experts to strengthen our approach. Underpinning all this work is a localized approach informed by Canadian employees — something that will not be possible if the order made by the Trudeau government to shut down TikTok Canada's offices and lay off its employees is not reconsidered.
While TikTok is often thought of as a place for entertainment — where you might discover new artists or small businesses — we are proud to be a platform where 14 million Canadians of all ages, backgrounds, beliefs, and political perspectives can also exchange ideas with each other about the future of our nation. Our community guidelines, which provide clear rules for what can and cannot be posted on our platform, seek to balance supporting freedom of expression while also being a place that brings people together in a positive and productive way.
What does that look like in practice?
Support, criticism, or parody of political leaders and their policies: Allowed.
Misleading AI-generated content of political leaders, false claims about the voting process, or incitement of hate or violence: Not allowed.
We use a mix of human moderators and technology to identify content that violates our community guidelines, as well as external International Fact-Checking Network-accredited fact-checkers to independently assess the accuracy of claims.
And these efforts are working: according to our transparency reports throughout 2024, over 99% of the content we removed for violating civic integrity policies was flagged and acted upon before it was reported by users. For the past several months, a team of multi-disciplinary experts from across TikTok have been working to fortify this work, to ensure we are prepared to enforce these rules at the scale elections necessitate.
We believe a key element of countering misinformation is to elevate authoritative information, and so on the day the election was called, we launched our dedicated in-app Election Centre, which we developed with Elections Canada. This bilingual hub, which also offers access to voting information in 16 Indigenous languages, and is discoverable through banners on election-related videos and search results, provides authoritative information on when, where, and how to cast your ballot.
We've also long prohibited paid promotion of political content on TikTok. This policy prohibits paid political advertising as well as paid brand partnerships (or "influencer marketing") where a creator is paid to post election-related content.
We are very proud of the work that was done to prepare for the election, but remain clear-eyed about the challenges that we will face over the remaining weeks. We're working to maintain the integrity of our platform during the 2025 federal election, and continuing to challenge the federal government's order that would eliminate the jobs of all our Canadian employees — including those who are leading the work on the election. It's in the best interest of Canadians to have our local team remain in place for many elections to come.
We believe that Canada benefits from TikTok having employees operating in Canada, under Canadian law, who are familiar with Canada's electoral system, and are accountable to Canadian authorities — and the high-stakes nature of an election demonstrates exactly why that is important. Over 14 million Canadians — and counting — use TikTok. The next government has an opportunity to find a resolution for TikTok Canada that keeps local investment and jobs in place, so that Canadians can keep supporting Canadians.
Steve de Eyre is director of public policy and government affairs at TikTok Canada.
This oped was published as part of a commercial agreement between TikTok Canada and The Line.
The Line is entirely reader and advertiser funded — no federal subsidy for us! If you value our work, have already subscribed, and still worry about what will happen when the conventional media finishes collapsing, please make a donation today.
The Line is Canada’s last, best hope for irreverent commentary. We reject bullshit. We love lively writing. Please consider supporting us by subscribing. Follow us on Twitter @the_lineca. Pitch us something: lineeditor@protonmail.com