TikTok bans political advertising on its app, but do you know why?

TikTok has decided not to allow political ads on its app. Of late, TikTok has come under fire for promoting the foreign policy of China and censoring topics related to Hong Kong's protest. Now, TikTok says it will no longer allow political ads on its platform. The ByteDance-owned viral video app also noted paid political ads do not fit the experience it aims to offer to its users.

"Any paid ads that come into the community need to fit the standards for our platform, and the nature of paid political ads is not something we believe fits the TikTok platform experience," said Blake Chandlee, VP of Global Business Solutions at TikTok

"To that end, we will not allow paid ads that promote or oppose a candidate, current leader, political party or group, or issue at the federal, state, or local level – including election-related ads, advocacy ads, or issue ads," he added.

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TikTok further points to its Ad guidelines.

TikTok opts out of paid political ads

TikTok says it aims to build what it calls a 'home for creative expression.' So yes, TikTok's primary focus remains on promoting content and content creators. TikTok is a short-form video app with 500 million monthly active users around the world. The popularity of TikTok has grown immensely into becoming the most widely regarded social media app around the world.

According to Sensor Tower data, TikTok tops the charts of the most-downloaded social media apps worldwide, ranking above Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram. Currently, TikTok offers different ways to promote paid ads on its app. For example, TikTok allows paid promotion in the form of in-feed video ads, launch screen ads, sponsored hashtags and more. But now, TikTok wants to stay away from political ads altogether.

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Allowing political ads on the social media platform today has its own challenges. In the last few months, political ads on social media platforms such as Facebook have become a growing concern among policy experts and lawmakers. Earlier, Facebook tightened its rules around political ads and created a verification system to verify the credentials of political advertisers.

Now, Facebook makes it mandatory for political advertisers to submit their address details, phone number, business email, the US Federal Election Commission ID number or Tax ID number.

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