Lord Browne of Ladyton questioned whether the sites are truly committed to rooting out scammers instead of shunting the blame elsewhere. He asked: “Where does the balance lie between consumer awareness and victim blaming?”
TikTok’s UK director of government affairs Liz Kanter said that moderators deleted more than 2m rule-breaking videos posted by UK users last year. Explaining that TikTok’s policies ban users from promoting “get-rich-quick schemes, pyramid schemes and peer to peer lending,” Ms Kanter said that more than 13,000 of those prohibited videos had been promoting online scams.
“We banned over 10m ads in 2021, containing these and other types of ads that violate our policies,” added Ms Kanter. Its own figures suggest about 8pc of content that infringes its rules relates to frauds and scams.
Last summer TikTok banned the promotion of “investment schemes with promises of high returns” such as pyramid schemes.
Earlier in the year the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued a public warning urging users to steer clear of “high return” share investment tips on TikTok, saying advice posted on the site didn’t warn consumers about the risks of large losses.
The financial regulator hasn’t shied away from posting its own videos on the site, reaching out directly to what it calls “younger, higher-risk investors” and warning them of the dangers of getting caught up in financial scams. The FCA has spent £50,000 on its own TikTok adverts…
