The worldwide popularity of short-video content providing platform, TikTok, is nothing short of extraordinary. Should be its reach to the young generation, the content related to investment, including bitcoin and other cryptocurrency investments, are heavily promoted on the platform. However, research shows a significant portion out of overall investment related content produced is misleading.
dappGambling conducted research which brought insight about the investment videos on Tiktok. For study, the firm went through more than 1,100 videos and found a vast number of such content is spreading false information.
The study shows that more than 30% investment related videos available over TikTok are sham and contain wrong investment advice. Such videos use ‘#cryptok’ hashtag majorly. In addition, at least nine out of every ten videos do not contain any kind of disclaimer or warning showcasing the risk involved in making the advised investments.
Given the misleading information shared by alleged financial influencers on crypto investments over social media make impacts on viewers. This leads users with little or no knowledge of finance or investing jump into trade by putting money over the assets following the advice of influencers.
The survey found that around 47% of such creators were forcing services intending to make money for themselves. These influencers also do not fall for regulatory actions for misleading their viewers to unknown asset classes.
On the other hand, many celebrity influencers like Jek Paul, Soulja Boy and Kim Kardashian reportedly faced regulator actions for similar accusations. Due to their vast fanbase, there’s a high chance of people falling for wrong investment advice to a large extent. And this leads them to face harsh consequences as well.
Earlier Kim Kardashian was reportedly fined 1.26 million USD by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission given her link to the promotion of EthereumMax (EMAX). The fine came in the wake of her not disclosing the received payment for involvement in proportion of the crypto asset.
However, the number of users affected after the social media influencers is also significant given the sheer number of such creators. This always results in hovering risk over nascent users due to ill-advice of TikTok influencers.
Moreover, one out of every three such misleading videos about investment on TikTok has mention of leading cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC). Other than hashtag cryptok, popular crypto related hashtags on TikTok including cryptoadvice, cryptocurrency, cryptotrading and cryptoinvesting, etc. which collectively accumate more than 6 billion views.
Nancy J. Allen is a crypto enthusiast and believes that cryptocurrencies inspire people to be their own banks and step aside from traditional monetary exchange systems. She is also intrigued by blockchain technology and its functioning.
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2023/04/22/every-third-crypto-investment-video-on-tiktok-misinform-users-study/