A study about the social video network, TikTok, has revealed that 35% of more than 1000 videos analyzed mention Bitcoin, albeit incorrectly, misinforming about crypto.
TikTok: increasing misinformation and scams involving crypto
Experts at dappGambi analyzed 1161 TikTok videos by 594 creators, using a number of popular hashtags for cryptocurrencies, finding that the total videos have over 6 billion views.
Specifically, the study performed on the CryptoK hashtag, with 1.6 billion views on TikTok, reveals that 1 in 3 videos mentions Bitcoin in a misleading way.
By “misleading,” dappGambi experts define the absence of a disclaimer clarifying to viewers that the information presented is solely the creator’s point of view and not expert guidance.
In this regard, Eugene Abungana of dappGambl, stated:
“Just because a video has many thousands of likes and views does not make the content legitimate and trustworthy.”
TikTok: Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, Cardano and other crypto assets are featured in more misleading videos
In addition to Bitcoin, DappGambl analyzed 53 other different crypto assets most featured in videos on TikTok with the hashatag CryptoK, assessing how many are misleading and deceptive.
And indeed, first among them is Bitcoin with 35%, in second place is Ripple with 13% misleading and deceptive videos, followed then by Ethereum with 11.60%. Cardano, Shiba Inu, Solana and Dogecoin are also in the top 20 positions of this ranking.
Staying with the general data of the study, 37% (434) of all the videos analyzed did not have a financial disclaimer and encouraged users to invest their money or implied a return on investment.
In addition to misleading, it can be said that misinformation in the crypto sphere about TikTok that could result in scams is on the rise.
The danger in terms of “security” of the social network
This little control by TikTok over the veracity of the content of its videos is no small thing. Many crypto scammers, in fact, may find their own nieche on TikTok.
TikTok, called Douyin in China, is a short-form video hosting service owned by Chinese company ByteDance. The social network hosts user-submitted videos ranging in length from 3 seconds to 10 minutes.
Last summer, Brendan Carr, Republican commissioner of the Federal Communication Commission, had asked Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores because of a national security risk.
Carr said the Chinese video social network allegedly collects vast portions of sensitive data accessible in Beijing.
Carr went on to list some of the types of data that TikTok could access, such as search and browsing histories, text typing patterns, and biometric identifiers, including facial and voiceprints.
Source: https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2023/04/23/videos-tiktok-misinform-about-crypto/