How TikTok became a hotbed of brand misinformation

Photo illustration by Valerie Pavilonis/NewsGuard

NewsGuard
Photographs of demonic statues perched on store shelves flash through the TikTok video as eerie music plays in the background. “Apparently Hobby Lobby has a crap-ton of Baphomet [satanic] and demon-like statues just on the shelves right now, which is really confusing because Hobby Lobby is a super Christian-based company,” the unnamed narrator of the video says.

The video is the first result that appeared on a list of videos when a NewsGuard analyst searched “Hobby Lobby” on TikTok. Contrary to the narrator’s claims, the arts and crafts retail company does not sell demonic statues, and the photos shown in the video were AI-generated.

Hobby Lobby is among the major brands that have fallen victim to rampant misinformation on TikTok, a NewsGuard analysis found. In a July 7-13, 2023, review, NewsGuard analyzed the TikTok video search results of nine major brands. These brands — Anheuser-Busch, Balenciaga, Barilla, Bud Light, Chick-fil-A, Heineken, Hobby Lobby, Kohl’s, and Target — were chosen for review because they have recently become the targets of political criticism or boycotts.

NewsGuard found that videos that shared misinformation about these brands were cumulatively viewed 57 million times. Nearly half of the views were for videos that used AI-generated or otherwise manipulated media to advance misinformation.

In total, NewsGuard analyzed 520 TikTok videos and found that 14 percent, or 73 videos, contained false, misleading, or unsubstantiated claims targeting the brands themselves. These video search results were generated by analyzing the top 20 results of 26 keyword searches related to brands based in the U.S. and Europe.

NewsGuard’s analysis was meant to mimic what it would be like for a typical user to search for news and information about brands on TikTok. NewsGuard found misinformation both through neutral, straightforward searches, such as “Target,” and through searches suggested by TikTok related to brands, which were often provocative. For example, when a NewsGuard analyst typed “Target” in the search field, “Target boycott 2023” was suggested as a search term. When a NewsGuard analyst typed “Anheuser-Busch” in the search field, TikTok suggested the search “Anheuser-Busch ceo is a cia operative.”

Research shows that young people are increasingly turning to TikTok — instead of Google — to search for information. In September 2022, a similar analysis by NewsGuard found that for a sampling of TikTok searches on prominent news topics, almost 20 percent of the video results contained misinformation. MORE