TikTok is taking pre-emptive action ahead of the Czech October parliamentary elections by deploying a 53-member team of local moderators to monitor content on the platform.
The move, part of a broader push to protect electoral integrity in Europe, comes amid growing public concern about manipulation through social media, a sentiment shared by 78% of Czechs, according to a recent STEM survey commissioned by the Czech Interior Ministry.
Piotr Żaczek, TikTok’s communications manager for Central Europe, confirmed to Czech news site Seznam Zprávy that the platform will activate a dedicated “elections task force” in Czechia.
This team, composed of experts in misinformation, cybersecurity, and electoral integrity, will focus on detecting disinformation, flagging political content generated by AI, and enforcing transparency among political influencers.
“We prohibit paid political promotion, political advertising or fundraising by politicians and political parties,” Żaczek said. Undisclosed influencer campaigns will be removed, and the accounts involved will face consequences, he specified.
Moderators will pay special attention to content that falsely appears to show public figures endorsing political views, particularly AI-generated videos. TikTok also requires creators to clearly label synthetic content, and uses a combination of automated tools and human review to enforce its rules.
Fears from the past
The Czech elections follow several high-profile cases of electoral interference in Europe, most notably in Romania, where the courts annulled the presidential election after concerns of manipulation.
Czech officials are keen to avoid a repeat of the situation in Romania, where TikTok played a role in amplifying the pro-Kremlin candidate Calin Georgescu.
Fact-checking support will come from Lead Stories, an international partner that operates a Czech-language service. The team has already debunked hoaxes such as claims that political parties were hiring actors for campaign rallies. TikTok says such content will now be removed outright.
Nevertheless, concerns remain. Demagog.cz, a Czech fact-checking group which collaborates with Meta, has criticised the transparency of TikTok.
“They react quickly, but the collaboration with local partners is limited,” said Petr Gongala from Demagog.cz to Seznam Zprávy.
He recalled a manipulated video of then-presidential candidate Petr Pavel from 2023 that continued to circulate on TikTok long after it had been flagged elsewhere.
Under the EU’s Digital Services Act, oversight of election safeguards in the digital sphere falls to the Czech Telecommunications Office (ČTÚ), which is currently in talks with TikTok and other major platforms.
However, Czechia has yet to fully implement the DSA into national law, a delay that has already triggered legal action from the European Commission. While the Czech government did designate a national authority, the Commission argues it failed to grant it sufficient powers to carry out DSA-related tasks.
