By Michelle Chapman
TikTok will begin labeling content created using artificial intelligence when it's uploaded from outside its own platform.
TikTok says its efforts are an attempt to combat misinformation from being spread on its social media platform.
"AI enables incredible creative opportunities, but can confuse or mislead viewers if they don't know content was AI-generated," the company said in a prepared statement Thursday. "Labeling helps make that context clear—which is why we label AIGC made with TikTok AI effects, and have required creators to label realistic AIGC for over a year."
The move is part of an overall effort by those in the technology industry to provide more safeguards for AI usage. In February Meta announced that it was working with industry partners on technical standards that will make it easier to identify images and eventually video and audio generated by artificial intelligence tools. The efforts would include Facebook and Instagram users seeing labels on AI-generated images that appear on their social media feeds.
Google said last year that AI labels are coming to YouTube and its other platforms.
A push for digital watermarking and labeling of AI-generated content was also part of an executive order that U.S. President Joe Biden signed in October.
TikTok said that it's teaming with the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity and will use their Content Credentials technology.
The company said that the technology can attach metadata to content, which it can use to instantly recognize and label AI-generated content. TikTok said its use of the capability started Thursday on images and videos and will be coming to audio-only content soon.
Over the upcoming months, Content Credentials will be attached to content made on TikTok, which will remain on content when downloaded. This will help identify AI-generated content that's made on TikTok and help people learn when, where and how the content was made or edited. Other platforms that adopt Content Credentials will be able to automatically label it.
TikTok said it's the first video-sharing platform to put the credentials into practice and will join the Adobe-led Content Authenticity Initiative to help push the adoption of the credentials within the industry.
"TikTok is the first social media platform to support Content Credentials, and with over 140 million users in the United States alone, their platform and their vast community of creators and users are an essential piece of that chain of trust needed to increase transparency online," Dana Rao, Adobe's executive vice president, general counsel and chief trust officer, said in a blog post.
TikTok's policy in the past has been to encourage users to label content that has been generated or significantly edited by AI. It also requires users to label all AI-generated content where it contains realistic images, audio, and video.
"Our users and our creators are so excited about AI and what it can do for their creativity and their ability to connect with audiences." Adam Presser, TikTok's Head of Operations & Trust and Safety told ABC News. "And at the same time, we want to make sure that people have that ability to understand what fact is and what is fiction."
The announcement initially came on ABC's "Good Morning America" on Thursday.
TikTok's AI actions come just two days after TikTok said that it and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, had filed a lawsuit challenging a new American law that would ban the video-sharing app in the U.S. unless it's sold to an approved buyer, saying it unfairly singles out the platform and is an unprecedented attack on free speech.
The lawsuit is the latest turn in what's shaping up to be a protracted legal fight over TikTok's future in the United States — and one that could end up before the Supreme Court. If TikTok loses, it says it would be forced to shut down next year.
Michelle Chapman is an AP business writer
Google wins legal bid to overturn 1.5 billion euro antitrust fine in EU digital ad case
Google won a court challenge on Wednesday against a 1.49 billion euro ($1.66 billion) European Union antitrust fine imposed five years ago that targeted its online advertising business.
The EU's General Court said it was throwing out the 2019 penalty imposed by the European Commission, which is the 27-nation bloc's top antitrust enforcer.
"The General Court annuls the Commission's decision in its entirety," the court said in a press release.
The commission's ruling applied to a narrow portion of Google's ad business: ads that the U.S. tech giant sold next to Google search results on third-party websites.
Regulators had accused Google of inserting exclusivity clauses in its contracts that barred these websites from running similarly placed ads sold by Google's rivals. The commission said when it issued the penalty that Google's behavior resulted in advertisers and website owners having less choice and likely facing higher prices that would be passed on to consumers.
But the General Court said the commission "committed errors" when it assessed those clauses. The commission failed to demonstrate that Google's contracts deterred innovation, harmed consumers or helped the company hold on to and strengthen its dominant position in national online search advertising markets, it said.
The ruling can be appealed, but only on points of law, to the Court of Justice, the bloc's top court.
The commission said in a brief statement that it "will carefully study the judgment and reflect on possible next steps."
Google said it changed its contracts in 2016 to remove the provisions in question, even before the commission imposed its decision.
"We are pleased that the court has recognised errors in the original decision... Read More