Despite the challenges, TikTok hopes Footnotes will strengthen its fight against misinformation, especially ahead of the 2026 U.S. elections, where social media misinformation is expected to surge.
TikTok has officially launched Footnotes, a crowd-sourced fact-checking and debunking tool in the United States, marking the video-sharing platform’s latest effort to combat online misinformation.
The Footnotes feature, first tested in April, allows vetted TikTok users to add written context to videos that may contain false or misleading claims. Similar to Community Notes on X (formerly Twitter) and Meta’s fact-checking initiatives, the tool enables the TikTok community to contribute real-time fact-checks to potentially viral misinformation.
“Footnotes draws on the collective knowledge of the TikTok community by allowing people to add relevant information to content,” said Adam Presser, TikTok’s Head of Operations and Trust & Safety, in an official blog post.
TikTok revealed that 80,000 U.S.-based users currently qualify as Footnotes contributors, provided they have maintained an active account for at least six months. These community fact-checkers can now write, rate, and review notes on short-form TikTok videos, while other users can vote on their helpfulness.
The platform, which boasts 170 million users in the United States, said Footnotes will complement existing integrity measures, including:
- Content labeling for unverifiable claims
- Partnerships with professional fact-checking organizations like AFP
- Ongoing misinformation detection efforts
The concept of community-driven fact-checking was popularized by Elon Musk’s X, but research shows mixed results. A Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas (DDIA) study found that over 90% of Community Notes on X are never published, questioning the effectiveness of crowd-sourced debunking in fighting viral falsehoods.
