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TikTok is rolling out a new tool aimed at adding more clarity and credibility to its feed. Dubbed “Footnotes”, the feature lets users add context to videos, similar to Community Notes on X (formerly Twitter).
Announced on Wednesday, the pilot begins in the United States. TikTok says the system is designed to bolster, not replace, its existing content verification efforts, including labels and third-party fact-checking. A subtle dig at Meta, perhaps, which recently handed moderation duties to its own version of community notes.
Footnotes rely on a “bridge-based ranking system”—corporate speak for algorithmic consensus. It encourages users with opposing views to collaborate on fact-check-style notes. Only entries rated as “helpful” by a diverse cross-section of users will go public. The more interaction, the more the system supposedly sharpens.
Unlike the app’s usual comment chaos, Stitch and Duet tools, Footnotes offer a more structured method of adding expertise, especially handy for science content, statistics, or breaking news.
The move follows mounting criticism over TikTok’s role in fuelling misinformation, particularly around health and elections. The platform clearly hopes its crowd-sourced system will help clean up the mess, or at least look like it’s trying.
To join, users must be 18 or older, active on TikTok for over six months, and free of recent community guideline violations. The company hasn’t revealed how Footnotes will appear on screen.
TikTok currently works with over 20 IFCN-accredited fact-checkers across 130 markets. Footnotes, it says, are just “another tool to enrich conversations and improve the user experience.”
