TikTok bans financial promotions
8th July 2021 17:23
by Myron Jobson from interactive investor
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interactive investor comments as the platform calls time on financial services promotions including crypto.
Commenting on news that TikTok has banned financial promotions, Myron Jobson, Personal Finance Campaigner, interactive investor, says:“The change in policy will hopefully mark the end of dubious and outright misleading adverts of high-risk investments as well as highly volatile cryptocurrency on the platform. The hope is that TikTok’s systems are robust enough to detect and weed out content that falls foul of its revised policy.
“The change appears to be a wholesale ban on the promotion of all financial services and products – meaning regulated financial firms could be swept up in it. This would be a real shame, because it would prevent informed and useful financial content from bona fide financial firms and experts from reaching the masses who use the platform.
“Online searches are a great way of getting investment guidance and ideas, but it can be a minefield. The Reddit versus Wall Street saga which saw the price of so-called meme stocks, like GameStop, soar under the influence of Reddit posters, exemplifies the influence social media has on investing behaviour.
“The key is to check where you are getting your information. There are plenty of reputable online resources offered by likes of the Money and Pension Service, Citizens Advice, financial services companies like interactive investor and the mainstream financial press.”
In May, interactive investor Personal Finance Teacher of the Year 2020 Award winner Darren Collins, from The Sittingbourne School, Kent, warned thatschool children have been learning more about personal finance and investment from TikTok than they are from school. He worried that they risk being lured into get-rich schemes as young adults, like cryptocurrencies and GameStop that set dangerous habits for life.
Meanwhile, research published this week by interactive investor, the UK’s second largest DIY investment platform, found that almost half (45%) of 18–29-year-olds are getting their first taste of investing through high-risk cryptocurrency, with an alarming number funding crypto investments through a cocktail of credit cards, student loans, and other loans.
The research, conducted last month with a sample size of 1,000, found a fifth had invested in bitcoin at some point, with half of these turning to debt to fund it: 23% used a credit card, 17% used a student loan and 16% used another type of loan.
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