Here’s why TikTok banned political advertising

TikTok is all the rage with kids these days, and it hopes to keep it that way by keeping politicians and politics off the platform.

As the Beijing-based video app grows, much to the aggravation of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and privacy-loving parents, it is trying to figure out how to cash in on its success without alienating its users. For one, it wants to make sure that all the ads that appear alongside those short-form, looping, soundtracked videos are as cool as TikTok is.

“Our primary focus is on creating an entertaining, genuine experience for our community,” writes Blake Chandlee, TikTok’s VP of global business solutions, in a blog post. “While we explore ways to provide value to brands, we’re intent on always staying true to why users uniquely love the TikTok platform itself: for the app’s lighthearted and irreverent feeling that makes it such a fun place to spend time.”

To keep things lighthearted and irreverent, the company announced today that it will not allow political ads on TikTok, no matter how cool those politicians and their platforms think they are.

“Any paid ads that come into the community need to fit the standards for our platform, and the nature of paid political ads is not something we believe fits the TikTok platform experience,” Chandless wrote. “To that end, we will not allow paid ads that promote or oppose a candidate, current leader, political party or group, or issue at the federal, state, or local level—including election-related ads, advocacy ads, or issue ads.”

Guess politicians will just have to hang with their fellow kids elsewhere.