[LINK] Tik Tok influencers paid to promote COVIDSafe app falsely claim it 'traces everyone who tests positive'

[Marghanita da Cruz]

This morning the local gm of tik-tok was on rn breakfast.

On monday night a Tik-tok video was played during Q&A with Julia Guillard.

Now an ABC article about Tik-tok

Nice publicity if you can get it.

Marghanita

On 16/7/20 2:51 pm, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
> The harm the government is doing it to its own foot, which is either in
> its mouth or been shot through
>
> Tik Tok influencers paid to promote COVIDSafe app falsely claim it
> 'traces everyone who tests positive'
>
> https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/tik-tok-influencers-fals-claims-covid-app/12459176
>
> Ange McCormack and Avani Dias
>
> Wednesday 15 July 2020 5:18pm
>
> Advertisements and sponsored content for the COVIDSafe app being shared
> on Tik Tok are making false claims about the app's abilities to "trace
> everyone who has tested positive for COVID".
>
> The videos frame the COVIDSafe app as the ticket for Australians to
> dodge a "second wave" of COVID-19 and get out of lockdown sooner.
>
> The campaign, called Let Us Play, is being pushed by a coalition
> <https://www.letusplay.com.au/> of sport and business leaders including
> Nathan Buckley, Caitlin Bassett, BUPA, the Victorian Chamber of Commerce
> and Mitchelton wines, among others. The ads and sponsored content on
> social media are not approved or paid for by the federal government.
>
> One *sponsored video*
> <https://www.tiktok.com/@jheuston/video/6845380315179945222> for
> #letusplay on Tik Tok says, "I've figured out how to stop COVID:
> download the COVIDSafe app."
>
> Another *piece of sponsored content*
> <https://www.tiktok.com/@roryeliza/video/6846313900464475398> encourages
> young people to download the app so they can safely leave the house. The
> video also says the app "is absolutely amazing and it traces everyone
> who has tested positive for COVID."
>
> The COVIDSafe app, which has been slammed by Labor this week as an
> expensive "dud", does not 'trace' positive cases of COVID-19 in
> Australia. The app is a tool to help health authorities conduct contact
> tracing, but is only of use if someone who has tested positive for
> coronavirus has downloaded the app.
>
> Despite being downloaded over 6 million times, the app hasn't helped
> authorities find a single contact they hadn't already traced through
> manual methods.
>
> 18-year-old *Nikita Kostoglou* <https://www.tiktok.com/@kosti.sistas>,
> an influencer from Queensland who has more than 200,000 followers on Tik
> Tok, was paid $600 to make a video encouraging Australians to download
> the COVIDSafe app.
>
> Nikita, like a number of other influencers who spoke with /Hack/, wasn't
> aware that the campaign wasn't sponsored by the government, and didn't
> know which company was funding the campaign.
>
> "They [our agent] just asked us to promote the app so there isn't a
> second wave and to get our generation of people to download the app,"
> Nikita told /Hack/.
>
> Representatives from Let Us Play have not responded to Hack's request
> for comment.
>
> Paul Haskell-Dowland, Associate Dean of Computing and Security at Edith
> Cowan University, said it was unfortunate the app's abilities were being
> falsely spruiked to young people on social media.
>
> "What's unfortunate in this case is that we're not getting the full
> picture [in these ads]. It's clear that the app isn't delivering in the
> scale of uptake or in the effectiveness of the app.
>
> "Using influencers is one way to get to the younger market, but I think
> there has to be more clarity and honesty about the functionality of the
> app and ultimately how effective it's going to be."
>
-- 
Marghanita da Cruz
Telephone: 0414-869202
Email:  marghanita at ramin.com.au
Website: http://ramin.com.au