Creator Fraud, Abuse, and Misconduct Policy

Key Points

• To maintain a safe and trustworthy environment, TikTok Shop creators in the US must not engage in fraud, abuse, or misconduct on the platform. This includes illegal or criminal activity, manipulating or working around platform systems, misinformation and deceptive behavior, and inauthentic engagement.
• Common examples include money laundering, identity theft, scams, and creating fake accounts. Other examples are brushing (placing or canceling self-orders to inflate metrics), being linked to banned accounts, and using LIVE or shop content for unrelated, sexual, or otherwise prohibited material to drive traffic.
• These rules align with the Creator Code of Conduct, the TikTok Shop Content Policy, the TikTok Community Guidelines, and the Creator Eligibility Policy.
• Violations may lead to enforcement actions on your TikTok Shop account, up to and including an account restriction or removal.

What Is Creator Fraud, Abuse, and Misconduct?

Engaging in Illegal or Criminal Activities

• Money laundering: Multiple accounts controlled by the same person buy from each other repeatedly to make illegal money transfers look like legitimate sales.
• Identity theft: Creating or running an account using stolen or unauthorized personal information — such as another person's name, ID documents, or bank details to pass verification checks.
• Scams: Misleading users into buying by promising giveaways, prizes, or rewards that are never delivered.

Platform Manipulation and Circumvention

• Using harmful software or bots to generate fake TikTok accounts
• Abnormal login activity Frequent logins across multiple accounts from the same device, network, or other shared resources, which may indicate coordinated control.
• Association with banned or penalized accounts Being linked to accounts that have previously been banned or subject to enforcement actions. This includes being part of a group of accounts that show coordinated content, traffic, or engagement patterns tied to known violating creators or violating content.
• Brushing to inflate creator metrics Placing orders through your own showcase, short videos, or LIVE, or quickly canceling high-subcount or high-Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) orders. This is done to inflate your sales performance, follower count, creator level, or other metrics, or to gain better creator or affiliate benefits.

Misinformation and Deceptive Behavior

• Sample abuse For example, repeatedly requesting free samples without genuine promotional intent and fulfilling promotion obligations through poor-quality, non-informative, irrelevant, or gibberish content that does not provide meaningful promotional value.
• Using deceptive or harmful tactics to obtain personal information For example, running a livestream giveaway and asking viewers to submit phone numbers, addresses, ID details, or other personal information through direct messages for unauthorized purposes.
• Sharing or exposing personal information without consent For example, publicly posting or revealing a customer's name, phone number, address, or order details without the owner's consent.

Fake Interactions

• Exploiting platform mechanisms to generate fake orders, views, likes, comments, followers, or positive reviews.
• Developing, using, or distributing malware, bots, or modified code to artificially increase orders, views, likes, shares, followers, or comments.
• Carrying out actions designed to artificially inflate user engagement or to mislead TikTok's recommendation systems.
• Providing or facilitating services that artificially increase engagement, such as selling followers, likes, comments, views, or reviews.
• Sharing instructions, guidance, or methods on how to artificially increase engagement on TikTok.
• Creating content or incentives designed to manipulate others into inflating engagement metrics, such as "like-for-like" schemes, engagement exchanges, or fake interaction incentives.

Traffic Manipulation

• Using third-party service providers, bots, or coordinated networks to increase likes, followers, shares, or comments on livestreams or other content.
• Using fake offers, misleading promotions, price manipulation, or deceptive claims to push users to take specific actions, such as viewing content, placing orders, liking, commenting, or sharing in order to gain higher exposure or recommended traffic.
• Running TikTok Shop LIVE sessions with content that is not related to your e-commerce products, in order to take advantage of TikTok Shop traffic exposure or to drive non-shop engagement (for example, coins or diamonds) through unrelated content.
• Pairing your shop content with sexual, suggestive, or otherwise prohibited material to inflate views, traffic, or shop engagement.

Enforcement Actions and Appeals

• Assigning violation points
• Removing content
• Removing access to features
• Restricting commission earnings
• Restricting or removing your creator account