Verification Agencies on TikTok: The Case of MediaWise and Politifact

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

We thank the authors for their valuable contribution to the field of verification, especially for focusing their research on the TikTok platform, which is of growing academic and social interest. The choice of topic is timely and promises to bring a fresh perspective on these entities in a network environment with a largely young audience.However, the presentation of the manuscript is considerably affected by multiple formatting and structuring errors, which could hinder its comprehensibility and ultimate academic value. Authors are strongly encouraged to undertake a thorough review to correct these errors prior to resubmission. It is noted that the manuscript does not comply with the journal's specific formatting guidelines, including tables outside the margins, and the style of listing bibliographical references. We recommend reviewing the author guidelines in detail and adjusting the paper accordingly.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

we appreciate the effort, time and suggestions for improvement of our article. In response to your evaluations and proposals, we have proceeded to correct and complete the text initially sent, which now reflects the changes. We have left the color yellow to highlight what has been added and red to indicate the need for deletion.

 

 

 

Reviewer	Evaluators' comments	Authors' response
1	However, the presentation of the manuscript is considerably affected by multiple formatting and structuring errors, which could hinder its comprehensibility and ultimate academic value.	We appreciate your feedback because it is always a learning experience. We agree with you, but the reason it has been sent this way is because in the journal it clearly states:   "Societies/ now accepts free format submission".   We have understood that if it ends up being accepted it is when the format is applied. However, as you have indicated, we have set about changing the references and tables, in addition to the size of the abstract, as indicated.

 

Thank you, again, for your contributions and the extra learning for us.

 

Best regards.

 

 

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Manuscript ID: societies-2921561 entitled " Verification agencies in TikTok: the case of MediaWise and Politifact ", has been reviewed. This article observes that TikTok's popularity which is driving media and information institutions to use the platform and adapt their content to the particular narrative of this social network.

Therefore, the work of two international information verification agencies on TikTok is analyzed.

 

To make this manuscript more readable, the reviewer believes that the following points still need to be discussed:

1.      The number of words in the “Abstract” should not be too large/long. There are currently 2118 words, which is almost the size of a chapter. Please see the journal's abstract writing advice for authors.

2.      The current purpose of this research is not clear. Is it to compare the assessment performance of two verification agencies? Does the author(s) wants to point out the differences in their methods, content, and form? To remind the verification agencies to pay attention to improvement? Or does the author(s) want to find better results of TikTok narrative techniques, so that content providers can use TikTok more conveniently in the future? There seems no clear and definite main axis to be made in the article currently.

3.      Is this research a qualitative approach? Or a quantitative approach? The author(s) only said that it adopted a pure quantitative approach and an inductive content analysis with nominal variables. The former words pointed out the simple quantitative statistics of the sample.  But in lines 266-271, it also said, which allows us to attend to qualitative nuances and, therefore, offer a design with methodological triangulation that facilitates interpretation.

4.      In addition, it is about the extraction of nominal variables… although the extraction method is explained, but what are the principles or methods used to strengthen objectivity seem not to be rigorous enough.

5.      In the conclusion, the author observes that the audience scope and influence in 2023 are on a downward trend. Is it related to the error rate? The error to be correct seems to be closer to the purpose of the fact-checking agency: I hope everyone will pay more attention to the importance of fact-checking and reduce errors? That is, if the purpose of the research cannot be compared to the established goals of the fact-checking agency and is just based on the author's own preferences, it needs to be revised.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

we appreciate the effort, time and suggestions for improvement of our article. In response to your evaluations and proposals, we have proceeded to correct and complete the text initially sent, which now reflects the changes. We have left the color yellow to highlight what has been added and red to indicate the need for deletion.

 

Reviewer	Evaluators' comments	Authors' response
2	.      The number of words in the “Abstract” should not be too large/long. There are currently 2118 words, which is almost the size of a chapter. Please see the journal's abstract writing advice for authors.	We appreciate your feedback because it is always a learning experience. We agree with you, but the reason it has been sent this way is because in the journal it clearly states:   "Societies/ now accepts free format submission". Likewise, more formatting changes have been applied, including the one you indicated: reduction of the abstract.
2	The current purpose of this research is not clear. Is it to compare the assessment performance of two verification agencies? Does the author(s) wants to point out the differences in their methods, content, and form? To remind the verification agencies to pay attention to improvement? Or does the author(s) want to find better results of TikTok narrative techniques, so that content providers can use TikTok more conveniently in the future? There seems no clear and definite main axis to be made in the article currently.	Change accomplished in objectives and in abstract.
2	Is this research a qualitative approach? Or a quantitative approach? The author(s) only said that it adopted a pure quantitative approach and an inductive content analysis with nominal variables. The former words pointed out the simple quantitative statistics of the sample.  But in lines 266-271, it also said, which allows us to attend to qualitative nuances and, therefore, offer a design with methodological triangulation that facilitates interpretation.	It has been homogenized, and "qualitative nuances" has been changed to "specific nuances" and it has been specified that it is a quantitative research. In addition, what sounds confusing, such as triangulation, has been eliminated and two related references have been deleted.
2	In addition, it is about the extraction of nominal variables… although the extraction method is explained, but what are the principles or methods used to strengthen objectivity seem not to be rigorous enough.	The requested changes have been implemented in the second paragraph of section 3.3 Data Analysis:
2	In the conclusion, the author observes that the audience scope and influence in 2023 are on a downward trend. Is it related to the error rate? The error to be correct seems to be closer to the purpose of the fact-checking agency: I hope everyone will pay more attention to the importance of fact-checking and reduce errors? That is, if the purpose of the research cannot be compared to the established goals of the fact-checking agency and is just based on the author's own preferences, it needs to be revised.	We agree that this point has not been explained in greater detail, as MediaWise increases a lot especially in 2022, a year of great success, although it is then noted that by the end of 2023, both companies have serious problems to follow a powerful growth line. Some ideas have been changed in the conclusions.

 

 

 

Thank you, again, for your contributions and the extra learning for us.

 

Best regards.

 

 

 

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I think the author has done a good job revising.