General increase "of 220 euros", "tax on cash withdrawals": fake news abounds on TikTok, amplified by a myriad of fake news accounts. The result: millions of views and sometimes substantial income for their creators, often without any scruples.

Between invented news stories and "shocking" announcements about the wallet, these videos mixing illustrative images and AI-generated voiceovers elicit indignant or enthusiastic comments.

And on social media, comments, shares and reactions equal engagement, and therefore remuneration, even if it fuels informational chaos.

As evidenced by Victor, 29, who started on TikTok a year and a half ago after losing his job, using a pseudonym.

"I had to bounce back. So I looked for several niches to make money," says this resident of the Marseille region, active on "two or three accounts," to which he devotes about six hours a day.

He claims to earn between 1,500 and 4,500 euros gross per month by telling "far-fetched stories" that "generate an audience", with a preference for "miscellaneous and unusual events", which are particularly viral because they "speak to everyone".

For Océane Herrero, journalist and author of the book "Le système TikTok" (éd. du Rocher), these video formats designed to generate "an emotional reaction", especially when they deal with the cost of living, are part of an "industrialization of fake news".

Guaranteed success for fake news stories with lots of exclamation points and horrified emojis (rumors of kidnapping, stray animals...) but also for an alleged curfew for minors after 11 p.m. or a 35 euro fine for motorists listening to music...

While Victor also publishes real news to avoid having his accounts banned by the platform, on the other hand, there is no topic related to the Middle East or Africa, regions not eligible for TikTok's monetization program.

To circumvent this restriction from Dakar, Eric (not his real name), 28, posts his videos on the account of a friend living in France. His earnings allowed him to finance an operation costing around 1,500 euros after an accident, he told AFP.

These videos appeal to hundreds of thousands of internet users, like Benjamin and Will - interviewed by AFP but without their last names -: they "trust independent media" rather than traditional media, which they accuse of "brainwashing".

The appeal of monetization

It's difficult to quantify the phenomenon, but the word "news" brings up a multitude of accounts on TikTok ("news of the day", "French news"). Often, a single creator manages several of them.

"I'm doing all this for monetization," claims Maxime (not his real name), 19, who wants to pay for training in AI tools for film creation.

Thanks to the success of some of his videos, such as a deepfake of Italian executive Giorgia Meloni in mid-November, his account became eligible for payment and earned him 60 euros. He was delighted with this "first big paycheck," while also expressing his embarrassment that some internet users believed it. TikTok has since deleted his account.

This content violates the terms of the platform's monetization system, the "Creator Rewards Program", which is open to accounts with more than 10,000 subscribers, accumulating 100,000 views in the last 30 days and videos longer than one minute.

"The deceptive nature and the quest for engagement of these accounts are practices that TikTok is supposed to discourage," confirms Océane Herrero, recalling that the network can sanction them, as soon as they have, in its opinion, caused significant "harm."

When contacted by AFP, the platform asserted that it was acting "against disinformation", whether "intentional" or not.

These accounts contribute "to the loss of confidence in the political system" because they "evoke fictitious measures, which blow hot and cold (...) with an impression of arbitrariness," the expert concludes.

AFP, among more than fifteen fact-checking organizations, is paid by TikTok in several countries to verify videos that potentially contain false information.