cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3758180
Chinese social media giant TikTok is “more dangerous” to Ukraine in terms of spreading Russian propaganda and disinformation than the Russia-founded messaging app Telegram, according to Alina Aleksieeva, the deputy head of Ukraine’s State Center for Countering Disinformation (CPD).
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“We often perceive Telegram as the primary culprit, given its abundance of anonymous Russian channels and the impersonation of Ukrainian ones,” said Svitlana Slipchenko, deputy executive director of the data analytics platform Vox Ukraine.
“But the problem extends beyond Telegram — fake news is widespread on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads,” she added. “The danger is focusing too narrowly on one platform while Russian propaganda continues to thrive across the entire digital landscape.”
Earlier this year, the CPD published a list of over 80 TikTok accounts used for Russian disinformation. The list includes official accounts of Russian state media, such as TASS, Sputnik, and RIA Novosti.
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Ukraine has previously considered banning TikTok. The app’s future in the U.S. is uncertain due to concerns that ByteDance may have ties to the Chinese government. U.S. authorities have also accused the app of spreading harmful content and misinformation and posing privacy risks.
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Ukraine has been paying close attention to foreign social media apps due to the risks they pose to its users amid the ongoing war. Earlier in September, Ukraine banned Telegram on official devices used by state and security officials, military personnel, and employees of critical infrastructure facilities.
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There is quite literally zero evidence that Tiktok “spreads propaganda” relating to the Russia-Ukraine war of its own volition. There are literally millions of pro-Russia users around the world - i.e India where a huge percent of users come from and where the population is split on which side of the war is to blame - who are responsible.
In Germany, it was found that it’s very very very easy to fall down an AfD propaganda hole when browsing TikTok – and the way that was fixed was by other parties, non-party actors etc. starting to give a fuck about the platform.
I’m not saying there’s no Chinese shennanigans going on on TikTok, there probably are at least low-key and they’re keeping it around as an asset they can use more intensively, push come to shove. But that doesn’t mean that everything bad on TikTok is a Chinese plot, it could be, you know, just our own societies dropping the ball. Shocking, I know, how would that ever happen. Algorithm-wise TikTok didn’t prefer AfD content the AfD just figured out how to use it effectively.
In the case of AfD and political polarization, that’s a problem on all platforms and has more to do with how algorithms and user engagement work.
And that’s not the case with Ukraine because…?
As far as I know we have no data to that end, and I consider it unlikely because it’s not strategically opportune for the Chinese: The Russians are perfectly capable of bending the algorithm to their favour without being given a leg up so why risk burning the asset that is TikTok to support a war that the Chinese aren’t fans of, anyway, for an “ally” that’s already busy vassalising themselves to them.
I don’t think that the Chinese are actively using TikTok for anything at the moment, on the side of ByteDance they’re using it as a money maker, research platform to figure out things they can’t figure out with their highly restricted domestic version, and on part of the CCP it’s something they may care to use actively in the future, but there’s no need or use now, but they sure as fuck slurp up all intelligence they can get from there. Long story short don’t dunk on China if you want to visit it, especially not on TikTok. Personally I recommend dunking on China and visiting Taiwan, instead. Better tea, anyway.
It’s easy to fall into filter bubbles.
There’s quite literally zero evidence you aren’t Boris in St. Petersburg getting paid to spread lies for your murderous leader.
That’s always a rational and logical place to take the conversation - viscious McCarthyist paranoia! Who knows, I could even be Xi himself, trying to make you lower your guard so I can feed you an ad for my dastardly electric car companies while you scroll past memes and tits.
There’s abundant evidence the Kremlin is doing exactly what I’m implying. Your condescending, facetious attitude doesn’t make your perspective convincing.
The article is about China and TikTok’s behavior, not “the Kremlin”, and the behavior described in the article is mundane ad-buying. You can quite literally sift through the TikTok ad library yourself to confirm this. Instead you rely on vagueries and call people secret Kremlin agents who are very invested in changing your perspective, like a schizophrenic.
McCarthyism is about the Kremlin, this post is about the Kremlin’s disinformation. Thanks for insulting me though, that part was very convincing.
McCarthyism hasn’t been exlusively about the Kremlin since… well since way before McCarthy even died. And it’s a moot task for me to try to convince a paranoiac who eschews facts.
Here’s the actual statement. It’s not truly singling out China for being “China bad.”
https://mediacenter.org.ua/russia-s-disinformation-and-propaganda-efforts-on-social-media-ukraine-s-center-for-countering-disinformation-warns-of-growing-danger-on-tiktok/
You guys are lapping up and spreading sinophobia, just as bad as what people are doing on Telegram and Tik Tok.
Pot, meet kettle.
I like Chinese people, and I hate the CCP, which can use TikTok to spread propaganda. If you think they’re not doing exactly that, you don’t understand the modern international sociopolitical landscape.
How’s that different from any other platform? What a coincidence that American capitalists want you to hate Chinese capitalists
I hate the capitalists too. The difference is that the CCP is very authoritarian with much more control over things like TikTok, and they lean much more heavily on propaganda.
Yes, the other platforms also have government involvement. Yes, the other platforms also have propaganda.