Ten days later Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine, TikTok announced it suspended new posts from Russian accounts due to the country’s new “fake news” law. But the company was more silent about the second policy change — a policy change that blocked TikTok users in Russia from viewing any content posted by accounts outside the country.
Findings of the social media research team Exposure tracking suggests that TikTok has expanded its Russian users into a vast echo chamber intended to appease the government of president Vladimir Putin. Inside that digital zone, a network of Russian accounts posting anti-aggression content somehow continues to function. “There has been a clear manipulation of the information ecosystem on TikTok,” said Salvatore Romano, head of research at Tracking Exposed.
TikTok spokesperson Jamie Favazza declined to comment on Tracking Exposed’s findings and repeated earlier claims that the company had blocked new uploads from Russia. But the background, owned by Chinese startup ByteDance, is less critical of Russia than its American rivals, and is treated less harshly by the Russian government. TikTok has complied with EU sanctions that force platforms to block access to Russian state-backed media from Europe. Meta, Google, and Twitter have also tweaked their algorithms to make content or links to those stores less visible. In obvious retaliation, Facebook and Twitter both blocked by Russian internet censors. On March 21, a court in Moscow Facebook and Instagram are banned from Russia, accusing parent company Meta of “radical activities”.
TikTok’s actions in Russia and its central role in going viral videos and rumors from the war in Ukraine Romano and other researchers add urgency to open questions about how facts and facts circulate on the platform. TikTok’s geopolitical timing also highlights the challenges researchers are facing when trying to answer such questions. The app, launched in 2017, surpassed 1 billion monthly users in September 2021, but it’s less well-researched and harder to research than its older rivals.
Most research on the dynamics and downsides of social media has focused on Facebook and Twitter. The tools and techniques developed for those platforms shine the light Spreading false information about Covid-19 and online manipulation campaigns found linked to governments, including Russia, Chinaand Mexico. Meta and Twitter provide APIs to help researchers see what’s circulating on their platforms.
TikTok doesn’t offer a research API, making it difficult to answer questions about its role in going viral correct or incorrect information around the Ukraine war or other topics. And while researchers might want to see Meta and Twitter provide wider data accessShelby Grossman, a researcher who followed pro-Russian articles on Ukraine at Stanford’s Internet Observatory. “It’s hard to systematically look at what’s happening on TikTok,” she said. Researchers have also scrambled to track content about Ukraine on Telegram messaging appalso lacks a researcher API and is much less researched than US networks.
TikTok spokesperson Favazza says that while it doesn’t currently offer a research API, “we’re very supportive of independent research,” citing a program Briefing lawmakers and online harm experts on their moderation and recommendation system. TikTok stated before The war in Ukraine prompted them to step up censorship and accelerate a pilot project to label state-controlled media accounts but did not specify exactly how their practices had changed. On March 24, two people moderated TikTok File a lawsuit against the company alleging psychological harm resulting from “exposure to extremely harmful and extremely disturbing images”.
One of the biggest challenges for outside researchers interested in what’s circulating on TikTok stems from the strength and influence of its recommendation algorithm, which plays an outsized role in comparison to TikTok. with old social networks. The app and its rapid development are built on Page for you, which displays an endless feed of videos curated by TikTok’s algorithm and largely pulled from accounts the user doesn’t follow. As a result, different people see very different videowith feeds based on past views and other signals.
