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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Can we stop blaming platforms for what their users post on them?
It’s not TikTok, Telegram, Twitter, Mastodon, Lemmy spreading misinformation (or correct information for that matter), it is their users. People used to understand this, somehow they don’t anymore.
The platforms are responsible because they curate and serve the content. Their algorithms can be and are exploited, but the fact that they’re algorithms doesn’t absolve them of responsibility.
Nobody told them they have to serve and intake millions of hours of content every day. If a human editor put that stuff out we’d hold the business accountable for that person’s actions.
Algorithms and AI aren’t excuses.
Well yeah, Telegram is basically intended for one on one or group discussion, there’s pretty much no content filtering. TikTok is about curating a content stream. There are a lot more opportunities to mess with what content you see on TikTok vs Telegram.
So a social media app like TikTok, Facebook, etc will have a lot more say in what gets presented compared to a communication platform like Telegram.
Comparing Telegram to TikTok is nonsensical.
Wow who would’ve thought that the chinese app would spread propaganda about its ally’s enemy1?1??1
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.
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.
Here’s the actual statement. It’s not truly singling out China for being “China bad.”
You guys are lapping up and spreading sinophobia, just as bad as what people are doing on Telegram and Tik Tok.
Pot, meet kettle.
Addition:
TikTok Has Pushed Chinese Propaganda Ads To Millions Across Europe – ( July 2024, updated September 2024)
According to TikTok’s newly public advertising library, ads from China’s largest state media outlets touting everything from China Covid lockdowns to tourism in the troubled Xinjiang region have been broadcast to millions of the platform’s European users.
TikTok Ads Paid for by Chinese Media Target European Users – (August 2023)
Chinese media sponsored over a thousand ads on TikTok targeting European audiences. Additionally, accounts that carefully obscure their connections to China may pose further risks in coordinated information manipulation campaigns.
This are just two examples, there is much more across the web.
The headline is dishonest propaganda. You gotta read down in the article to find the hidden reality.
Phony headline: China’s TikTok “more dangerous” in terms of spreading Russian disinformation than the Russia-founded messaging app Telegram, Ukrainian expert says…
Reasonable person in the article: “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.”
