TikTok’s decision to restrict the ability for people in Russia to view content uploaded on the platform from outside the country has led to accusations it is “complicit” in the Kremlin’s propaganda campaign.
According to a recent report, , by Europe-based digital investigator Tracking Exposed, 95 per cent of the platform’s content is no longer accessible for Russian users following the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
Salvatore Romano, Tracking Exposed’s head of research, said TikTok’s actions mean people in Russia can only see pro-Kremlin content.
“The effect of TikTok’s changes since the war began is that Russian people are deprived of a global perspective on Russia’s actions in Ukraine, and can only see content heavily weighted towards Kremlin-approved information,” Mr Romano said.
Russia banned social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram for the second time this month earlier this week, saying they committed “extremist activities”.
TikTok, however, has avoided Russian scrutiny and social media analyst Tom Southern believes that’s because the platform is “complicit” in supporting Russia’s disinformation campaign.
“There’s a slightly interesting thing that TikTok has done — and it has not advertised it at all — which is basically to restrict its video content upload at source on a geographical basis,” Mr Southern told SBS News.
“So there’s actually no way for Western content to get into Russia anymore, [meaning] the kind of things you would see if you were a Russian in Russia, looking at TikTok, is going to be way more pro-Kremlin and anti-Ukraine,” he said.
Mr Southern is the director of special projects at the UK-based Centre for Information Resilience, which has sifted through thousands of user-generated videos and images on social media since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.
With a group of 60 volunteers, the company has verified more than 2,000 videos and images so far and created .
Mr Southern said while many mainstream social media platforms are taking steps to limit Russia’s disinformation campaign, “TikTok is complicit in a lot of what’s going on”.
In a statement to SBS News, TikTok said its highest priority is the safety of its employees and its users.
“In light of Russia's new ‘fake news’ law, we have no choice but to suspend live streaming and new content to our video service in Russia while we review the safety implications of this law,” the social media company said in the statement.
But the investigation by Tracking Exposed points out that in addition to restricting “new content”, which TikTok has admitted to, the social media platform has also covertly “restricted all historical content from outside of Russia”.
The investigation involved using software to change their IP addresses to access the app as if they were from Russia and found “all European and American accounts’ videos are not available in Russia, including institutional accounts such as the WHO and the UN”.
“TikTok has not publicly announced these changes ... It is the first time a global social media platform has restricted access to content at this scale,” the report said, adding the changes could have “devastating real-world consequences”.
Mr Southern claimed TikTok’s modus operandi has to do with the ownership of the company.
“There is no balance whatsoever [in the TikTok videos you see in Russia today]. TikTok knows this. It’s done absolutely nothing about it. And this might be because, obviously, it’s owned, essentially, by the Chinese state.
“And as we know, at this point, China is very tacitly – but definitely – taking the Kremlin side on a lot of this,” Mr Southern said.
Lydia Khalil, research fellow at Lowy Institute and an expert on how disinformation is used by violent extremist movements, agrees.
“The country of establishment of some of these social media platforms does play an important role in terms of being able to influence and regulate them,” Ms Khalil told SBS News.
“Companies that are headquartered in the United States, like Facebook and Twitter, they need to be more responsive to US regulation, European regulation [and] Australian regulation,” she said.
But Western governments have much less leverage with a company like TikTok, Ms Khalil said.
“[TikTok] is based in China … so it’s more responsive to the Chinese state rather than, say, governments like Australia or the United States or Europe.
“Even though now it is a platform that is used globally … it is the Chinese government that has the most lever of influence in terms of what TikTok does [and] how it’s regulated,” she said.
Reporting from China’s state-run media outlet, The Global Times, earlier this month confirmed a neutral stance from the country.
A spokesperson from the country’s foreign ministry underlined their stance last week saying: “China always takes an objective and fair position on the Ukraine issue. During a video call with US President Joe Biden at his request lately, President Xi Jinping pointed out that China does not want to see the situation in Ukraine to come to this. China stands for peace and opposes war.”
And, for its part, the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry has previously said it is the victim of so-called “fake news”.
It tweeted: “The unprecedented stream of #fakenews on what is happening in #Ukraine is designed to stir emotions & shut down one's rational thinking.”
Roskomnadzor, Russia’s federal communications supervisor, said it blocked Facebook due to “cases of discrimination against Russian media and information resources by Facebook”, citing a law which “prevent(s) violations of the key principles of free dissemination of information and unhindered access of Russian users to Russian media on foreign Internet platforms.”
In the statement to SBS News, TikTok said it will continue to evaluate the situation in Russia to determine its policies.
“In response to the war in Ukraine, we're expediting the rollout of our state media policy to bring viewers context to evaluate the content they consume on our platform,” TikTok said.
“We’ll begin piloting our policy by applying labels to content from some state-controlled media accounts over the coming days,” the social media platform said.
