This year, accounts linked to the Russian authorities have started publishing many times more posts on TikTok than in 2022.
Russian propaganda storms TikTok
Russian propaganda has drastically increased its activity on TikTok.
This follows from a study by the Brookings Institution.
Despite the fact that the number of Russian propaganda accounts on TikTok decreased to 46 in 2024 from 57 in 2022, they began to publish much more content, according to data for the first three months of this year.
Despite the fact that the number of Russian propaganda accounts on TikTok decreased to 46 in 2024 from 57 in 2022, they began to publish much more content, according to data for the first three months of this year.
Although this activity is lower than that shown by Russian-affiliated accounts on Telegram or X, for example, the engagement of users (likes, comments, views) with Russian propaganda TikTok videos is much higher than with posts on X or Telegram, experts concluded.
The majority of the most viewed posts in 2024 - 44 out of 50 - were posted on TikTok by Russian-linked accounts.
Here, posts collect an average of 100 thousand interactions with users. This figure is 3.5 times higher than the same indicator on Telegram and 20 times higher than the indicator on X, the authors of the study note.
Even if we don't take into account the number of views, which can be counted differently on different platforms, the engagement with Russian propaganda posts on TikTok will still be 13 times higher than the engagement with similar posts on X, they write.
Overall user engagement with content posted by Russian-linked TikTok accounts increased from 3 million interactions per day in 2022 to 13 million in 2024. The main reason for this growth is not an increase in the effectiveness of posting, but an increase in the number of videos.
Russian propagandists on TikTok target Western and post-Soviet audiences
Russian propaganda accounts on TikTok target audiences outside of Russia. Most of the content is related to Russia's war against Ukraine and NATO. Other topics include the age of US President Joe Biden, protests in the US over his policy towards Israel, and relations between Russia and the US. Pro-Russian accounts on TikTok actively use videos posted by former Fox News senior journalist Tucker Carlson.
The widespread spread of Russian propaganda on TikTok is facilitated by the fact that the platform does not fight such content, the authors of the study conclude.
In confirmation of these words, the statistics of the account of the Russian state agency "RIA Novosti" in TikTok, which has about 2 million users, the account of the program "Visti" (shown on "Russia 1") - 668 thousand followers, and the account of the RT channel - 201.
To support these words, they cite statistics from the TikTok account of the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, which has about 2 million subscribers, the account of the Vesti programme (broadcast on Rossiya 1) with 668,000 followers, and the account of the RT channel with 201,000 followers.
The Brookings Institution's study comes amid attempts by the US authorities to get the Chinese company ByteDance to transfer control of the US segment of TikTok. According to US lawmakers, TikTok should be owned by a company that is not controlled by states that the US considers to be its "political adversaries".
This week, US President Joe Biden signed a law requiring this to be done within 270 days. TikTok called the document "unconstitutional" and promised to challenge it in court.
