The report, from the Network Contagion Research Institute at Rutgers University, could raise new concerns about whether Beijing influences the content on the popular video app. Representative Josh Gottheimer, Democrat of New Jersey, said the report showed that TikTok was “a tool to brazenly spread disinformation and suppress content that undermines the Chinese government.”
Well color me surprised
Whoda thunk?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Topics often suppressed by the Chinese government within its borders, including Tibet, Hong Kong protests and the Uyghur population, appear to be unusually underrepresented on TikTok compared with Instagram, according to a report published Thursday by online researchers.
The report, from the Network Contagion Research Institute at Rutgers University, analyzed the volume of posts with certain hashtags on TikTok and Instagram, which has hundreds of millions more users.
Representative Josh Gottheimer, Democrat of New Jersey, said the report showed that TikTok was “a tool to brazenly spread disinformation and suppress content that undermines the Chinese government.”
Mr. Finkelstein said that his group pursued its study after TikTok, in response to criticism about content related to the Israel-Hamas war, said hashtags like #FreePalestine were also more prevalent than #StandWithIsrael on Instagram and Facebook.
“Suggesting that this report employed TikTok’s methodology is false, and we have repeatedly made clear that comparing hashtags is an inaccurate reflection of on-platform activity,” he said.
Joshua Tucker, a co-director of the Center for Social Media and Politics at New York University, warned against drawing too firm of a conclusion from the institute’s report.
The original article contains 624 words, the summary contains 187 words. Saved 70%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Topics suppressed in the US are underrepresented on Reddit
See? I too can make obvious statements.
I love the irony that people nuke your comment
Assuming you aren’t one of the many bots infesting Lemmy…
Do your ““obvious statements”” come with actual research to back them up?
Yes the US uses bots but it’s mainly real people doing the job of downvoting antI-US (or pro-US depending on the sub) posts. Chinese people don’t use tiktok, they use Douyin, so this would be like reddit itself suppressing those posts, which may be happening but again, did you do the research?
Saying something is not research.
Ah yes, the “real people” like the disproportionate number of Reddit users at Eglin AFB.
Ah yes, the infamous Elgin VPN outproxies. Where almost all traffic from anyone employed and using the internet overseas is filtered through.
If you’re truly interested in our cyber warfare capabilities around that time and where they were stationed, I’d start with this primer.
Then if you’re still interested, I’d read our 2025-2040 initiatives.
So your argument is that people who’s livelihood depends entirely on the US government were spamming Reddit, but that they were obviously doing it entirely of their own volition and neither intentionally nor unintentionally spreading propaganda?
Interesting position.
