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One App – Two Worlds: This Is TikTok in Russia and Ukraine (nrk.no)

1260 points by mmgu · 1623 days ago · 348 comments on HN

Article summary

An experiment using two robots to simulate TikTok users in Russia and Ukraine found that the content served to each was vastly different, with the Ukrainian user seeing mostly war-related content and the Russian user seeing none. This suggests that TikTok is censoring content in Russia, possibly due to the country's 'fake news' law. The experiment used artificial intelligence to create the robots and IP addresses from the two cities to simulate local users. The results showed that only 19 out of over 4,000 videos were seen by both robots, and none of them were related to the war.

Main themes

  • social media censorship
  • government propaganda
  • algorithmic manipulation
  • compliance with local regulations
  • capitalism vs ideology
  • online misinformation
  • state-funded media
  • critical thinking and media literacy

What commenters say

  • TikTok's content censorship in Russia is a result of the country's 'fake news' law and the company's desire to comply with local regulations.
  • The experiment's findings are not surprising, given the known use of social media as a tool for government propaganda and censorship.
  • The lack of criticism and resistance to TikTok's censorship is attributed to the platform's algorithmic manipulation of users and the fact that many users are unaware of the censorship.
  • Some commenters argue that all companies must comply with local regulations, while others believe that this compliance can lead to morally questionable decisions.
  • The discussion highlights the tension between achieving capitalist goals and ideological ones, such as democracy and freedom of information.
  • Some commenters are concerned that the same censorship and propaganda tactics used by authoritarian governments could be used by other governments, including those in the West.
  • The experiment's methodology and findings are seen as a valuable contribution to the understanding of social media censorship and propaganda.
  • The role of AI-powered translation tools in spreading misinformation and the importance of critical thinking in evaluating online content are also discussed.
  • The comparison between TikTok's censorship in Russia and the practices of other state-funded media outlets, such as the BBC, is seen as inappropriate by some commenters, while others argue that all state-funded media outlets have the potential to be used as propaganda tools.