#118: TikTok Propaganda

The largest TikTok influence operation ever uncovered

Hello, 

you are reading Understanding TikTok. My name is Marcus. I am an Internet researcher at HAW Hamburg, investigating TikTok.

 "Almost constantly"– nearly 1 in 5 teens say they're on YouTube or TikTok almost constantly according to a Pew Research Center report (Axios). Meanwhile TikTok’s 🎢hype cycle may be nearing an end (NBC) while the support for a TikTok ban crumbles in the US, even among Republicans (Washington Post).

Today we talk about:

🇨🇳 Spamouflage: Singing Soft Propaganda
🇷🇺 12,800 fake TikTok accounts pushing Russian disinformation
🪩 What’s to come

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🦋 Key Take Aways

🏹 A new disinformation tactic on TikTok includes a variety of accounts posting only one video. It is aimed at evading detection and manipulating the platform's system for recommending videos to users.

🏹 Soft propaganda including songs by foreign pop stars seems to be effective while blurring the line between produced propaganda and authentic cultural expression. 

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🇨🇳 Spamouflage: Singing Soft Propaganda

For at least the past five years, a persistent online influence campaign linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has sought to capitalise on world events to promote anti-American and pro-CCP narratives (ISD). The world’s largest known online disinformation operation (CNN) known as “Spamouflage” or “Dragonbridge” uses hundreds of thousands of accounts and spreads across every major social media platform.

TikTok was amongst more than 50 online platforms that were targeted in Chinese disinformation campaigns that rival Meta uncovered in the summer (Guardian).

Source: ISD

Social Media Analytics firm Graphika – who has been reporting on Spamouflage since 2019 – has published a new report (PDF) about an influence operation spanning Facebook, TikTok and YouTube that has been targeting Taiwan's upcoming presidential election (January 13, 2024) “ not currently attributed to a specific actor.” As of Dec. 4, 2023, Graphika identified over 800 Facebook profiles, 13 Facebook pages, one TikTok account, and one YouTube channel in the activity set. While the report only mentions one(!) TikTok account (which is still online by the way @agitate_tw) it includes a nice little thing for researchers: 

“We observed these Facebook profiles repeatedly sharing TikTok videos with the same ‘web ID.’ Web IDs for TikTok videos are shown in the URL generated when a user clicks ‘copy link.’ Based on Graphika testing, these web IDs appear to be unique for each user visiting the platform from the same device during a given browser session, meaning all video-sharing links copied by that user will have the same ID. This suggests that Facebook accounts in the operation regularly shared TikTok videos via links created by the same user(s)”.

Screenshot: Bloomberg

Meanwhile TikTok Influencers Give Xi a Rare Soft Power Win in Taiwan (Bloomberg). Musicians from China are building ever larger fan bases in Taiwan, helping Xi Jinping expand Beijing’s soft power as geopolitical tensions increase. Quote “Although Taiwan’s government has warned about what it describes as state-initiated disinformation and cognitive warfare spreading on TikTok, in practice it’s difficult to differentiate between what is purposefully produced propaganda and what is authentic political or cultural expression by Taiwanese citizens.”

The examples demonstrate different approaches to influencing public opinion. With @agitate_tw “posting videos and memes about domestic political incidents” criticizing or supporting candidates (Graphika) and the latter demonstrating “China’s soft power, including its cultural and entertainment products” that “has indeed impacted Taiwanese and largely reduced the mentality of ‘opposing everything China’” (Bloomberg). More here: How Soft Propaganda Persuades and here: The softening of Chinese digital propaganda.

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🇷🇺 12,800 fake TikTok accounts pushing Russian disinformation

A joint DFRLab-BBC Verify investigation exposes the largest information operation ever uncovered on the platform. 

In the past few months three journalists from the BBC (Olga Robinson, Shayan Sardarizadeh, Adam Robinson) have been “investigating a vast Russian influence op involving 12,800 fake TikTok accounts pushing disinformation about the war in Ukraine to users in Europe and Israel, and racking up millions of views.” During the investigation they found out that @DFRLab 's Roman Osadchuk was digging into “some of the very same accounts we were looking into. Naturally, we joined forces. You can find more details about Roman's findings here.”

Source: X/BBC

With the apparent aim of undermining Western support the operation targeted amongst others former Ukrainian defense minister Oleksii Reznikov and accused him of corruption. The fake TikTok videos played a part in his dismissal last September, according to his daughter Anastasiya Shteinhauz. Other claims included Ukrainian President Zelensky had bought two yachts through a proxy. Despite the fact that they have been viewed millions of times, both yachts are listed as being for sale on two broker websites. Both firms have confirmed that they have not been sold.

Source: DRFLab

BBC Verify was able to trace hundreds of similar videos targeting dozens of Ukrainian officials. The accounts that posted them used stolen profile pictures, including those of celebrities like Scarlett Johansson, Emma Watson and Colin Farrell. With only a handful of exceptions, they posted just one video each - a tactic TikTok says is new and aimed at evading detection and manipulating the platform's system for recommending videos to users.

TikTok described the operation as very sophisticated, with the perpetrators using a variety of operational security measures to obfuscate their identities and activities, and expressed confidence in their assessment the operation was Russia-based (DFRLab).

🪩 What’s to come

Understanding what is actually happening online has become harder than ever. The internet destroyed any idea of a monoculture long ago, but new complications cloud the online ecosystem today: TikTok’s opaque “For You” recommendation system, the ascension of paywalls that limit access to websites, the collapse of Twitter—now X—under Elon Musk, the waning relevance of news across most social-media sites. The broad effect is an online experience that feels unique to every individual, depending on their ideologies and browsing habits (The Atlantic)

With 2024 being a ‘super election year’ with elections in places like Taiwan, Indonesia, Mexico, the US, and the EU, it will be interesting to monitor which campaigns and actors choose to (not) deploy AI techniques as part of their campaigns. The ability to create content and provide mis and disinformation in political campaigns, possibly in combination with online (micro)targeting is a daunting challenge for democracies. (Claes de Vreese, EDMO)

Treat TikTok Like TV. It’s a little cryptic sounding but the idea is simple—treat your social video channels like you would a TV show by creating replicable formats, introducing characters that your audience becomes invested in, and building a clear point of view that is agnostic to whatever may be trending that day. (Rachel Karten, Link in Bio)

2024 four key trends for the new year: Sleaze Academia (school uniforms meets grunge), Post Romance (Sandy Liang-ish girl culture), Sports Quest (video-game-inspired athletic wear), and Lazy Luxe (the aesthetic counterpart to quiet quitting) (Glossy). 

🎡 What else

TikTok's 'filter for good' and filter activism (ABC)
Is TikTok brainwashing the kids about Gaza? (The Guardian)
TikTok isn’t creating false support for Palestine. It’s just reflecting (Vox)
TikTok’s first concert was its biggest livestream yet (Tubefilter)
TikTok is pushing longer videos. Some creators worry the vibe shift (CNN)
TikTok car confessionals are the new YouTube bedroom vlogs (Techcrunch)
The forgotten bands going supersonic thanks to gen Z (Guardian)
TikTok becomes first non-game app to reach $10B (Techcrunch)
The 21 Most Defining Memes of 2023 (Rolling Stone)
How to do the AI expansion filter on TikTok (Mashable)
US Army faces 'TikTok mutiny' (Daily Mail)
Zoom, Zoom. The Gen-Z vs Millenial camera zoom debate (X)
TikTok Has Made Shoegaze 🩰 Bigger Than Ever (Stereogum)

Thank your for reading Understanding TikTok. Hope you have some good days. See you back in 2024. I will probably try to revive our Discord space. If you have any further ideas, plans, interesting stuff or want to hang out to pamper life’s complexities. Let me know. Ciao.