In the course of a study conducted by the organization for the fight against fake news, it turned out that the TikTok algorithm places content on the recommended page containing information about the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, regardless of whether it is true or false.
The position of companies in the Russian-Ukrainian crisis has played a big role so far. The shocking truth has surfaced in a study of the Chinese social network TikTok. NewsGuard, an anti-fake news organization, revealed this fact during its tests.
NewsGuard opened a TikTok account, and in the first minutes of using the account, the TikTok algorithm, which has already been problematic in the past, began redirecting to videos containing false information about Russia-Ukraine.
The experiment lasted 45 minutes.
At the end of the experiment, which lasted 45 minutes, the research team revealed that the content on the TikTok “Recommended for You” page is completely related to the war in Ukraine and contains a lot of true or false information. The TikTok algorithm ignores things like the reliability of the source or the accuracy of the information when displaying this content.
Among the unfounded accusations faced by the researchers were rumors that the United States has biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine, and allegations that footage of Putin’s press conference in early March was photoshopped.
The videos also say that the fake images are real, and the real ones are fake. For example, the videos of the “Kiev Ghost” who allegedly shot down Russian planes were taken from a video game, and real videos from the war were falsified by Russian accounts.
The researchers claim that some of the statements in the videos presented by the algorithm were previously recognized as Kremlin propaganda, and they think that the size of this propaganda has increased due to the Sino-Russian partnership.
