Study: TikTok promotes videos based on Chinese government’s choices

TikTok promotes and demotes certain topics based on the preferences of the Chinese government, a new study claims. Researchers from the Network Contagion Research Institute at Rutgers University analyzed the number of posts with politically-charged hashtags on TikTok versus Instagram.

TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance and critics have long questioned its ties to the communist government and security concerns. The researchers suspect TikTok is manipulating discourse not only on topics specific to China, but also on strategically important topics such as the wars in Ukraine and Israel. 

‘We assess a strong possibility that content on TikTok is either amplified or suppressed based on its alignment with the interests of the Chinese Government,’ the report reads. In their analysis, the researchers first examined the performance of hashtags related to pop culture including #TaylorSwift and #CristianoRonaldo. They found that there were 2.2 posts on Instagram with a top pop culture hashtag for every one post on TikTok.

They justified the discrepancy by taking into account Instagram’s user base of over 2 billion, which is roughly two times larger than the number of TikTok users. Upon examining political hashtags, however, the researchers found significant differences. For every one TikTok post with a hashtag supporting Ukraine, there were 8.5 such posts on Instagram, which coincides with China ’s support of Russia, the researchers said. But the inconsistencies grew even more dramatic when looking at hashtags that more closely aligned with China’s political strategies. 

For the hashtag #HongKongProtests, in reference to the city’s pro-democracy demonstrations, there were 206 posts on Instagram for every one on TikTok. Researchers added the dynamic was reversed for hashtags that aligned with Chinese political strategy, like #StandWithKashmir, which dwarfed the number of tagged posts on Instagram with a ratio of 661-to-1. ‘It is challenging to imagine that activity of such magnitude could occur on a platform organically, and without the knowledge and consent of the platform itself,’ the researchers wrote. 

The report noted hashtags about domestic U.S. politics generally did not show anomalies. For every post on TikTok with the hashtag #Trump, for instance, there were 2.2 posts under the same hashtag on Instagram. In a statement to NBC News, a spokesperson for the tech giant called the report’s claims of suppression ‘baseless.’ ‘It fails to take into account the basic fact that hashtags are created by users, not by TikTok,’ the statement read.

‘Most importantly, anyone familiar with how the platform works can see for themselves the content they refer to is widely available and claims of suppression are baseless.’ However, the researchers insisted the patterns could not be explained by organic factors. They mentioned that their methodology replicated that used by TikTok last month in addressing claims that its recommendation algorithm is biased in favor of Palestine.

TikTok has faced extensive American scrutiny over its proximity to the Chinese Communist Party and whether it presents a threat to national security. The company is owned by a Chinese company, ByteDance, but its headquarters are in Singapore and LA. 

The app is almost entirely banned from U.S. government devices, as per the No TikTok on Government Devices Act, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden in December of last year. 

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