TikTok and different social media platforms are additionally below stress from U.S. lawmakers and Ukrainian officers to curb Russian misinformation concerning the battle, particularly from state-backed media shops corresponding to Russia In the present day and Sputnik. In response, YouTube has mentioned it could block Russia In the present day and Sputnik within the European Union, whereas Twitter and Meta, the mum or dad of Fb, have mentioned they’d label content material from the shops as state sponsored.
TikTok has additionally banned Sputnik and Russia In the present day within the E.U., and on Friday mentioned it could begin labeling the shops as state-sponsored within the nations the place they’re nonetheless out there. The app additionally mentioned on Thursday that it had devoted extra assets to monitoring for deceptive content material concerning the battle.
“We proceed to answer the battle in Ukraine with elevated security and safety assets to detect rising threats and take away dangerous misinformation,” mentioned Hilary McQuaide, a TikTok spokeswoman.
For years, TikTok largely escaped sustained scrutiny about its content material. In contrast to Fb, which has been round since 2004, and YouTube, which was based in 2005, TikTok solely grew to become broadly used up to now 5 years. Owned by China’s ByteDance, the app was designed to make one- to three-minute movies simple to create and share. It developed a fame as a vacation spot for addictive, foolish and enjoyable movies, particularly for younger customers.
The app has navigated some controversies up to now. It has confronted questions over dangerous fads that appeared to originate on its platform, in addition to whether or not it permits underage customers and adequately protects their privateness.
However the battle in Ukraine has supersized the problems going through TikTok, which has over one billion customers globally.
The quantity of battle content material on the app far outweighs what’s discovered on another social networks, in accordance with a evaluate by The Occasions. Movies with the hashtag #Ukrainewar have amassed practically 500 million views on TikTok, with a few of the hottest movies gaining shut to at least one million likes. In distinction, the #Ukrainewar hashtag on Instagram had 125,000 posts and the preferred movies had been considered tens of 1000’s of occasions.
