>> From the beginning of the war in Ukraine, we know that the Ukrainian government, particularly
President Vladimir Zelinski has done a good job in spreading his message. Well, apparently Russia
would like to get in on that because just a bit ago, about a month ago, they apparently tapped
dozens and dozens of influencers to participate in some sort of coordinated Tiktok campaign.
And joining us to break it down is the researcher who
broke this story. Abby Richards, TikTok disinformation researcher
joins us now. Abby welcome to the show. >> Thank you so much for having me.
>> Glad to have you on, I was fascinated when I originally read your piece about this.
So tell us a little bit about what happened, it was presented as happening organically, right?
>> Yeah and it's hard to make a claim that it was definitively created and organically. But
what we identified was over 180 Russian influencers who were involved in this
seemingly organized propaganda campaign using the caption Russian lives matter.
And participating in three TikTok trends to promote Russia's war in Ukraine.
So 12 of those influencers were verified on TikTok
and several had over a million followers. So we were talking about pretty big influencers here
and of the 197 videos that we identified, 91% were uploaded between March five and six.
So that's just two days, which makes look a little bit less organic though. Again, hard to say
exactly what happened behind the scenes. >> Particularly when it's not like this
is dozens and dozens of political influencers who
might be expected to opine on the political news of the day.
These were people who did all sorts of different content normally.
>> Yeah, there was like a makeup influencer, a couple of prank accounts, pretty traditional
viral TikTok accounts when you think of just like a basic TikTok influencer. So not
necessarily political TikTokers by any means. >> Okay, and what do these videos look like?
>> So there were three trends, the first was the creator would be kneeling
holding a sign that described receive injustices against Russia. And then they
would stand up and turn that sign around and it would say Russian lives matter.
And then the second trend was actually using an existing TikTok dance to the song swing,
but they replaced a part of the dance so that it featured them making a Z with their hands.
Which is alluding to like a pro war symbol
in Russia and then similarly the third was a meme about how real women pose
their hands in this Z shape as well. >> I don't even understand the point
that is attempting to be made there except that it is pro war.
I get that part at the very least,
there was nothing in any of these videos that identified that they might have been asked to or
paid to participate in anything like this, right? >> Not explicitly though there was some sloppy
copy paste in the captions. So for instance, we saw one caption that when we translated it
from Russian said, you can publish description and then Russian Lives Matter hashtag R L M.
Almost like basically every video had the caption Russian Lives Matter our LM
identically. There were just a couple of typos and sloppy copy pastes.
>> Come on if you're gonna be a government overseer of a propaganda campaign,
you've got to check your work, make sure that they're not just copying and pasting.
So that was in the initial days of the war, have you seen a continuation of anything like
this or an evolution of it? Is this an experiment that it it seems like Russia wants to continue?
>> It's hard to say, I haven't seen any similar organized campaigns since this,
but I can't say for sure what they've been doing within like their own country.
What stuck out about this was in particular that the caption was English language.
>> Sure, and you've reported previously about the spread of misinformation on TikTok specifically.
And so I'm curious that can be bad in any topic when you're talking about war, it
seems particularly high stakes. So how has TikTok helped to facilitate the spread of misinformation?
>> Yeah, what we learned really, especially in the early
moments and the early days of the invasion is that TikTok platform design is incompatible with
a crisis moment. And when there is an information vacuum and people are kind of panicked,
but then they want to know what's going on, but we don't really have very much information.
It is very easy for TikTok to fill that vacuum with misinformation
and for that information to go very visceral. >> Okay, and does it seem like this is something
that TikTok is taking seriously? Have concerns been raised to them about
in particular misinformation around topics of wars is something that they're working on.
>> It is difficult for me to say what they are doing internally.
I know that's something I would like to see them do is start including the post
date on the video when you're scrolling on the for you page. Right now, when you're just scrolling on
the homepage of TikTok, you can't actually see the date that the video was originally posted.
So a lot of old and out of context videos were going viral in those early days of the invasion
just because there was no post date on the videos. >> Yeah, I have noticed that and always thought
that that was weird. I assume it's done to produce more sort of the veneer of
evergreen nous to content, but I've definitely thought that that's weird.
For me it's just sort of an inconvenience and wondering when my friends posted something, but
when it comes to an issue of war, it takes on an added level of of seriousness of course.
>> Yeah, absolutely. >> Well, we appreciate
you breaking down these trends TikTok is an increasingly important part of a lot of people.
It's not just entertainment, browsing everything but news as well, so what happens there does
matter? Where can people follow more of your work? >> Yeah you can follow me on TikTok at topology or
twitter it's Abby ASR. >> Abby Richards
thank you again. >> Thank you so much.