1y ago

TikTok has been pushing Chinese propaganda to millions of users in Europe: analysis

nypost.com TikTok has been pushing Chinese propaganda to millions of users in Europe: analysis

More than 1,000 ads from Chinese state media outlets have run on European users’ TikTok feeds since October 2022, according to the platform’s latest ad library update that was analyzed …

TikTok has been pushing Chinese propaganda to millions of users in Europe: analysis::More than 1,000 ads from Chinese state media outlets have run on European users' TikTok feeds since October 2022, according to the platform's latest ad library update that was analyzed by Forbes.

146 comments

The NYPost (low-quality tabloid) is just echoing an actual article at Forbes, which can also be accessed in archive form here.
In general, when a low-quality tabloid site merely reports on the existence of research done by actual reporters, it's better to follow the links and post the researched article instead of the tabloid one.
- Spread the gospel! Cite the primary sources as much as possible.
  
  That's something we're supposed to learn in High School.
  
  Though the secondary sources are equally important (adding some commentary can be very helpful), the secret is to be critical of whatever you read.
- NYPost is owned by the same company that owns FOX News.
- I have been seeing some really low effort propaganda that verges on trolling from Forbes on YouTube.

Downvote everything from that fuckin rag. Don't post NYPost here. If there's a story, find a news source that doesn't itself have an outrageous history of propagandizing.
- Where do you find these?

See that other article on the NYPost next to this one? A guy turned himself into a border collie? He's a dog now and it only cost $20,000.
Great news source. No problems here. Not click bait garbage at all. Nope, not meant for maximum sharing. Thanks L4sBot for your contribution.
- $20,000 to become your fursona would be a fucking steal to most furries, they would sell everything for that.
- In the first paragraph:
  TikTok has flooded millions of Europeans with ads from Chinese state propaganda outlets on topics like COVID-19 and tourism in the troubled Xinjiang region, according to an analysis of a recent ad library conducted by Forbes.
  
  I'd still object to NYPost being used as source for anything outside shitpost or a degen meme community like NCD.

Breaking news! Chinese company runs ads paid for by Chinese government! Did anyone think otherwise? All governments pay for ads. Who in their right mind would think a Chinese company would refuse their government as an ad customer?
- Ads are one thing but state propaganda is something different. In a US political context this would be like the State of Florida running "Ads" on Facebook discussing how slavery was actually beneficial to the slaves. Get it now?
  
  Right. It certainly happens to the West. But the governments in Western democracy have to be a bit more subtle when it comes to their propaganda and not run this stuff directly.

TikTok is garbage, but perhaps we should look at all the ridiculous right wing propaganda pushed by YouTube, Facebook and Twicough X
- YouTube is absolutely dreadful for it. I have literally zero interest in American politics, I'm interested in world events but frankly couldn't care less about another country's domestic politics yet it's pushed almost every time I load the site.
  I mostly watch things like travel vlogs and trip reports, yet get endless spam about right wing American politics. There's nothing in my search history that would suggest I'd care about it.
  
  The advertisers cater adverts to target demographics and search/web history. While you may not be interested in them, they are certainly interested in you for some reason. They could be bad at their jobs, but it's more likely there is some overlap there.
- Exactly. It’s all propaganda, and to say “oh well Facebook is ok, so why pick on TikTok” is the hottest of takes.
  They’re all garbage and we should ban all of them.
- Only use Twitter reddit. I’m getting pissed off eith both. More shit. I understand they are all “free”, but I still want a basic standard.

Yeah well Orwell's 1984 was way off then. The government does not even have to force people to install devices in their homes that blare government propaganda 24/7. They are doing it willingly, enthusiastiacally even, and they don't even have to be citizens of that government lol
Who would have thought?
- Who would have thought?
  Aldus Huxley?
  
  George Orwell

Propaganda is alive and well in the USA too, especially if you consider it in the most liberal sense.
There's an incredible amount of advertising in the media telling me what I need to think about any issue you can imagine. Most people just ignore it, but it annoys the crap out of me. I'll make up own damn mind, thank you.
This is a modern development, you never saw that crap forty years ago. I'm old enough to remember the before time. Most of it I can avoid simply by not watching commercial TV and blocking ads on the internet. Though sometimes it squeaks through on the TV and it makes me want to throw a chair at it.
When I do have the misfortune of seeing that garbage it's usually on TV and has an Ad Council logo on it. Who are these people and how are they able to egregiously spend the large amounts of money it takes to repeat ads on TV like that. That's a lot of money consumed in a futile attempt to brainwash me through repetition.
They could take that same ad money and actually use it to provide relief for some important social issues, like starving children. Instead they'd rather use it to try and influence my opinion in a futile way. Man that is really fucked up when you think about it.
- Most people just ignore it
  In a way yeah sure, but the unconscius doesn't forget 24/7 ads. We can't possibly escape them since they're literally everywhere. Whatever you buy, is done under the influence of at least some kind of advertisement (buy cheap/ fancy/ green/ fuckall)

Oh no, they are polluting our own US and European propaganda.
- noooo we have only facts and truth! Only the bad guys lie and do teh ebil propeganda. Oh wait who blew up the Nord Stream? Anyway the us said it was the spoopy russians. Really sorry that german industries got shot in the legs, and don't you look at who stands to gain by that.
  
  who downvoted this ?

And American social media does the same for America. Every dog barks for its master.
- Moreover, how is anyone sitting in America (or a country with American bases) primarily concerned about the Chinese government? We have endless military and culture war/ propaganda barriers erected against them; we're basically untouchable, unless we plan on physically going to China.
  (The answer is related to the propaganda barriers themselves -- it's acceptable / encouraged to criticize China).
  
  Can you describe what "propaganda barriers" means? From my perspective, it's absurdly easy for foreign governments to bot-farm posts in an attempt to sway public opinion in the US.
  And of course it's acceptable/encouraged to criticize China. But it's also acceptable/encouraged to criticize Joe Biden, Donald Trump, AOC, DeSantis, Obama, and on and on. There's not really a shortage of hateful and divisive content out there right now. The rage-bait about what The Other Team just did and how America is in terminal decay are the biggest propaganda wins of all time. And news orgs, desperate for revenue in an age of digital media and ad blockers, will chase whatever is stuck in people's heads so they fuel it even more.
  
  That is exactly why these rags have to keep publishing anti china stories nonstop. Western countries need to convince the public that China is a threat despite all you said, so they can eventually justify western aggression and still try to come off as the real victims.
- You're not necessarily wrong in all respects, but this comment is peak whataboutism. Western tiktok is targeted mostly at children and young adults who are obviously highly impressionable, so I would argue that regardless of whats happening on any other social media platform, this is unwanted and harmful and therefore shouldn't be accepted.
  
  The difference is there is American federal policy being put in place around TikTok specifically that is not being done against other social media apps.
  
  Whataboutism is the correct and logical answer to hypocrites. There is nothing that Tiktok is guilty of that Twitter or Instagram aren't.
  
  Are children and young adults really more impressionable than Fox news, and thereby Facebook's, audience?
  I also don't know that I agree with "targeted mostly at children and young adults". There are very large parts of TikTok that would be wholly unappealing to your average kid. Not to mention that American social media started out very much targeted at children and young adults. Or have we already forgotten what the main demographics of Facebook and myspace used to be?
  The problem with whataboutism here is that these conversations pretty much always involve TikTok and rarely other platforms until it's brought up in comments where it can be dismissed as whataboutism.
  Either they're all a problem (it's this one) or none of them are. We need to stop drawing arbitrary lines between offenders. It's just giving a bunch of shit bags freedom to continue being shit bags.
- Facebook ran ads paid for by Russian propagandists which IMO is far worse than a Chinese company running Chinese ads.
  
  Both are bad, so prosecute and ban them both.

There is no currently no actual evidence that TikTok is a threat to national security, but consider this:
TikTok is owned by Chinese company
All large Chinese companies are required to have Party members in the board, making them defacto state-run
PR China is currently committing genocide, large-scale espionage, subversion of foreign countries and all sorts of fun stuff associated with authoritarian fascist dictatorships
- have you seen what videos are posted there? Fucking social media like this, reddit, twitter, instagram and facebook is a huge issue for everyone 😅
  we definitely would be better off without them
- Those 3 points sound like a reason to be a threat to national secuirry for any nation that's not golfing buddies with China.
- Still not as bad as American social media.

Not saying it's a lie, but sourcing from NYPost is automatically a huge red flag.
I'll put more stock in this when it's reported by reputable outlets.
- It's literally linked in the first paragraph.
  TikTok has flooded millions of Europeans with ads from Chinese state propaganda outlets on topics like COVID-19 and tourism in the troubled Xinjiang region, according to an analysis of a recent ad library conducted by Forbes.

Are you worried about your rising cost of living, decreasing living standards, wages and the total global catastrophe that is climate change?
Don't worry about that prole, worry about aliens and tiktok!

"I cannot belive it!" - said no one ever

Isn’t that what Hollywood did for America and democratic values?

From the original story in Forbes: „Both Meta and Google label content posted by state media outlets, and in January, TikTok announced that it would join them in doing so. (Twitter formerly labeled posts by state media outlets, but discontinued the labels under Elon Musk.)“

Yeah, yeah, it's Chinese government propaganda, but isn't all advertisement basically propaganda? "Everything is rosy in Xinjiang" is a harmful lie, but so is "if you buy a big-ass truck you'll be a manly man" and frankly I think the latter is causing a lot more damage because it's one that people act on.
- We could focus on the problems of our own country, and maybe try and solve them in some capacity. But why do that when we can look far away, at problems that don't affect us in the slightest? Usually it boils down to "I'm not doing good, but they are doing much worse". It's a soothing balm, that takes away the need to go irl and do something.
  TLDR: we're lazy.

I watch a lot of historical travel sites and they were sending propaganda that certain areas were China when I knew it wasn't. It has been doing things like that for awhile in the US as well. Judging by our education system, a lot of our youth are screwed.
- Which areas?
  
  Mongolia and it's culture.
  
  Mongolia is being used for slave labor to mine dirty coal
  Tibet was annexed in the 1950's by China
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Tibet_by_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China
  China is using Africans as slave labor right now in the Congo to mine rare earth elements used in electronics
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I3K7fhLmcE&list=LL&index=5&t=523s
  (To be fair, the EU and US aren't stopping China and are benefitting from this slave labor also)
  China threatens Taiwan every week despite Taiwan not wanting to be a part of China (their democratic choice)
  China Tried invading Vietnam after we left and lost in the 1970's
  China threatens India's border all the time
  The Uyghur Muslims are now officially being exterminated and genocided by the CCP
  I mean, would you like me to go on? I can name 4,000,000,000 times they've now been caught doing the shadiest most awful things around the world. The list goes on and on and on

gasp

No big surprise here. It's been their agenda since the start. Only consumers are fucking stupid for taking it in.
- And yet, smart geniuses like you take nypost articles in...
  
  Is Forbes good enough for you?
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2023/07/26/tiktok-chinese-propaganda-ads-europe/?sh=5175b11f203d
  
  Don't need nypost articles. This has been common knowledge for years now, basically since it's been knowledge that it's been Chinese. Just look at the whole huwei incident.

Ribbit

i'm not surprised at all with this.

Guess that explains the existence of tankies

No way...

How to detect if it's propaganda : I push propaganda you will not push propaganda we push propaganda they will not push propaganda.
I = my country
you = other country
We = my friends and me
They = their friends and them.
- What?
  
  I'll simplify :
  USA sharing propaganda via it's social media companies to Europe and others = good thing.
  China sharing propaganda via it's social to Europe and others = bad thing.
  In other terms : how dare they do the thing we've been doing ?
  
  What TikTok does to a MF.

Damn, what’s gave that away I wonder !!

ooh It's another american TIktok hitpiece, where Americans blame the Chinese for same exact things that they are guilty of. I still can't believe how butthurt some US elites are about TikTok. The worlds social media monopoly is such precious thing to them.

Good.

If there's to be regulation on this, it has to be universal and has to apply to all states including the US, and all social media platforms equally.
Otherwise leave it to people to decide what they want to watch. Louis Rossman's view on the matter (guy on YT who complains about Apple and other bad behaviour by big companies) changed recently. Video: I was WRONG about banning tiktok - here's why I changed my mind

146 comments