TikTok removes Russian state-owned media accounts for ‘covert influence’
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TikTok has announced in its US Elections Integrity Hub that it has removed accounts linked to Rossiya Segodnya and TV-Novosti, which own and operate Russian state-run media outlets Sputnik and RT. The company said it removed these accounts from the social media platform for “engaging in covert influence operations,” which is against its guidelines for spam and deceptive behavior.
TikTok clarified that the accounts’ content was not shown in the For You feed under its state-affiliated media policy and they were also labeled as such. Their videos were already banned in the EU and UK, but now the accounts have been permanently banned and will no longer be visible to anyone in the world.
As CNBC notes, Sputnik released a statement on X saying that “TikTok users and [its] 86,000 subscribers are no longer allowed to learn the truth about the most urgent geopolitical issues and laugh at Western politicians’ mistakes in Sputnik International videos.”
TikTok did not provide specific examples of how the outlets are trying to spread misinformation and manipulate this year’s presidential election in the US. But the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the FBI have just told reporters that Russia has generated the most AI content related to the election so far.
It has allegedly created and spread AI-generated text, images, audio and video online, mostly to “defame the vice president and the Democratic Party” and create division by focusing on topics like immigration.
Earlier this month, the US government formally issued sanctions against Rossiya Segodnya and TV-Novosti, accusing RT of “moving beyond being just a media outlet.”
It said the Russian government has embedded a cyber operational team linked to Russian intelligence within RT, and that team reportedly focuses on “influence and intelligence operations throughout the world.”
That team also pays social media personalities to spread “unbranded content” to influence foreign government elections, federal officials said. Meta banned Russian state media outlets on its products, including Facebook and Instagram, “for foreign interference activity” shortly after the US government announced the ban. It said it has found evidence in the past that the outlets tried to conceal foreign interference activities and that it expects they will continue their deceptive practices.
If you’re wondering what kind of fake videos Russia is releasing, Microsoft recently provided some detailed information in a threat analysis report.
One video showed “Kamala Harris” attacking attendees at a Trump rally, while another used an actor to accuse the vice president of being involved in a 2011 hit-and-run incident that left a 13-year-old girl paralyzed.
Another fake video also featured a New York City billboard claiming Harris wants to change the gender of children. The company warned that Russian-produced and AI-generated videos would begin to circulate online as the US gets closer to the election.