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.
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.
I have been seeing some really low effort propaganda that verges on trolling from Forbes on YouTube.
Spread the gospel! Cite the primary sources as much as possible.
That’s something we’re supposed to learn in High School.
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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’m not surprised at all with this.
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.
Arguably, more effective, due to their subtlety
I think they’re sadly quite effective on us. But I think the Chinese “Communist” regime’s propaganda is quite effective within China. It just doesn’t work well on us.
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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.
It’s the YouTube algorithm that’s pushing this garbage and it’s blatantly obvious, the actual adverts largely line up with my interests. If I don’t watch a YouTuber for a couple of weeks they disappear from my reccommed. I never watch anything about American politics, barely watch any American YouTubers yet there it is every single time without fail.
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.
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.
Guess that explains the existence of tankies
gasp
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 ?
with the exodus, too many libs. We’ve got to break their ideological bubble, of the cult that is liberalism
sadly true.
Me
Maybe they should try speaking like a normal person? It’s fucking annoying.
srry, next time i’ll try being more serious then?
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?
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No way…
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.
Well, even still, the US government and corporations have by far the upper hand. They control or heavily influence the school curriculums, for starters, in addition to most news media. Essentially, the lion’s share of information that reaches most people throughout most of their lives.
Any social media -based sway from a foreign actor will be comparatively marginal, and will be at very best at an even keel with domestic.
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China is markedly worse than the US, though.
@fist_of_fartitude @ghariksforge if you’re an american maybe
China did not invade Iraq or Afganistan
As an American, I can say that my government sucks for invading Iraq and Afghanistan and face no repercussions. I did so before those wars and have done so repeatedly since.
As a Chinese citizen, I can be arrested for singing a song about Hong Kong. Or saying that Tibet isn’t China, or that Taiwan should be left alone. God forbid I ask about what’s happening in Xinjiang. Or what happened in Beijing in 1989, or why the Great Leap Forward resulted in so many deaths of my countrymen. Or practicing Flaun Dafa, or whatever else.
Nobody is saying the US is perfect: the US has its problems, we can and should be better. But China is never honest about their shit and punishes people who are. China’s markedly worse than the US.
They let you complain about Iraq and Afghanistan because your complaints are irrelevant. You have no power to change policy.
I have free speech rights under the constitution. That’s not the case in China.
Don’t shift the goal posts - there’s a huge difference between the countries, and China is strictly worse.
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.
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.
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.
Are children and young adults really more impressionable than Fox news
Fox News isn’t being paid by the Federal or State Governments to run “Ads” that attempt to put a positive spin on negative events.
Oftentimes they’re connected to party members mate. Trump literally spoke to a bunch of their broadcasters daily.
Was the US Federal Government paying Fox News to run ads talking about how the mass murder of American Indians was a good thing?
No? Then GTFO out of here with this whataboutism. It’s fucking gross.
The same people fund both the government (through elections) and the news media. I guarantee you Murdoch is friends with many of his fellow billionaires.
L
Does it count when a major political party, that does that all the time, uses the money it pilfered from that government, or is that different somehow?
What about that the only reason they’re not doing it directly from the government account is because of the safeguards against that kind of thing they haven’t pulled down yet
A political party is not the Government nor do their ads attempt to whitewash Government misdeeds.
A political party makes up parts of the government and uses their ads to whitewash their own actions within the government.
This division is not at clean as you’re trying to make it
Suuuure. Not paid directly by the gov, but unless you’ve been living under a rock, everyone knows that politicians and big corporations (or in this case: Fox News) work hand in hand to push propaganda… Or like you said “put a positive spin on negative events”.
People just like to jump on TikTok and be like CHINA BAD!. As if America was an angel lmao.
WTF is wrong with you? China is running ads trying to convince people that they’re not really genociding the Uyghur Muslims they’re just detaining them to send them all to school!
As if America was an angel lmao.
I never said it was, again WTF is wrong with you in your head? Criticizing one group doesn’t equate to support for an opposing group.
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.
Yea when people organize an attempted coup on Chinese tiktok, your point may hold more water. Not saying it’s a good thing, but it’s clear that Facebook et al’s primary motive is not promoting nationalistic goals; domestically or aboard.
Bro Youtube is still very often full of grifting, hawkery and other disgusting stuff.
The right-wing pipeline is well documented in both Facebook and YouTube.
Whataboutism is the correct and logical answer to hypocrites. There is nothing that Tiktok is guilty of that Twitter or Instagram aren’t.
For sure. Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts are all functionally identical and equally concerning as TikTok in every way, and Xitter is trying to jump onto that too.
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this is not 4chan buddy
Isn’t that what Hollywood did for America and democratic values?
Damn, what’s gave that away I wonder !!
This is one of the huge reasons why online privacy is so important, even when you “don’t have someting to hide.” Those big tech data hogging shit companies manipulate you without you knowing.
But honestly, if you use TikTok unironically, this is totally on you.
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Do…people use Tiktok ironically?
Jokes aside, I’m going to go against the grain a bit. I liked having Tiktok during the pandemic, it probably saved my mental health. The algorithm showed me videos of people having the same experience as me with the lockdown, or just stuff about my hobbies (I never got the horny stuff people always complain about).
But I uninstalled it after social distancing rules were relaxed in my country because I started getting more and more polarizing and political videos, even though I wouldn’t engage with them.
It could honestly be a great social media platform if it was based in a more privacy respecting country and we didn’t live in a capitalist hellscape where everything has be for profit.
It’s not that special is the thing. Any tech company can replicate what tik-tok is doing it’s just that they don’t have inertia that tik-tok does.
Same with twitter, instagram, facebook and linkedin.
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?
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Mongolia is being used for slave labor to mine dirty coal
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Tibet was annexed in the 1950’s by China
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Tibet_by_the_People's_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)
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China threatens Taiwan every week despite Taiwan not wanting to be a part of China (their democratic choice)
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China Tried invading Vietnam after we left and lost in the 1970’s
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China threatens India’s border all the time
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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
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Mongolia and it’s culture.
Yeah sounds about right for the chinese, we should give mongolia nukes to see if china keeps making false claims afterwards.
