Study finds TikTik’s ban on uploads in Russia failed, leaving it dominated by pro-war content

TikTok is the last global social media platform still operating in Russia. It banned new uploads on March 6 to protect users from the Russian fake news law.

A new report has found that the ban was applied inconsistently, that new uploads related to the war outnumbered anti-war posts, and that these pro-war posts now dominate TikTok. After the ban was applied, the platform was frozen in time and Russian TikTokers were not informed about new developments.

There is no information on TikTok in Russia about the recent massacres by Russian forces of civilians in Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities.

Tracking Exposed analyzed a sample of war-related hashtags on TikTok and looked at the volume of content posted between February 20 and March 1. Tracking Exposed estimates that 42% of war-related content was anti-war before the ban was announced. Almost all of war-related content was pro-war after the ban.

The group found that the ban had been implemented wrong. Content can still be uploaded in Russia between March 7 and March 24. pro-war content outnumbered anti-war content on TikTok. After the ban, there was more pro-war content posted for each anti-war video.

Tracking exposed two loopholes in TikTok's ban on posting content, one of which was the poor implementation.

The group found that as of March 25 new uploads in Russia were not possible, and that the pro-war content was the main focus.

TikTok banned new uploads in order to protect its Russian users from the Russian fake news law which makes it an offense to post false information about the Russian army in Ukraine.

Since the war began, TikTok's policies in Russia have been opaque and inconsistent. The platform's failure to properly implement the upload ban was exploited to flood the platform with pro-war narratives. Critics of the invasion have left. The frozen TikTok is dominated by pro-war content. There won't be a Russian Spring on TikTok.

Tracking Exposed is a European non-profit organization that lobbies for digital rights. The full report and Jupyter notebook are available here.