There is much less talk about Uyghurs and anti-China protests on Tiktok than on Instagram. According to the researchers, it is hardly a coincidence.
In Finland, right now, people are feverishly thinking about whether Tiktok users’ data is leaking to China. Another relevant question is whether the Chinese-owned Tiktok filters or even censors China-related content.
There are clear indications of this, it turns out from a study published in December. A research group from Rutgers University compared the number of subject tags in Tiktok and Instagram.
At first, the researchers looked at popular topics. The tag “TaylorSwift”, which refers to the artist, and “Trump”, familiar from American politics, are mentioned twice as often on Instagram as on Tiktok. It is somehow related to the number of users of the applications. At the time of the research, Instagram had two billion users, Tiktok one and a half billion.
When you use harsh words for China as a comparison, the relationship changes completely.
The tag “HongKongProtest” referring to the protests in Hong Kong is mentioned 174 times more often on Instagram than on Tiktok, tags referring to the minority Uyghurs oppressed by China ten times more often, and the tag “TiananmenSquare” referring to the Tiananmen Square massacre 57 times more often.
According to the research group, it is likely that Tiktok systematically regulates the visibility of the content based on whether the content is pleasing to the Chinese leadership.
Do you use Tiktok? Tell me if you yourself have seen news on Tiktok that is being censored from the Chinese media.
“Yes, the radar vibrates here”
Dissertation researcher specializing in Tiktok Esko Nieminen is on the same lines: the normal behavior of the application users is not enough to explain such a large difference in the number of tags.
– Yes, the radar vibrates here. I don’t see any way that it was born naturally, says Nieminen.
At the University of Tampere, Nieminen is researching political influence through Tiktok. He considers Rutgers University’s analysis reliable.
In his opinion, Instagram is a good comparison for Tiktok, because there, too, users primarily search for entertaining content.
Data from Rutgers University shows that politics is talked about a bit more on Instagram than on Tiktok, but the difference is overemphasized when it comes to topics related to China.
China censors from its own media anything related to the violent oppression of the Uyghur minority, Taiwan’s democratic aspirations or the 2019 Hong Kong protests. After the protests, China practically crushed Hong Kong’s special status.
The graphic illustrates that, based on subject tags, the most recent US presidents are talked about almost equally in the applications. In terms of topics that are embarrassing for China, the difference is significant. The data was collected at the end of last year.
Tiktok removed the search function
For Esko Niemis, the turnaround that took place in Tiktok after the publication of the study is also noteworthy.
Tiktok previously offered the possibility to examine user data by searching for subject tags. This feature disappeared soon after the researchers’ report was published.
Secrecy easily arouses suspicion, Nieminen points out.
– Since Tiktok’s culture is not very open, it is more difficult to trust the one official piece of information that comes out, he says.
Tell us if you yourself are worried about Tiktok’s data security or other features of the application.
Tiktok and its parent company Bytedance have repeatedly said that the app does not censor or spy.
Evidence against this has been found before. In 2019, a 17-year-old emerged By Feroza Aziz made a video in which she put makeup on her face while talking about the plight of China’s Uyghur minority.
Aziz’s Tiktok account was closed soon after the video was posted.
In the same year, the British The Guardian newspaper revealedthat Tiktok instructed its moderators to censor videos embarrassing to China.
In Finland, the protection police have warned that the information of Tiktok users may end up with the Chinese security authorities. Several Finnish politicians would be ready to ban the application completely.
Read also: According to the researcher, the reasons for banning Tiktok completely are flimsy
There have been several attempts to ban Tiktok in the United States, but the attempts have failed as unconstitutional. Instead, the app is banned in India.