Social networks have become a front for combat and propaganda since the beginning of the war of aggression in Ukraine. TikTok was in particular inundated with Russian propaganda videos from the first days of the conflict. The network responded by blocking accounts and reporting from those belonging to Kremlin-controlled media. TikTok has just extended its protection against state media to 40 other countries, including Canada.
This does raise some questions. First, a “state-affiliated media” (State-affiliated media), as TikTok calls them, what is it, exactly? Does extending to Canada its policy framing their existence on its platform mean that we also find them here?
TikTok announced last week that a tag will be added to any content shared on its platform by government-controlled media in Canada, the United States or Europe. This also applies to other countries in Asia and Oceania.
“Our affiliate media policy is to label accounts operated by entities where editorial content and decision-making is subject to government control or influence. Our goal with these labels is to transparently provide the public with the precise context when they interact with accounts that could represent the point of view of a government, “writes the global head of policy and partnerships for TikTok, Justin Erlich.
TikTok says it has worked with some sixty experts, the media, political scientists and representatives of various civil organizations from all over the planet, to develop an approach which, we are assured within the company, will be applied on a case-by-case basis. “We understand that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to educating our users about the different ways states seek to influence how information is produced,” Erlich adds.
Independence and transparency
Bad news for conspiracy seekers: no, TikTok has not found any media on our premises that would conform to its definition of state-controlled media. Canada certainly has crown corporations, including Radio-Canada and the CBC, which are funded by the government. But these two companies are independent. Newsrooms are sealed. Decision-making is autonomous.
The question of media independence has returned to the top of the discussion list during COVID, in a context of disinformation where a segment of the population has lost confidence in the traditional media. Accusations of being the mouthpiece of the government have been leveled. In Canada, the tax assistance on salaries granted to newsrooms is interpreted by this same fringe as a bribe, a bribe assuring the State that its message would reach the population directly and unaltered.
The meteoric rise of misinformation is largely the fault of social networks. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have been slow to respond to the proliferation of these misleading, malicious, and sometimes downright violent and hateful messages. This opened a huge breach in the media sphere. This breach has since been used by governments and political organizations to influence international public opinion on military offensives, commercial or environmental issues and other major issues.
Clearly, misinformation is in vogue, as it too has embraced the social network of the moment, TikTok. This short video sharing network was born from the desire to create an exclusively playful and entertaining platform. She saw a first wave of adopters being mostly under the age of 24. But its popularity continues to grow among the general population.
Last Friday, TikTok announced the arrival on its platform of Mick Jagger, the singer of the Rolling Stones, alongside guitarist Keith Richards. These two are proof that you can be young for a very, very long time…
Who to certify?
In December, elected Americans returned to the charge: TikTok, they say, must be banned from the Internet if not worldwide, at least in the United States. It is essentially a propaganda tool of the Chinese government, according to them. The closeness of the leadership of ByteDance, the company that owns the network, to the Communist Party is well documented.
No doubt, in its attempt to survey the state-run media present on its network, the company is trying to assert that it too has its own independence from governments. TikTok already identified sensitive content, those that could be the subject of misinformation. It also certifies with a blue checkmark users who are who they claim to be.
Twitter does it too. The arrival of Elon Musk at its head has changed its certification method, and we feel that it will evolve in the coming months to distinguish between a personality, a politician, a company, etc.
Over time, each social network will have its own policy and its own way of identifying its users. That’s commendable: it could help clean up these “digital public squares,” as Musk calls them, by weeding out those accounts that spread falsehoods, hate, and violence.
There is no need to go back over the importance of properly regulating digital identity. One can wonder if it is the role of social media to do this, or if we should not find more universal, more neutral tools to achieve this.
Because it is not without irony that it is TikTok which stands up today as a defender of the independence of the news media…