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Russian TikTok Influencers Are Being Paid To Spread Kremlin Propaganda (vice.com) 65

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
An investigation has uncovered a coordinated campaign to pay Russian TikTok influencers to post videos pushing pro-Kremlin narratives about the war in Ukraine. Vice News: Numerous campaigns have been coordinated in a secret Telegram channel that directs these influencers on what to say, where to capture videos, what hashtags to use, and when exactly to post the video. These campaigns were launched at the beginning of the invasion and have involved a number of the highest-profile influencers on TikTok, some of whom have over a million followers.

And even though TikTok has banned new uploads from users located inside Russia, the campaigns have not stopped. The Telegram channel is run by an anonymous administrator who recruits social media influencers and told VICE News he was a journalist. The administrator lays out the requirements, such as minimum views required and the date and time the video needs to be posted. He also asks potential recruits to say how much money they demand per post. It remains unknown who is paying for the campaigns.
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Russian TikTok Influencers Are Being Paid To Spread Kremlin Propaganda More

Russian TikTok Influencers Are Being Paid To Spread Kremlin Propaganda

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  • TikTok (Douyin) -> Bytedance -> CCP

    Putin is Xi Jing Pooh's Piglet.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      Yeah, this whole Kremlin-Beijing alliance business was never going to be a happy marriage from the Russian standpoint. Russia was always destined to be the junior partner, which would not have sat well with Putin.

      Right now I suspect Xi has more than a little buyer's remorse. The last thing he needs is another North Korea, a bellicose loose cannon that won't do what it's told but which he can't allow to fail.

      • "Another North Korea" is a gross understatement. China can bomb North Korea to extinction, before little Kim can lift his trigger finger and launch his dozen or so land-based nukes with no GPS capability. Not so fast with Russia, which even has bombers and subs.

        • Which, after what we've seen in the last two weeks, may not even function if called upon. I mean, is there any reason they aren't using those bombers with conventional payloads in Ukraine right now, other than the fact that they probably would crash from mechanical failure on the way? If they are as well maintained as their APCs and armored columns have been, they're probably falling apart.

          • Quite plausible. However, heavy bombers tend to be less precise than strike jets, so maybe the risk of failure isn't worth it yet.

            • Precision doesn't seem to be something that Russia is concerning itself with. Unless they actually are targeting schools, apartment blocks, hospitals, elderly care facilities, and other purely civilian targets - you know, things that the rest of the world calls "war crimes".

      • You are misreading the situation.

        Russia is well aware of their punching weight, and are realist enough to not walk away from the support they need from China. And China will know to respect them where it counts.

        If you have somehow missed this, for the last five years the US has publicly designated both Russia and China as enemies, and in this kind of a situation, the enemies are going to put their backs together. The last thing China needs is to be left alone against the US. They knows that if Russia fall

        • I had a quick look at your link, and I find it quite lacking. Sanctions just hurt the common folk? What about oligarchs losing (access to) their money and power? Sanctions never made a regime change, granted, but I've never seen this level of sanctions. Sorry, the whole story isn't very convincing.
          • Oligarchs will not lose their access to money and power. They might lose what they have stashed away overseas, if you can find it, but their access to money and power comes from their connections to the state apparatus, and sanctions will do nothing about that.

            This does not go to say that sanctions will not make life more difficult for Putin. But if you are going to suggest that this first time ever, sanctions are going to create a regime change, because these are the biggest sanctions ever, I really do fi

            • Fair enough. My point was not to make a watertight point, but to point out the lacking in some list of points. If you're (the guy of that site you linked) claiming that there is no plan C and it is needed, and your foundation why it is needed is full of holes, it just isn't convincing. Perhaps it doesn't need much to fill the gaps, and the story holds. I think the oligarchs are strongly impacted, why else would they (some of them) speak out?
  • Didn't we just have a story about how the Biden administration was trying to get TikTok influencers on board with their message? Do we somehow think they are going to be pushing only honest and objectively truthful information?
    • Two key potential differences: 1) payment 2) attribution.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        As long as you say "potential". I've no information as to whether those are actual differences. (My suspicion is that another difference is scale. No evidence, but I believe that Russia is much more willing to pay for that kind of thing, whether in the form of cash or less fungible coin. But there have been stories about various TLAs doing something similar, only on a much smaller scale.)

      • No meaningful difference here. One country is getting their propaganda online using their preferred means, another is gettin their propaganda online using their preferred means. The end result is the same - propaganda.
        • One side will forbid calling a spade a spade, a war a war and an invasion an invasion. All you have left are lies. Or pure propaganda. On the other side, is unclear how much will (need to) be twisted to look good and righteous. Honestly, the truth may well be good enough. It supposedly needs to be packaged in a consumable way. Go ahead, call me naive. It will just bring out your true colours.
          • Let me put it this way. How is the US governments track record with the truth? Looking back into history, has the government made an abundance of truth available to the public, be it in war or peacetime? I find it very peculiar indeed that we are very well aware that the government lies about all the things all the time, yet every time we believe what the government tells us, we will later discover, sometimes only after the veil has been lifted half a century later, that it was just lies upon lies. Yet ever
            • So you seriously believe that your government lies about everything all the time? Please use your rights to do something about it. On the other hand, I believe that some things that my government says, needs to be taken with a grain of salt. And some things need to be taken with a hand full. My point here is, if the truth is in your advantage, why lie? Because they are compulsive liars? It doesn't make sense to me. I'm sorry for you if it does for you (for your government).
              • Well if you want to get into the details of how much and when, then well, I would say that if you look into the truth history of e.g. the US government, there is enough lies over and over again for everything they say to be taken with a truckload of salt. This is not changed by the fact that sometimes they tell the truth. Even a broken clock is right twice a day; the US government does not set policy based on whether it would generate propaganda that would be based on truth.

                My point is, you don't get to kn

                • I understand that your world view is based on what the USA and the USA government do. Mine is not. Here in Europe we watched the whole "Irak has WMDs deal" and knew it wasn't true. And none of us see this fight as USA versus Russia via a proxy battle. No reporter in the UK, Netherlands, Switzerland, France, Italy, Germany, Poland or Portugal has made that case. And yes, either directly (I'm fluent in English, Dutch, French, German) or through friends and colleagues I get all the various viewpoints. Only som

    • Didn't we just have a story about how the Biden administration was trying to get TikTok influencers on board with their message? Do we somehow think they are going to be pushing only honest and objectively truthful information?

      Yeah, but we're the guys in white hats while Putin's mob are all wearing black hats, so it's all OK.

      More seriously, who TF would get their news about Putin's war from TikTok? Asking a random drunk on the sidewalk would probably be a more reliable source of information than that place.

    • If the truth is enough, why would they need to lie?

  • Hearing the Kremlin propaganda has been rather entertaining. Keep it coming.

  • ... just 70 years late?

  • American TikTok Influencers Are Being Paid To Spread White House Propaganda

  • American propaganda, Russian propaganda... all owned by China.

  • That someone would spread propaganda during war.

    Seriously, if you're going to run a news story, do it about people who are *not* spreading propaganda on social media. THAT would be news.

  • And he needs to justify it to his own people, let alone the rest of the world. The people of Russia will suffer because of economic sanctions, and what for? So Russian pirates can buy English football teams?

    Though I am not a resident of Russia, I appreciate that there is some serious propaganda going on. I heard some of it on BBC Radio news the other day. A Russian historian (that is how she described herself) appeared to be ranting serious nonsense, and I thought the radio interviewer was unusually toleran

  • Because I get all my news from (checks carefully) a Chinese owned phone app full of dancing girls. Credentialed press in the war zone can suck it. No low-ball offers. I know what I've got.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • ...and where can I sign up?
  • Who do you think is going to have an easier time boosting online personalities, the white houese or the kremlin, when the American tech giants are banning every media outlet or figure relating to Russia? https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
  • And the sun comes up every morning and sets every evening. This is what influencers do, getting paid to promote something, political or commercial. Nothing new, nothing special.

  • My government is spreading its propaganda in youtube ads before every video. Elections is next months, and I have to watch this bs on the toilet.

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