According to a recently published study by scientists at China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), big tech companies such as TikTok, Google, and Twitter, among others, are involved in propaganda campaigns against Russia during its invasion of Ukraine, reported the South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Friday (April 21). Notably, the sole Chinese-owned firm on the list is TikTok, which has recently come under scrutiny.
What did the report uncover?
The study, which was published earlier this month in the Chinese-language journal Modern Defence Technology, claims that TikTok has joined Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other Western internet firms in conducting a “cognitive war” on Russia. According to the SCMP, the so-called conflict has “greatly undermined” Russian troops’ morale and harmed Moscow’s worldwide image.
Meanwhile, a study undertaken by Ling Haifeng, a professor at the PLA’s Army Engineering University in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, identified roughly 40 commercial firms from the internet, space, finance, and artificial intelligence industries. Ling and her colleagues describe cognitive warfare as a planned campaign aimed at altering the perceptions of specific audiences in order to influence their decisions or behaviour. According to the study, “Combat in the cognitive domain is a new, advanced form of warfare. It is also the highest level of human (war) games,” reported the SCMP.
The report also stated that this is the first time that civilian high-tech businesses have deployed so-called “cognitive warfare” during a large-scale battle and that media-driven, particularly based on mobile internet, “has had huge repercussions in this conflict.” According to the study, the US and its allies have utilized social media platforms to showcase content depicting Russia’s harshness and crimes, while Ukrainian leaders and forces have received more favourable exposure.
Ling’s team also stated that these firms are being offered a platform for government agents to use AI to create bogus texts, photos, and videos, which has “pushed the Russian army up against the gunpoint of public opinion.”
TikTok has been chastised
TikTok, which is owned by the Beijing-based parent business ByteDance, has been under increased scrutiny and criticism from the United States and its allies since the start of the conflict in Ukraine last year. This comes as opponents claim that the short video platform is not doing enough to counter Russian influence. According to a survey released last month by the Alliance for Securing Democracy, Russia’s state-run broadcaster RT has more TikTok followers than The New York Times.
According to SCMP, the national security advocacy group also discovered that the Russian news agency RIA Novosti’s top TikTok post this year received more than 5.6 million views, but its top Twitter post received fewer than 20,000 views.