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TikTok Algorithms Actively Suppress Criticism of Chinese Regime, Study Finds


China-owned video-sharing app TikTok is using its algorithms to suppress content exposing China’s human rights violations, in order to shape the views of its targeted users, according to a new study. Researchers from Rutgers University and the school’s Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) found that TikTok’s algorithms “actively suppress content critical of the Chinese Communist […]

“Through the use of travel influencers, frontier lifestyle accounts, and other CCP-linked content creators, the platform systematically shouts down sensitive discussions about issues like ethnic genocide and human rights abuses.” In recent years, TikTok has been facing scrutiny and accusations of being a threat to national security, as it exploits the minds of American teens and its China-based parent company, Bytedance, could be forced by the CCP to hand over data on U.S. users. “These users, through targeting or information environments engineered to sublimate free speech, appear to absorb these biased narratives unwittingly, leading to a distorted understanding of critical global issues,” the researchers wrote.

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