Russian state media is posting more on TikTok ahead of the U.S. presidential election, study says
Russian state-affiliated accounts have boosted their use of TikTok and are getting more engagement on the short-form video platform ahead of the U.S. presidential election, according to a study published Thursday by the nonprofit Brookings Institution.
The report states that Russia is increasingly leveraging TikTok to disseminate Kremlin messages in both English and Spanish, with state-linked accounts posting far more frequently on the platform than they did two years ago.
Such accounts are also active on other social media platforms and have a larger presence on Telegram and X than on TikTok. However, the report says user engagement — such as likes, views and shares — on their posts has been much higher on TikTok than on either Telegram or X.
“The use of TikTok highlights a growing, but still not fully realized, avenue for Russia’s state-backed information apparatus to reach new, young audiences,” reads the report, which drew data from 70 different state-affiliated accounts and was authored by Valerie Wirtschafter, a Brookings fellow in foreign policy and its artificial intelligence initiative.