Результати першого туру президентських виборів у Румунії шокували всіх: міжнародну спільноту, експертні середовища, соціологів та самих румунів. Непомічений дослідниками електоральних настроїв ультраправий проросійський політик Келін Джорджеску несподівано посів перше місце.Такий сенсаційний результат змушує переглянути не лише загальний прогноз щодо переможця президентських виборів, а й прогнози на парламентські вибори, які пройдуть вже цими вихідними – 1 грудня.

So far, only fraudsters, propagandists, and comedians have benefited the most from the technology of deepfakes. And while the first two categories seem to be clear, the latter reminds us once again that even a low-quality, obviously fake diplomat still finds those who take it seriously. This means that fraudsters and propagandists are doing quite well.We have downloaded more than 10 thousand comments to four popular TikTok videos on a channel that makes primitive comic videos about politicians "on the front lines" using the technology of deepfakes. All this is to try to understand what share of commenters took these videos at face value. And the results are not very encouraging.Читати українською

At the end of July, the TikTok Creative Center website (an analytical dashboard with the latest trends on the platform) showed the most popular hashtags in Ukraine and the number of views each has received. These statistics revealed that the network of artificial Russian bots had amassed 10 million views in just one week, indicating significant success. However, six months later, the view statistics vanished from the platform without a trace, suspiciously coinciding with the moment TikTok became aware of our investigation We know for sure that government agencies used the social network to block the bot farm after our article was published.Читати українською

In late May, Tiktok announced that in the first months of 2024, it had disrupted 15 influence operations on the platform and deleted 3,001 related accounts. We were able to find more than 2,000 accounts that were created as part of a single Russian information operation revolving around the hashtag #it'snotmyukraine and aimed at discrediting the mobilization in Ukraine and the actions of the Recruiting office.Читати українською

In June alone, the video with the hashtag #Recruiting office received 470 million views in Ukrainian TikTok (3 billion all-time). At the same time, 13 thousand posts with this hashtag were published within a month (62 thousand all-time). This is the first most popular hashtag in the News and Entertainment category. It is increasingly being used on the TikTokers pages, which seem to have nothing to do with the topic of the Recruiting office and mobilization. That's because this topic gets many more views.We decided to look at how and whom TikTok encourages to make videos about Recruiting office. To do this, we uploaded the latest posts by TikTokers whose videos appeared in the search results using the hashtag #Recruiting office. Along with the reach, we analyzed how many Russians are following this topic.Читати українською

On May 23, TikTok announced an update to its policy against targeted influence campaigns: from now on, all channels labeled as “state-controlled media” will not appear in recommended videos outside their country of origin. Thus, Spanish-speaking RT will not appear in the recommendation feed for the Spanish-speaking audience, and Sputnik Brasil will not appear for the Brazilian audience. But does this restriction work effectively? We decided to check the data.Читати українською

With the development of artificial intelligence capabilities, social networks are increasingly looking like an "AI dump" - a place where lazy content creators test the power of algorithms and try to go viral with other people's and synthetically processed content. We uncovered one such TikTok farm of 300 channels that, after automated processing, presented YouTube content as their own. At the same time, they were "accidentally" spreading Russian propaganda.Читати українською

We have investigated the non-political segment of TikTok to understand whether Russian influences are penetrating through the entertainment content of this network. The weakest link is humor.TikTok shows Ukrainians videos of Russian stand-up comedians, and often it's "Zadornov-style" humor, mocking the West.Читати українською

Один з найбільших європейських виробників боєприпасів – норвезький Nammo заявив, що його зусиллям задовольнити зростаючий попит через війну в Україні перешкоджає новий дата-центр TikTok, що монополізує електроенергію в регіоні поблизу його найбільшого заводу.

Незалежно від того, заборонений він чи ні, TikTok змусив своїх конкурентів прийняти менш прибуткову модель, пише The Economist. Далі дещо скорочений переклад тексту.