Covert penetration operations

The platform announced on Monday that it had removed accounts associated with parent companies Rossiya Segodnya and TV-Novosti for violating its community guidelines, or “influence operations,” NBC News reported.

TikTok did not specify which accounts were deleted, but journalists independently found a rough list of sanctioned accounts. These are Sputnik, as well as a number of RT (Russia Today) channels. Both Russian propaganda brands had a wide network of channels covering different regions, languages, and topics.

TikTok said these accounts were previously restricted in the European Union and the United Kingdom and did not appear in recommendations, but have now been removed from the platform entirely.

The social network said More information on deleted accounts will be provided in the September Covert Operations reportSo we can expect a complete list of blocked channels, which will probably include channels that no one would suspect.

TikTok assures that it is taking every precaution to protect American users from “new threats” during this election cycle in the US.

We do this by implementing robust policies aimed at preventing the spread of disinformation, sharing reliable election information, and working with internal and external experts who help us continually evaluate and improve our approach.
– said the company.

Both Sputnik and RT immediately issued statements about the removal of their pages, describing it as “oppression” and saying that thousands of followers “are no longer allowed to know the truth about the most pressing geopolitical issues and laugh at the mistakes of Western politicians.”

Prerequisites

• Recall that earlier this month, the US State Department accused RT of participating in covert influence operations around the world and imposed sanctions on its parent company for working on behalf of the Russian government.
• US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said he believes Russian media outlets such as RT have moved beyond their media roles and into covert intelligence operations.
• Federal prosecutors recently charged two RT employees with running a $10 million project that promoted pro-Russian arguments by concealing the source of the money.