The Kremlin sees the targeted bans as effective because popular TikTok users understood they’d lose income if they posted anti-Putin material, according to the Russian official. AFP
Mikhail Petrov’s TikTok posts started going viral this year when he tapped into growing discontent in Russia with bite-sized explanations of the country’s budding protest movement.
His popularity exploded to over 250,000 followers and TikTok invited Petrov, a political science student at the Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg, to join a talent development program. Then the sound started disappearing from some of his videos.
TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance Ltd, is among the global social media companies coming under increasing pressure to remove anti-government posts in Russia as President Vladimir Putin cracks down on dissent. It has even won praise from Russian officials who say it’s more willing than some other companies to remove content.
Putin Finds Ally in China’s TikTok in Crackdown on Critics Bloomberg 4/30/2021 Madis Kabash
(Bloomberg) Mikhail Petrov’s TikTok posts started going viral this year when he tapped into growing discontent in Russia with bite-sized explanations of the country’s budding protest movement.
His popularity exploded to over 250,000 followers and TikTok invited Petrov, a political science student at the Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg, to join a talent development program. Then the sound started disappearing from some of his videos.
TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance Ltd., is among the global social media companies coming under increasing pressure to remove anti-government posts in Russia as President Vladimir Putin cracks down on dissent. It has even won praise from Russian officials who say it’s more willing than some other companies to remove content.