A recent pause of TikTok’s services in Russia is more to please the West rather than driven by safety concerns for its users, China experts have flagged.
Chinese-owned TikTok said on March 6 that it would suspend live-streaming and the uploading of videos to its platform in Russia, fearing that the Kremlin will criminalize it for spreading information about its invasion of Ukraine.
“We have no choice but to suspend livestreaming and new content to our video service while we review the safety implications of this law,” TikTok said in a series of Twitter posts on Sunday. It added that its in-app messaging functions would not be affected by the decision.
“The safety of our employees and our users remain our highest priority,” the post reads. “We will continue to evaluate the evolving circumstances in Russia to determine when we might fully resume our services with safety as our top priority.”
The announcement came after a flurry of global news outlets temporarily suspended their reporting in Russia to protect their journalists, in response to a so-called “fake news” law that Russian President Vladimir Putin signed and took effect late last week. This has impacted independent views from those inside Russia after Moscow’s attack on Ukraine on Feb. 24.
However, Lu Cheng-fung, an associate professor of international relations at Taiwan’s National Quemoy University, told the Epoch Times on March 8 that TikTok’s temporary withdrawal from the Russian market is most likely driven by market strategy, rather than concerns for the personal safety of its users.
“Tiktok is also keen to keep operating its business inside the Western market, as there is basically a very high consensus in the West that this is a war that should not happen,” Lu said.
The popular short-video-sharing app is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance. With over a billion monthly active users worldwide, TikTok has about 36 million monthly users in Russia, according to Chinese media.
The BBC, CNN, and other global media outlets were the first to announce temporary pauses to their Russian-based services. The U.S. government on March 5 condemned the new law, which threatens jail terms of up to 15 years for violation.
The latest move won’t have much impact on the company, said Lee Cheng-hsiu, a researcher at the National Security Division of the National Policy Foundation in Taipei, given the relatively undersized user group in Russia. “Getting aligned with sanctions could win a good reputation in return.”
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On March 2, a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general launched a probe of TikTok because they are concerned about the effects of the app on children and teens.
Easy Option
Experts said that initially, TikTok took the easy option by limiting first-hand information about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine posted by users—exactly what Moscow wanted.Such news would “repeatedly weaken [Putin’s] image as a tough leader,” Lee told The Epoch Times, while Russian citizens learned about sanctions against Moscow from opposition media outlets that can undermine the president’s position.
“TikTok executives should be concerned that [Russian] military messages are uploaded through their video platform for the world to see,” Lu said.
Voices that favored the war in Ukraine were at one time prominent on TikTok, reiterating Putin’s agenda and the narrative present in Russian media. Yet the Beijing-based social media platform had also seen both Russian soldiers and Ukrainian people capture the Russian trucks or troops moving across Ukraine with pictures and videos, according to Lu.
“That may [even] allow the United States or NATO to see Russia’s weaknesses in military operations,” he said, referring to a slowed-down advance and lack of progress.
Chinese Regime
The Chinese leadership’s reaction to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has been muted and has shifted between tacit approval to disapproval of Russia’s actions.Earlier this week, Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison joined the United States to say that China must end its “chilling silence” to stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, given that “no country will have a bigger impact on concluding this terrible war.”
