Social media rivals Meta and YouTube have announced similar suspensions of Russian state media accounts this month.
TikTok said Monday it had removed accounts belonging to the Russian state media outlets RT and Sputnik for engaging in what it called “covert influence operations.”
The social video app said in a statement on its website that it removed accounts associated with TV-Novosti and Rossiya Segodnya, the parent organizations of the RT television network and the Russian news agency Sputnik. TikTok said the accounts had violated its community guidelines, in particular its ban on deceptive behavior.
The associated accounts are now permanently banned, a TikTok spokesperson said in an email.
Considering that any one who does business in china is beholden to china- even and maybe especially foreign companies; the reality is that TikTok is a victim of politics.
To be clear: they’re all giving (or selling,) that data to the CCP.
The problem won’t go away until there’s privacy protections controlling what can be collected and who it can be shared with.