ICT Tac said on Sunday it would suspend live streaming and downloading of new content from Russia, becoming the latest tech company to ...
ICT Tac said on Sunday it would suspend live streaming and downloading of new content from Russia, becoming the latest tech company to pull out of the country.
TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, said he was taking action as he reviewed Russia’s new “fake news” law. The law appears to target media outlets that don’t toe the Kremlin line on invading Ukraine.
“Our top priority is the safety of our employees and users, and in light of Russia’s new ‘fake news’ law, we have no choice but to suspend live streaming and new content. of our video service in Russia while we review the security implications of this law,” TikTok said in a statement.
Last week, TikTok joined Meta, Twitter and YouTube in banning Russian state-backed media in the European Union and labeling state-backed media in the rest of the world. Technology platforms have been caught in the middle of the information war about the invasion, Ukrainian leaders and US and European officials asking them to cut off Russia while Russia pressures companies to censor their content.
Millions of people have taken to TikTok for live updates and video clips of the fighting in Ukraine. The company had to coping with a flood of videos, some of which claim to show action on the pitch but are unverified. This raised fears that TikTok was spreading false information about the invasion.
According to a New York Times review, videos with the hashtag #Ukrainewar have amassed nearly 500 million views on TikTok, with some of the most popular videos earning nearly a million likes. In contrast, the #Ukrainewar hashtag on Instagram had 125,000 posts, and the most popular videos were viewed tens of thousands of times.
TikTok said last week that it had devoted more resources to monitoring misleading war content.
Disabling live streaming and new uploads from Russia is tricky as it can prevent ordinary Russians from broadcasting independent news. Some Russian journalists and censorship experts have warned that there will be negative consequences if tech platforms are blocked in Russia.
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