Many videos on the platform claim President Zelensky won’t be legitimate after May 20
Kiev wants TikTok’s help to counter Moscow’s dominance on that social media platform, one of Ukraine’s top information warfare officials told Bloomberg on Tuesday.
Russians are advancing in cyberspace as well as on the battlefield, according to the outlet, which interviewed Andrey Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.
“Russia is dominating us on TikTok” due to the sheer scale of its effort, said Kovalenko. “We need to adjust our approach and consider focusing on this social network as well.”
According to Kovalenko, the Russians are “working systematically,” creating fake accounts with Ukrainian SIM cards, and “gaming” TikTok algorithms to reach a wider audience in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, there aren’t very many Ukrainian creators on the platform, Kovalenko said. His own account, with some 543,000 followers, features videos that “underscore Ukraine’s views on the war,” according to Bloomberg.
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