• by Colin Kirkland , September 25, 2024

In line with other major social media companies, TikTok has decided to officially remove several Russian state media outlets from its platform following “new evidence” published by the Department of Justice, which states that the profiles have been engaging in activity seeking to influence the 2024 U.S. Presidential election.

“We removed three accounts representing a media company, its founder, and a faked news outlet so far for violating our policies prohibiting deceptive behavior and paid political promotion,” the social media company states in its US Elections Integrity Hub.

Over the past week, TikTok says it has been working to protect its platform during the U.S. elections by removing accounts that are specifically associated with Rossiya Segodnya and TV-Novosti -- two state-controlled media outlets -- for “engaging in covert influence operations on Tiktok,” which the company says violates its Community Guidelines.

As the documents provided by the Department of Justice explain, various bad actors and state-controlled media outlets from Russia have deployed millions of dollars “laundered through a network of foreign shell entities” to “covertly fund and direct” U.S. companies that publish English-language videos on TikTok and other major social-media platforms.

Many of the videos detected by the Department of Justice contain commentary on U.S.-based issues including immigration, inflation, “and other topics related to domestic and foreign policy,” according to the reports -- and consistently align with the Russian government's interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions.

The accounts TikTok banned had already been restricted in the EU and the U.K. The company says it will continue to investigate new information as it becomes available.

TikTok's efforts directly follow Meta's recent announcement of its own expanded ban on Russian state media accounts, including Rossiya Segodnya and RT, an English-language news channel that was dropped by distributors after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

It has since been forced to cease formal operations in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and the EU, driving the media outlet to carry out an “entire empire of covert projects,” according to RT's Editor In Chief Margarita Simonyan.

After receiving notable criticism for allowing Russian state-controlled media outlets to sway the 2020 US Presidential election, social-media companies are now faster to act.

In order to demonstrate a willingness to crack down on these bad actors, TikTok also published its latest covert influence operation report earlier this week, showing that it removed 5 networks and 7,792 accounts in August alone.

The accounts were found to be suspect with regard to efforts to manipulate the outcome of the upcoming election.