Algorithmic transparency: TikTok’s role in the war in Ukraine and French election
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CPDP, Bruxelles, 23 May 2022
Claudio Agosti, @_vecna
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Who am I? Claudio Agosti
1999 - 2011
Computer security, privacy activism.
2011 - 2016
NGOs, whistleblowing protection.
2016+
Founded Tracking Exposed, Research associate.
Special trivia
Engineered recipe for the fluffiest pancake
Tracking Exposed is a no-profit organization that produces free software
Currently supported by
In the past
Offering services of
- Third-party algorithm assessment
- Election monitoring
- Workshops and trainings on algorithm analysis
We investigate influential algorithms
Investigation — litigation — free Software — Training
OUR WORK
in development
Why TikTok
Prominence of the algorithm
Legitimate suspicions
Huge popularity and contained threat perception
Lack of scrutiny
The first Non Silicon Valley
The intercept article.The cleanest algorithm for social media addiction
Weight more in app behavior rather than external inputs
Logaritmic speed in searching for your niche
The 15 seconds video part of the selection mechanism
Not that bound to the publication date
The complexity we've to manage behind the scene
Every installed extension has a personal evidence log page
💡 ForYou and Following feed
💡 Search Queries results
💡 CSV/JSON API
A public index on how Search gets answered by TikTok
💡 Only the last 7 days considered in the index
💡 They should have been performed by at least two extensions
💡 They should have at least one video
💡 CSV/JSON API
Hashtag based geographical blocking
October 2021
November 2021
Hashtag demotion by platform comparison
Ratio of 1 / 1000 on TikTok
Ratio of 1 / 20 on FB
Hashtag demotion by platform comparison
Ratio of 1 / 100 on Facebook
Ratio of 1 / 10000 on TikTok
Selective content amplification
How many actors might influence this?
February 2022 and the TikTok is not political
The apparently A—political TikTok nature
Spliternet
Spliternet
Splinternet
Current analysis capabilities
✅Blocked Hashtags
✅Demoted Hashtags
✅Inorganic Amplification
🚧“Following” VS “For You” feeds
🚧Content Takedowns (Makhno)
🚧Advanced Search result analysis
Released reports
13 April 2022, report published: Pro-war content dominates on TikTok in Russia after failure to implement its own policy, [23 pages .pdf]
15 March 2022, report published: TikTok blocks 95% of content for users in Russia, [20 pages .pdf]
French Elections 2022 — still a work in progress
💡 French presidential candidates were not fairly [as respect to vote intentions / equal / ] represented in the search results of both YouTube and TikTok.
💡 TikTok, just as Youtube, is used for political discussion and to spread significant amount of candidates air time. These social media are not used just for dancing videos, they should be accountable for their societal impact.
Secondary findings
💡 Candidate popularity on TikTok is more volatile than on YouTube.
💡 The known social media algorithmic bias in favour of polarizing content favors candidates on the extreme.
💡 Candidate popularity on social media does not directly translate in vote intentions. Ex: Lassale or Zemmour VS Melanchon.
💡 Certain hashtags and politicians are used to prompt the algorithm to amplify the content even if they are not relevant for the video. (Algospeak)