According to TikTok’s new public ad library, ads from China’s biggest state media touting everything from Covid-related lockdowns in China to tourism in the troubled Xinjiang region were served to millions of European users on the platform.
By Ian Martin And Emily Baker-WhiteForbes team
TikTok has delivered a flood of ads from Chinese state propaganda outlets to millions of Europeans in recent months, according to a new ad library released by the company on July 20. The promotions cover topics ranging from defending China’s Covid-19 lockdowns to adorable cats playing on the Great Wall of China to efforts to overhaul the Xinjiang region – where she has been persecuted And arrested more than a million Uyghurs, mostly Muslims – as a spectacular tourist destination.
An analysis of the advertising library carried out by Forbes showed that as of Wednesday July 26, more than 1,000 advertisements from Chinese state media like People’s Daily and CGTN had been running on the platform since October 2022. They were delivered to millions of users in Austria, in Belgium, the Czech Republic and Germany. , Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Poland and United Kingdom. The Ad Library does not yet show data on ads shown to users in the United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries outside of Europe.
Much of the content announced by Chinese state media on TikTok focused on frequent talking points from its television, radio and print channels that tout China’s economy, technology and cultural heritage . References to Xinjiang, where the US government has called the Chinese government’s campaign of massive repression, imprisonment and “re-education” genocideappeared in 92 of 124 advertisements promoted by state media.
One ad, released in March, was funded by China News International and featured a man performing a traditional dance under the caption “Xinjiang is a good place!” Another video shows a CGTN host visiting a primary school in Xinjiang. The school visited by the host was located in Pishan County in Xinjiang, where the Australian Strategic Policy Institute monitored the construction of six detention centers. The ads also tout tours of the region and the culture of its predominantly Muslim Uyghur population.
Other ads appear to have a more overtly political subject and tone: One ad, which aired in December, featured an academic criticizing U.S. and European resistance to China’s international development project, the Belt & Road Initiative. Another ad featured a video from a vlogger who accused Western media of lying about human rights abuses committed by the Chinese government. According to the Ad Library, it was streaming on TikTok as recently as last week.
A FAQ page for the new ad library says: “TikTok does not run political or election ads on the platform. You will therefore not be able to find political ads in the commercial content library. TikTok ad rules prohibit advertising on social issues, elections, and politics, although they note that “government entities may be eligible to advertise if they work with a TikTok sales representative.” TikTok spokesperson Jamie Favazza did not respond to questions about whether ads criticizing Western governments’ responses to China’s Belt and Road Initiative defend China’s Covid-19 policies and promoting tourism in Xinjiang were permitted under TikTok’s no-political advertising policy.
Asked if People’s Daily, Global Times and other Chinese state media work with a sales representative, Favazza said the company does not consider state-controlled media to be agencies. and that its rules on government, politicians and political parties did not apply. . She noted that the ads appeared to be primarily purchased through agencies. State news agencies did not respond to a request for comment.
TikTok’s ad library does not reveal how much Chinese state media paid to publish these ads on its platform. The distribution of ads varies: while the ad library shows that some have been seen by hundreds of thousands of users, others have been seen by fewer than a thousand users in Europe.
TikTok, like Meta and Google, labels accounts run by state media so users can see that a government produced the content they posted. However, Favazza said TikTok was still working on expanding its labeling system to cover ads. In response to Forbes questions about ads from the @GlamourChina account (“Travel with Huanhuan panda to see and explore the glamorous side of China!”), the company added a media label controlled by the Chinese state.
TikTok is the subject of numerous government investigations in Europe and abroad regarding its ties to the Chinese state. Government offices in the EU, UK, France, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands and Norway, among others, have banned TikTok from government devices due to concerns that the app, which is owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, could be used to exfiltrate sensitive government information to China. In December, the company admitted to using TikTok to surveillance journalists in the USA and in the United Kingdom., to try to identify their sources. ByteDance staff in China still have access to European TikTok user data, although the company has plans announced restrict this access at some point in the future. (Disclosure: In a past life, Emily Baker-White, the author of this story, held political positions at Facebook and Spotify.)
One of regulators’ main concerns about TikTok is the fear that it could be used by the Chinese government to distort civil discourse in democratic countries. Chinese state media publishers have long history to use social media advertising to promote pro-Chinese narratives in the West, and the Meta and Google ad libraries show that both platforms continue promote pro-China stories through advertising. In 2021, Meta employees raised concerns on Chinese state media ads on Facebook depicting happy Muslims in Xinjiang, but the company decided the ads did not violate company policy. However, unlike Meta and Google, TikTok has decided to prohibit advertising on politics, social issues or elections on its platform.
Meta and Google tag content published by state media, and in January, TikTok announced that it would join them in this process. (Twitter Previously (labeled posts by state media, but abandoned the labels under Elon Musk.) Still, TikTok’s policy rollout has been difficult — it failed to label the @NewsTokss account, which is run by the Washington DC-based outpost of China Central Television, until it was reported by Forbes. Forbes has previously reported that China Central Television accounts have aired videos attacking specific U.S. politicians and pre-war issues. midterm elections.
When TikTok announced its ad library, some transparency advocates presented the announcement as evidence of regulation at work. Under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA), big platforms like TikTok will now be required to maintain searchable databases of advertisements. TikTok’s announcement indicates that the company intends to expand the library beyond Europe, but did not specify when and for which countries it plans to do so.
