TikTok purges accounts tied to Russian media over ‘covert influence’ efforts ahead of US election
CNN
TikTok has removed accounts associated with two Russian media groups for trying to exercise what it called “covert influence” on the upcoming US presidential election, in violation of its guidelines.
TikTok has removed accounts associated with two Russian media groups for trying to exercise what it called “covert influence” on the upcoming US presidential election, in violation of its guidelines. The accounts are linked to Rossiya Segodnya and TV-Novosti, the organizations behind the Sputnik news agency and the RT broadcaster respectively, the social media platform said on its website Monday, labeling the groups “state-affiliated.” The move mirrors an announcement by Meta (META) last week that it had banned Rossiya Segodnya, RT and “other related entities” from its apps globally for “foreign interference activity.” Rossiya Segodnya and RT did not immediately respond to a CNN request for comment on the TikTok measure. Earlier this month, the US Justice Department announced charges against two RT employees for funneling nearly $10 million into a US company, identified by CNN as Tenet Media, to create and amplify content that aligned with Russian state interests. The covert influence campaign was aimed at the American public ahead of the presidential election, US officials said. Tenet Media boasts a slate of high-profile right-wing, pro-Trump commentators, including Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson and several others. All of them released statements saying they were victims of the alleged Russian scheme.
The DeepSeek drama may have been briefly eclipsed by, you know, everything in Washington (which, if you can believe it, got even crazier Wednesday). But rest assured that over in Silicon Valley, there has been nonstop, Olympic-level pearl-clutching over this Chinese upstart that managed to singlehandedly wipe out hundreds of billions of dollars in market cap in just a few hours and put America’s mighty tech titans on their heels.
At her first White House briefing, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt made an unusual claim about inflation that has stung American shoppers for years: Leavitt said egg prices have continued to surge because “the Biden administration and the department of agriculture directed the mass killing of more than 100 million chickens, which has led to a lack of chicken supply in this country, therefore lack of egg supply, which is leading to the shortage.”