What can TikTok teach us about the war in Ukraine?

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War feels closer than ever before. We’ve had occupations and military action during the social media age but the Russia-Ukraine war feels bigger, louder and nearer as conveyed by my Twitter and TikTok feeds.

It’s a bizarre but universal modern experience to see visceral, stomach-plunging videos of war wedged between ads for ring lights and viral posts like “the plural of boot is beet but some of y’all ain’t ready to hear that”. It’s all the same to the algorithm.

I’ve found myself relying on social media posts shared or tweeted into my feed by others to understand what’s going on just as much as I depend on mainstream media coverage. It’s like social media is the colour commentator to the news play-by-play announcer.

This approach has obvious flaws. Viral clips don’t go through any fact-checking unless you count the obligatory “check the comments to find out why it’s fake” muscle memory that I’ve developed.

So far, Russian disinformation efforts appear to have failed at undermining Western narratives, but not for lack of trying. Their attempts have included everything from state-run media TikTok accounts sharing biased or misleading clips to fake journalists writing fake news. I’m guessing that the United State’s radical approach of transparency about Russia’s moves combined with the incredible amount of information freely available have made it hard for those to take hold.

That’s not to say there hasn’t been misinformation. Quite the opposite. Old footage of gunfights, misleadingly captioned images or sometimes even clips from video games or movies have all been presented as real content from the Russia-Ukraine war. I would say there is a near 100% certainty you’ve seen a clip of something that was false or deceptive without knowing it.

I know I fell for some: myths like Ghost of Kyiv and the Snake Island soldiers — yes I’m sorry to tell you but even sympathetic sides are happy to share propaganda! — that were debunked but only after they were turned into content and shared around the world. Perhaps this content hasn’t drastically changed how we view the war, but it has misled people.

People propagating these have increased their follower counts, shown ads and sought donations. Many of us have unwittingly amplified it by sharing it further (and perhaps indirectly benefited ourselves from all the engagement, if we’re being honest).

While governments have always sought to run misinformation campaigns during wars, quietly I think we’ve ended up with something more dystopian: these platforms — a major way we find out about the world — have turned all of us into misinformation machines by being truth agnostic. What’s real is less important than what’s going to keep you scrolling according to the algorithm.

Our platforms are not set up to give us reliable information during a war. For now, it’s less important because it seems like there’s a fairly straightforward narrative. But what happens when things are muddier? I shudder to think.

Hyperlinks

Facebook approved five obviously fake Australian election ads. Can we trust them to police the poll?

An Australian tech think tank decided to see how easy it would be to run Facebook ads with election misinformation. It turned out to be very easy (Crikey)

Is making memes about literal war fucked up? We investigate

A psychologist weighs in on why people make memes about serious world events and whether it’s OK. (Pedestrian)

Government pushes social media giants to suspend Russian state news sites

Interesting move to get Russian state media banned in Australia. On one hand, it’s literally propaganda that’s spinning about war in Ukraine. On the other hand, isn’t a free society supposed to abhor censorship? (Nine)

Kevin Nguyen’s OSINT for Ukraine and Australia

Not my typical news recommendation but a handy resource created by ABC journalist Kevin Nguyen for understanding what’s real or not during the Russia-Ukraine war. (Start.me)

People are using online communities to find out about volunteering in the Russia-Ukraine war. It’s not going great

Chaos, infighting and an influx of new members has made life difficult for those people running online communities dedicated to helping foreign nationals wanting to travel to Ukraine to fight or volunteer. (Crikey)

Content Corner

How are the teens on TikTok responding to Russia-Ukraine? I think pretty well, all things considered.

Memes have been a big part of it. There’s lots of joking about this being WWIII. I’ve seen some moralistic finger wagging but to me, this is people trying to process what this conflict means for them, people around the globe, and generally what it’s like to exist in a world besieged by war and a pandemic.

There has also been a piece of retro internet that came back into popularity: remember NUKEMAP? It’s a website that allows you to use simulated nuclear attacks to show you how different parts of the world would be affected by the fallout. Using this, I now know that if Parramatta was hit with the US’s “Fat Man” bomb (that was used on Nagasaki) I would survive but probably not if they used the B-83, the largest bomb in the current US arsenal.

There’s a lot of anti-war content too. I was surprised to see quite a few videos, specifically videos criticising Scott Morrison for grandstanding on Russia, with the implication that it was putting Australia in danger — which is quite perceptive I think.

The most bizarre stuff to me is the machismo, pro-war stuff that comes into my timeline. It’s like homemade propaganda about how good Australian (or US or UK forces) are. Not really my cup of tea but I guess it makes sense for people who grew up on video games like Call of Duty to be looking at it through that lens.

All this shows how young people are using social media like they always do: to make sense of the world and to express their identity. That it’s business as usual even in dark times is comforting, at least.