“We assess a strong possibility that content on TikTok is either amplified or suppressed based on its alignment with the interests of the Chinese Government.”

A new study conducted by researchers at Rutgers University’s Network Contagion Research Institute has found that TikTok promotes and demotes videos based on how they align with the preferences of the Chinese Communist Party.

While certain topics, such as pop culture and domestic US politics, appeared unimpacted, other posts that involved issues close to the CCP were revealed to be inorganically more, or less, likely to show up on users’ feeds.

According to NBC News, researchers picked a number of hashtags and measured their performance on both TikTok and Instagram. For pop culture tags, such as #TaylorSwift, the ratio of posts to users on each platform was consistent at around 2.2-1. The researchers said this baseline measurement made since because there are more users on Instagram than TikTok.

When it came to political hashtags however, this was not the case. There were, for example, 8.5 posts containing tags expressing support for Ukraine on Instagram per one on TikTok.

The difference was even more stark for tags related to Hong Kong. For every one post on TikTok that included #HongKongProtests, there were 206 such posts on Instagram. 

A similar, but opposite, phenomenon occurred with posts related to Kashmir; those that aligned with the CCP’s goals were spotted on TikTok 661 times for every one on Instagram.

“We assess a strong possibility that content on TikTok is either amplified or suppressed based on its alignment with the interests of the Chinese Government,” researchers concluded upon completion of the study, suggesting it was “challenging to imagine that activity of such magnitude could occur on a platform organically, and without the knowledge and consent of the platform itself.”In a statement to NBC News, TikTok called the findings “baseless” and accused researchers of arriving at their conclusions via flawed methodology.

“It fails to take into account the basic fact that hashtags are created by users, not by TikTok,” the social media giant argued. “Most importantly, anyone familiar with how the platform works can see for themselves the content they refer to is widely available and claims of suppression are baseless.”

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GOP State Lawmakers Draft Bills to Remove Joe Biden from 2024 Ballots in Three Swing States

Efforts are underway by Republican lawmakers to draft legislation aimed at removing Joe Biden from the ballots in key swing states Georgia, Arizona, and Pennsylvania.

According to Breitbart, state representatives Aaron Bernstine from Pennsylvania, Charlice Byrd from Georgia, and Cory McGarr from Arizona are spearheading these proposed legislative efforts.

Their objective is a direct response to the unconstitutional ruling in Colorado that invoked the United States Constitution’s “Insurrection Clause” to prohibit Trump from appearing on the state’s ballot.

According to Breitbart, these brave GOP lawmakers are positioning themselves against the “lawfare” tactics used by Democrats to target Trump. They argue that the same grounds used to challenge Trump’s eligibility — based on accusations of inciting an insurrection — might similarly implicate President Biden. This perspective refers to Biden’s management of the southern border invasion and strong connections with China.

In a joint statement, the three lawmakers wrote:

“Today, we are joining forces to introduce legislation to REMOVE Joe Biden from the ballot in Georgia, Arizona, and Pennsylvania.

The absurdity of radical Democrat judges removing Donald Trump from the ballot in Colorado will be a stain on the American political system for decades. By their very own interpretation of the law, Joe Biden is 100% not eligible to run for political office.

Democrats’ insane justification to remove Trump can just as easily be applied to Joe Biden for his “insurrection” at the southern border and his alleged corrupt family business dealings with China.

Colorado radicals just changed the game and we are not going to sit quietly while they destroy our Republic.

To be clear, our objective is to showcase the absurdity of Colorado’s decision and allow ALL candidates to be on the ballot in all states. To do that, we must fight back as Republicans against the communists currently running our great country.”

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