Conspiracies about Australia’s COVID lockdowns are going viral on TikTok

Conspiracy videos falsely claiming a totalitarian government is taking over Australia and US troops are invading the country are gaining tens of thousands of views on TikTok and young users say the app’s algorithm is allowing the content to flourish.

A number of the TikToks currently going viral use a grab of NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard describing the pandemic as the “new world order” in a press conference in July.

The New World Order is a baseless conspiracy theory which says there’s a secretly emerging totalitarian government. Hack is not suggesting Mr Hazzard was promoting the conspiracy when he used those words.

Another TikTok which has gained more than 130,000 views shows footage of US tanks and battleships arriving on a beach, and falsely claims they’re arriving in Australia “for war”.

After being presented with the conspiracy videos by Hack, TikTok launched an investigation. On Thursday, the app said it had taken down the videos in question and banned the accounts which posted them.

Mitch, a young Australian from Cairns, signed up to TikTok for fun videos, but the app’s algorithm eventually started showing him conspiracy content. Mitch says it started with a TikTok of One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts sharing already debunked misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines.

“Then it was COVID a hoax and videos saying don’t get the vaccine and I was pretty taken aback,” Mitch told Hack.

“I thought it was just nonsense to be honest and I’ll just swipe past it.”

A joint investigation by triple j Hack and Four Corners found the TikTok algorithm is exposing Australians to dangerous content through the app’s For You Page, an endless stream of personally curated videos for each user. The more you “like” videos, follow an account, or watch a TikTok video until it ends, the more the algorithm learns, in theory, what you want to see.

Mitch says it took about 30 minutes for TikTok’s algorithm to show him videos involving misinformation and conspiracies. He says he reports the videos to the platform or says he’s not interested in them.

“That sort of content is not going to affect me but it is worrying that it could be affecting someone else that’s a bit more pliable.”

Conspiracy content “hand delivered” to users on TikTok, unlike other social media platforms

US research organisation Media Matters has found that when a user follows one far right account, TikTok’s algorithm suggests several other similar accounts to follow.

“This is uniquely harmful because it has the potential to further radicalize people interested in these far-right extremist movements, and it doesn’t even require users to seek them out; TikTok hand-delivers the extremist movements to its users, many of whom are 14 or younger,” senior researcher, Olivia Little said.

Media Matters has found there are many videos peddling conspiracy theories on TikTok, from COVID misinformation to conspiracy theories about human trafficking rings.

Unlike other social media sites, TikTok users have no power over which content they’ll see on their For Your Page – they can’t unfollow accounts which are serving them harmful videos. That also means a user with very few followers can go viral and researchers have said that makes it hard for them to track who is posting conspiracy content on the platform.

“Individual videos can get picked up in ways that they don’t on other platforms and go viral without a person needing to be prominent within the far right community or even having a big following,” Olivia Little told Hack.

“It makes it extra difficult to follow the disinformation because we’re not just having to track large figures or far right influencers.

“We’re also having to figure out what’s going on, because a viral video can come from anywhere in ways that it can’t on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

TikTok says it does not “permit misinformation that causes harm to individuals, our community, or the larger public regardless of intent”. The app banned a number of conspiracy theorists on the platforms including Alex Jones, a prominent purveyor of violent and sometimes racist theories. Users can’t search for his name and #AlexJones is banned.

“TikTok works aggressively to stop COVID-19 misinformation from spreading on our platform by working with fact checkers like the AFP and removing content and accounts that violate our Community Guidelines,” a TikTok spokeswoman told Hack.

“We are proud to partner with health experts at the WHO and UNICEF to promote authoritative information across our app and support the NSW Government’s daily livestream which brings crucial information about COVID-19 case numbers, hot spots, rules, and safety to Australians on TikTok.”

Concerns over facial data

TikTok collects data about your location, gender, and age and, more contentiously, your facial data.

The app is not fully transparent about how it uses your data to personalise your feed, but Artificial Intelligence researchers have found that facial data could be used to determine your political views.

“Based on your clothing style, for instance, TikTok might make certain assumptions about your political lenience, and they might only provide you with videos that relate to the political party that they think you’re interested in,” Melbourne University researcher, Dr Niels Wouters said.

“The political lenience is one example, but we can very quickly see how that can unfold into much more dramatic effects and have much more dramatic consequences.”

Mitch says he’s never shown an interest in far right or conspiracy content on TikTok, and he’s worried the app’s algorithm misunderstood who he is based on his looks.

“I’ve got a beard… generally if you’re gonna think of Australian bogan, you think of me,” he said.

“I only ever like the dog videos or animal videos.”

Olivia Little has called for TikTok to create an extremism team, which tracks and takes down dangerous content.

“I don’t think far right actors are that creative in the sense that a lot of this is just repeated disinformation that we’ve seen for years, just repurposed and repackaged,” she said.

“I just think that they need a strong extremism team to be able to combat disinformation at the speed that they shouldn’t be coming back again.”

*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from ABC News can be found here ***