DISINFO: Ukraine blamed China and TikTok for failed counter-offensive
SUMMARY
It turned out that the Chinese and TikTok were to blame for the failure of Ukraine's counter-offensive. Ukrainians learned that Chinese hackers and a Chinese video service, popular all over the world, prevented Ukraine from counterattacking in addition to bushes and mines.
RESPONSE
Pro-Kremlin narrative aiming to weaken Ukrainian resolve and fuel resentment against Western support to Ukraine.
This disinformation misrepresents an interview with Ukrainian cybersecurity expert Vitaliy Yakushev. The expert did not make any statements about the Ukrainian counter-offensive. The interview was about the security of users in the digital world. Among other things, Yakushev noted that TikTok has access to all the contents of your phone - from photos to passwords and geolocations. This applies to both ordinary users of social media and the Ukrainian armed forces (see video from 00:33:40).
Western security officials and Western governments have repeatedly warned that the Chinese company ByteDance, which owns TikTok, may be collaborating with Chinese intelligence. Under Chinese national security law, Chinese intelligence agencies are given carte blanche to exploit the data of millions of TikTok users around the world.
Based on security data, in February 2023, the White House banned the use of Chinese TikTok on federal devices and systems. Similar bans on the use of Chinese social media on official devices for cybersecurity reasons are in force in Canada, New Zealand, the European Union institutions, a number of EU governments, and the UK. ByteDance denies allegations of TikTok spying on users.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives in our database, such as claims that the West kills Ukrainians by sending them weapons they don’t know how to use, that the US is prolonging war in Ukraine to benefit from weapons sales, that Western military aid to Ukraine will only cause more suffering or that the weapons supplied by the West to Ukraine are actually useless.