TikTok has emerged as a powerful platform for the dissemination of mis- and disinformation about the war in Ukraine. During the initial three months after the Russian invasion in February 2022, videos under the hashtag #Ukraine garnered 36.9 billion views, with individual videos scaling up to 88 million views. Beyond the traditional methods of spreading misleading information through images and text, the medium of sound has emerged as a novel, platform-specific audiovisual technique. Our analysis distinguishes various war-related sounds utilized by both Ukraine and Russia and classifies them into a mis- and disinformation typology. We use computational propaganda features—automation, scalability, and anonymity—to explore how TikTok’s auditory practices are exploited to exacerbate information disorders in the context of ongoing war events. These practices include reusing sounds for coordinated campaigns, creating audio meme templates for rapid amplification and distribution, and deleting the original sounds to conceal the orchestrators’ identities. We conclude that TikTok’s recommendation system (the “for you” page) acts as a sound space where exposure is strategically navigated through users’ intervention, enabling semi-automated “soft” propaganda to thrive by leveraging its audio features.

中文翻译：

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虚假信息之声：TikTok、计算宣传和入侵乌克兰


TikTok 已成为传播有关乌克兰战争的错误和虚假信息的强大平台。在 2022 年 2 月俄罗斯入侵后的最初三个月内，#Ukraine 标签下的视频获得了 369 亿次观看，其中单个视频的观看次数高达 8800 万次。除了通过图像和文本传播误导性信息的传统方法之外，声音媒介已成为一种新颖的、特定于平台的视听技术。我们的分析区分了乌克兰和俄罗斯使用的各种与战争相关的声音，并将它们归类为错误和虚假信息类型。我们利用计算宣传功能（自动化、可扩展性和匿名性）来探索 TikTok 的听觉实践如何被利用，以加剧当前战争事件背景下的信息混乱。这些做法包括重复使用声音进行协调的活动、创建音频模因模板以快速放大和分发，以及删除原始声音以隐藏编排者的身份。我们的结论是，TikTok 的推荐系统（“为你”页面）充当了一个声音空间，通过用户的干预战略性地引导曝光，从而通过利用其音频功能使半自动化的“软”宣传蓬勃发展。