The Austrian satire magazine ‘Die Tagespresse’ -comparable maybe to ‘The Onion’ in the U.S.- is understandably not known for factual reporting.
This week, however, the magazine started a serious research. They did what they called a ‘self-experimentation’ as they described in their magazine:
“We register [with Chinese platform TikTok] with disposable emails and create nine accounts of fictitious Austrian teenagers [aged 14 to 17] from each of the nine federal states [in Austria]. The app does not require any proof of age or identity.”
“Then we start a screen recording and scroll through the video feed for ten minutes. We forbid ourselves the search function, we like and comment nothing to give the algorithm no information about what we think is good or bad.”
“Only the perfect Chinese code should decide what young Austrians will see.”
The article is very long and I don’t want to post the whole text here (you will surely find a useful translation), but I provide a summary in English:
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All 9 Austrian teenagers between 14 and 17 years of age see radical right-wing propaganda, “free home delivered from China,” as the magazine writes.
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The young people see Herbert Kickl, the current leader of the far-right Austrian Freedom Party, the avatar of Jörg Haider, a former right-wing politician who died in a car accident in 2008, and Alice Weidel, the head of the far-right AfD (Alternative for Germany - Alternative for Germany).
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Russian propaganda arises, too, promoting immigration to Russia: “We offer work, a house, a Russian wife and military training,” promises a mock Vladimir Putin to a 15-year-old teenager from Styria, one of Austria’s nine states. Teenagers must apply only at “einbürgerung@kreml.ru”.
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Donald Trump is doing his ‘Trump Dance’, anti-EU propaganda and pro-Islamic propaganda are as widespread as Quran videos, and, of course, there’s no lack of China’s Xi Jinping.
The magazine writes:
Fortunately, the self-experiment is already coming to an end, but it gets wild again.
The algorithm cannot decide whether Elias [one of the names the magazines used for its teenager accounts] should be radicalized to the extreme right or to Islamism. In between, a video of Andrew Tate, who is serving prison time in Romania for alleged human trafficking and wants to take away women’s right to vote, should not be missed. In the end, only more Quran videos emerge, interrupted by two interspersed clips of the Chamber of Labour, which the Socialists apparently try to pull Elias out of Islamism at the last moment. What a photo finish!
The magazine concludes:
At the end of this self-experimentation, it’s hard to put into words your own feelings while you’re brushing millions of dead brain cells off your shoulders that have been left out of your ears as you scroll through the app. Our brains feel a few million brain cells lighter, the IQ has dropped by 12 points from scrolling. Alcohol and psychotropic drugs don’t help anymore.
We can’t decide: Should we quote Quran verses and in the name of Allah blow up the Tomorrowland festival? Or join the Catholic church until Putin provides us with a neo-Nazi bride who is Aries in the zodiac sign?
Among the questions now are:
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Why do Austrian teenagers see this propaganda nonsense and only this propaganda nonsense?
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What kind of algorithm is this?
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What is this aiming at?
[Edit for clarity. Second edit for replacing “German satire magazine” by “Austrian” in the first sentence.]
As an addition to the article: Douyin, the Chinese version of the Western TikTok, might work in a different way. As a study regarding visual propaganda of Douyin accounts of Chinese central and local news agencies on China’s Douyin found in May 2024:
The results [of the research] delineate a divergence in focus between central and local news agencies: while the former prioritizes content related to the military, police, and firefighting, the latter emphasizes “livelihood warmth” topics. Central agencies predominantly feature soldiers, police officers, and firefighters, whereas local agencies portray individuals devoid of explicit political affiliations alongside other influencers. Emotional scrutiny unveils a contrast in strategies, with central agencies predominantly evoking emotions such as anger, disgust, fear, and intolerance, while local agencies employ anticipation, acceptance, and respect. This investigation underscores the profound influence of political authority within China’s propaganda framework, shaping both the substance and emotional resonance of political short videos within a hierarchical paradigm […]
Owing to their distinct positions within the hierarchical framework and their varying areas of jurisdiction, local government media at each level exhibit more pronounced hierarchical disparities in their propaganda compared to the central government. In general, the closer the themes and visual characteristics are to “Military, the police, and firefighting”, the less distinguishable they are from central media. Conversely, the more they focus on “People’s livelihood and warmth”, the more likely local governments are to adopt innovative promotional strategies concerning “points” while emphasizing regional characteristics. Although the local news agencies more actively produced content on Douyin than did the central news agencies, the central news agencies received more attention from the public.
