Mercenary videos top 1bn views on Tiktok

The videos appear to violate guidelines banning content that ‘praises or promotes violent acts’

VIDEOS promoting a Russian mercenary group suspected of war crimes in Ukraine have been viewed more than a billion times on Tiktok, a report found.

Researchers from Newsguard, a Usbased company that studies online misinformation, said that they had identified 160 videos on Tiktok that “allude to, show or glorify acts of violence” carried out by Wagner, a private military contractor owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian tycoon often referred to as “Putin’s chef ”.

Among the most-viewed videos were clips that appeared to show last month’s suspected execution of Yevgeny Nuzhin, a Russian mercenary and former Wagner member who was reportedly killed with a sledgehammer.

The report, which was released yesterday, highlighted Tiktok’s vulnerability to propaganda glorifying atrocities in Ukraine, despite the social media company pledging to act against content that violates its policies.

Tiktok is owned by a Chinese technology conglomerate partially controlled by the Chinese government.

All of the videos appeared to violate Tiktok’s guidelines, which ban content that “praises, promotes, glorifies, or supports violent acts”.

The researchers found that Tiktok’s search algorithms appeared to show users violent content if they searched for “Wagner”.

The report quoted a statement from a Tiktok spokesman, who said there was “no place for hateful or violent content on our platform”. At least four videos of the alleged murder of Nuzhin were still available on Tiktok at the time of the report but they were apparently taken down a few hours later.