Russian state-backed TikTok posts surge as U.S. election nears: report – National [Video]

Russian state-backed accounts on TikTok are posting far more, and reaching many more people, in the lead-up to the U.S. election, a new report finds.

And it says the exposure may impact voters’ willingness to “mobilize or take actions” that could help the target of false or hyperpartisan content, the report states.

“(The accounts) were focusing on things that could be quite potent or quite prominent wedge issues for young voters,” the report’s author Valerie Wirtschafter told Global News.

Those include the United State’s policies on Israel, immigration concerns (the report found Spanish posts had high engagement) and Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

Wirtschafter examined 70 Russian state-linked accounts. She determined they posted about twice as many times per day in 2024 so far than in 2023, rising to four or five times per day from two or three times.

And many more people are seeing the posts. Wirtschafter found …