President Donald Trump’s effort to save popular social media app TikTok has been caught in the escalating tariff war between Washington and Beijing, with Trump suggesting that he may again extend the deadline for a deal.
A new study concludes that, at the same time as China is using the application as a negotiating chip, the platform is boosting propaganda aimed at undermining U.S. support for Trump’s tariff policies and to promote Chinese goods and manufacturers.
The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), a strategy firm specializing in internet communications analysis, conducted and published the study, and previously found that TikTok suppressed "anti-China" content and successfully influenced users' opinion on the communist country’s human rights record and control of society. TikTok likely manipulated its proprietary algorithm, in line with long-running congressional concerns about the app, Just the News reported earlier this year.
