Natalya Kasperskaya: "Tik-Tok was used in political technologies for the first time"

According to the expert, in the case of TikTok, new technology was used to call for participation in unsanctioned rallies. She also explained why it is not possible to influence many social networks through fines and gave general recommendations on security measures on the Internet.

“Of course, it was a targeted campaign, a targeted attack, but at the same time a new technology was applied.

We have a system that analyzes social networks. There is a tool that allows you to simultaneously calculate everything that happens on the social network and build graphs in time. And in the case of Tik-Tok, a completely new technology was applied.

What is its novelty: firstly, the new platform Tik-Tok, Youtube... Previously, Youtube was slightly involved in political activities, and Tik-Tok for the first time.

Second, it was an attack on a new audience, mainly children and adolescents. And everything was distributed among the groups of children.

They even deliberately showed the video to children of four years old and so on, very young.

Third, the platforms directly participated in this promotion. Platforms, in particular, scrambled up the number of impressions in order to attract attention by already having a lot of people watching it. Well, targeted promotion of messages.

... Understand, this is not about the regulator "filtering" the social network, it is not about filtering: Roskomnadzor has begun to negotiate with the social network.

I don’t know how they did it, but we saw from the result that since January 22nd the number of messages with calls to go to a rally, with messages about the “palace” and in general this is all. Such messages declined sharply. That is, you know, there was such a "step" - just a collapse. And this means that the platform began to jam it.

To a certain extent, this is a success.

...As for the video about the "palace", I would not call it the number of views, but I would call it the figure that Youtube shows , and we do not know what it means.

Because there are no tools that would allow you to analyze the number of views of a given video on this platform. Therefore, the platform can do whatever it wants. She can show 110 million, she can show 5 views.

Then there was the Mash video, which had underestimated views. Therefore, what this figure means is absolutely not clear. Obviously, since the platform was involved in the promotion, it could put any number.

...For you to understand: there are two Tik- Tok. Chinese is only in China and works exclusively there, we do not have access to it and do not know how it works; it has separate servers and functions a little differently.

And then there is Tik-Tok global, which is made by the Chinese, but for everyone else. His servers are distributed around the world, but mostly located in the USA, to a large extent. They have a big office there. And I think this is my hypothesis that this campaign is planned by some insiders inside this American Tik-Tok.

But about the regulator. Yes, this time we managed to agree. But, in this case, that's why I wouldn't flatter myself.

Trump, as you know, called for a buyout of Tik- Tok, but he didn’t have time to do so, but I think Biden will certainly continue this policy of buying out Tik- Tok, because the Americans want to control their platforms. Somehow they are not very interested in freedom of speech.

They are interested in propaganda and promotion of their ideas.

And this is a platform that is independent. By the way, the popularity of Tik-Tok in America has also grown dramatically in a very short time, and partly because it is not controlled by the state.

…To negotiate, you need to have some kind of arguments. If we have nothing of our own, like Europe, for example, these arguments will be weak. You can, of course, try to fine platforms, but they will evade, especially since, for example, many American social networks do not have representative offices in Russia and cannot be charged with fines; how then to negotiate?

Then, by the way, we cannot say that we have absolutely nothing of our own. We have our own social networks, we have Rutube hosting, maybe it is less popular than Youtube, but this is a question of use.

If we assume that there will be no alternative, then everyone will run over there quite calmly. And the same goes for other platforms as well. We also have our own messengers, not just Telegram, but many others, so we are not starting from scratch in this area.

But on the issue of import substitution, this is just part of digital sovereignty. You need to understand that modern technologies are so arranged that they are owned by the one who creates them, and not the one who buys them.

You can profit from it, but the people who sold it to you will own the technology, because they know how it works and they can either turn it off at some point or strengthen it so that you cannot work. Or switch and organize an attack.

In order to avoid this, you must definitely have some alternatives. You will not necessarily use these alternatives, or you will use them on some critical elements or important paths. But they should be.

...There is no anonymity on the Web, no longer, no need to delude ourselves on this score. If the special services need to figure you out, don't even worry, you will be figured out instantly.

...Unfortunately, I do not know that such a thing has to happen so that people seriously think about online cleanliness.

I have been doing information security for 25 years and have been observing built-in carelessness for years.

Even after people get serious incidents, after viruses destroy everything, they, well, maybe start to think and install antivirus software.

In business it is simpler, there is something to lose, there is understanding, but for a mass user to think ... At the same time, many behave - where the crowd goes, I go there too. This is the behavior of the crowd, absolutely thoughtless. And all sorts of flash mobs contribute to this - they ran there, I don't know, waved a flag, ran - doused themselves with cold water. This is why people do it, this is absolutely irrational behavior that cannot be explained.

Therefore, I do not create illusions. I think that most people will not think about it, unfortunately.

But we need to engage in systematic and regular education in this area. Right from kindergarten, you need to explain what you can and cannot do on the Internet.

Then maybe some understanding will come".

You can watch the entire interview with Natalia Kaspersky here.