Russian propaganda spreading on Czech TikTok ahead of elections
The Center for Online Risk Research, an initiative led by IT experts, has drawn attention to the activity of fake accounts on TikTok in Czechia. Their analysis revealed nearly three hundred interconnected accounts that artificially boost their reach to millions of views per week by sharing and commenting on each other’s content.
The Institute for Politics and Society has been tracking Russian disinformation across social media channels, reporting that it is clear that Russian propaganda is spreading across platforms in Czechia.
Czech Radio spoke with Roman Máca, a security analyst at the Institute, about the information landscape ahead of the parliamentary elections on October 3–4. Máca argues that, as we spend more and more time online, influence from social media inevitably spills over into the real world, making it important to understand the severity of the problem:
“Over time, each of us is spending more and more of our lives online, and this inevitably shapes our view of the world. People are increasingly getting their information from social media, and if we don't want our worldview to be shaped by some computer in St. Petersburg, we need to remain vigilant.”
There is direct evidence, according to Máca, that public opinion shifts based on false narratives surrounding the upcoming parliamentary elections:
“Parliamentary elections are approaching, so it's about influencing public opinion. If we look at the content, it is simply a kind of shadow campaign in favor of pro-Russian groups and, at the same time, an attempt to damage those groups that simply do not play along with Russia. It is an attempt to influence the Czech elections. It is not the first time, it will not be the last; it is a common occurrence that is currently happening not only in the Czech Republic.”
But the purpose of this campaign is not to influence the thinking of one specific target group, but rather to shape public opinion more broadly, the researcher says. The content is shared across various social networks, where it can receive hundreds of thousands of views.
But spotting bot accounts is not easy, making it difficult to respond to the threat:
“From the perspective of a regular user, it is very difficult to recognize them, because we are now at a time when artificial intelligence in automatic content generation is very advanced, and automatic machine translations are also advanced, of course, so it is no longer the case that they are clumsy, poorly conjugated, or full of various errors, as we were used to from the so-called ‘Nigerian letters,’ so today it is really very difficult.”
We can also expect cyber attacks around the election, Máca says:
“Essentially, various disinformation campaigns can also be classified as cyberattacks, since they occur in cyberspace. Of course, there are other forms as well including attacks on election systems, such as the Czech Statistics Office, attempts to disrupt infrastructure, and often even targeted attacks on individual party candidates.”
There are ways to defend against these attacks. As the Finnish example shows, one of the most effective strategies in some contexts is to educate the public about disinformation and misinformation. But in Czechia that would be more difficult than in Finland, explains Máca, because Czech society is more polarized, and fabricated narratives tend to take root more quickly and easily than in some Scandinavian countries:
“The Finnish model would be ideal, where the Russians launched the Sputnik channel but abandoned it after a few years due to lack of public interest. That is, of course, an ideal scenario, but it doesn’t apply to Czechia. Addressing this challenge requires educating the public and, in terms of cyberattacks, ensuring robust cybersecurity measures so that such attacks can be effectively resisted.”
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Czech Parliamentary Elections 2025
At the beginning of October, Czechs will head to the polls to elect a new Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Parliament.
