Network Contagion Research Institute Intelligence Report 17 For three of the four search terms collected on TikTok (excepting Tibet), engagement awarded to anti-China content was consistently and significantly higher than that given to pro-China content. This finding suggests that notwithstanding the indications of systematic suppression of anti-China content on TikTok elucidated above, said anti-China content accrued significantly higher average likes and views than pro-China content (see Figure 10). Engagement metadata for Tibet on TikTok showed an inverse finding relative to “Tiananmen,” “Uyghur,” and “Xinjiang” in that pro-China content accrued significantly higher average views and likes than anti-China content. We partially attribute this skew to a single, highly viral proChina TikTok video collected for “Tibet” that received 19.4M views and 2M likes. As indicated in the table, this video’s engagement metrics are orders of magnitude above the average observed across all four search terms and skewed TikTok Tibet results in a markedly pro-China direction. Interestingly, the account (@rawangm1; see Figure 11) that uploaded the viral clip fits the profile of a classic frontier influencer—"mainly female China-based ethnic-minority influencers from the troubled frontier regions...[who project] a false sense of legitimacy and transparency about China’s frontier regions that party-state media struggle to achieve.”16 The account also shares a link to an ecommerce landing page for Chinese-themed consumer products. Given the lack of connection between the product portfolio displayed on the landing page and Tibet or Tibetan culture, it is possible that the account is leveraging the algorithmic bias that amplifies viral frontier influencer content to drive affiliate marketing traffic. Figure 11: Example of Tibetan Frontier Influencer Returning to the engagement metadata analysis, the highest average likes and views across all four search terms analyzed on TikTok was granted to irrelevant content, signifying that generic clickbait content consistently attracts higher engagement than politicized content from users 16 Ryan, F., Impiombato, D., & Pai, H.-T. (2022, Oct 20). Frontier influencers: The new face of China's propaganda. Australian Strategic Policy Institute. https://www.aspi.org.au/report/frontier-influencers