Exolyt helped iSANS analyze propaganda narratives on TikTok

●    iSANS conducted geo-specific propaganda narrative study with Exolyt

●    The organization saved time and simplified the discovery of niche local influencers using Exolyt

●    ''Exolyt meets our need 100%''

iSANS is focused on studying hostile networks of influence, fake public initiatives, corrupt politics serving foreign interests, disinformation, propaganda, and networks of hate groups using hybrid tools.

This time, they needed a tool to track geo-specific propaganda narratives in TikTok - to gain insights into who is posting what, check if there is any disinformation being spread, find the most active creators, and track specific accounts who are most active in the Belarusian media field of TikTok.

This is because TikTok is one of the most popular social media apps in Belarus, with 5.63 million users aged 18 and above in early 2024 (and Instagram only 3.9 million). Additionally, TikTok's potential ad reach in Belarus increased by 1.4 million (+31.8 percent) between the start of 2023 and early 2024. (source: iSANS).

So, the organization sought a tool to help collect this scattered and huge volume of data/information from TikTok seamlessly.

The main challenges at hand:

• iSANS is a practical initiative seeking to counter threats and find solutions to the problems detected; for this, they need to collaborate and research different media channels comprehensively.
• TikTok is an essential channel that hosts multiple opinions among established or niche communities and has the potential to propagate information among a wide range of audiences. iSANS had some limitations in its comprehensive TikTok research.
• The organization sought a tool that saves time seamlessly exploring, analyzing, and exporting TikTok data, that might help to reveal critical narratives across socials.

As the TikTok platform remains relatively untapped with little to no information on users from native sources or third-party statistics, it becomes difficult to study human social behavior, limiting market research, brand growth, and influencer marketing, among others.

In such situations, brands, researchers, and analysts depend on solutions like Exolyt.

With Exolyt, iSANS resolved the challenges mentioned above, saving time and simplifying research.

Here are some of the benefits as shared by iSANS:

• Firstly, they had the opportunity to track all accounts of interest, both known and unknown, automatically using hashtags related to the topics in question.
• Secondly, the possibility of exporting all stats, historical data, and relevant information to Google spreadsheets helped to track everything over time. It allowed iSANS to work in a pattern most convenient for them as research analysts.

• Thirdly, Exolyt's extensive database of TikTok influencers has also made it convenient for iSANS to track and find influencer accounts by geo-specific locations.
• Lastly, iSANS also utilized the platform to track down influencer analytics like views, likes, comments, and shares and check their social statistics to validate the level of local influence.

Exolyt is immensely proud to have supported iSANS in their effort to support democratic order against purposeful attempts to undermine, compartmentalize, and destroy it by closely monitoring it on public and online media like TikTok.

Powered by Exolyt's data on TikTok, iSANS is able to classify and describe the design of the influence networks, set of propaganda narratives, and disinformation schemes. Thereby identifying current hybrid threats and forecasting the upcoming threats.

The results of these investigations are sometimes used to develop recommendations to counter, mitigate, or prevent threats. However, they are usually presented in the form of articles, reviews, policy papers, and reports.

This is one such propaganda update report by iSANS published in February 2024.