EPISODE 91 OF THE MARKETING SOLUTIONS PODCAST: UKRAINE. THE FIRST TIKTOK WAR?

Sonya:
With Russia invading Ukraine and causing some serious instability in the region, we're seeing for the first time ever mass coverage of a geopolitical conflict playing out, not on our television screens, but on our phones. And while a global superpower invading a smaller nation is nothing new, what is different this time around is the way we're consuming information about the escalating conflict? Rather than rely solely on traditional news media, I'd say a decent chunk of social media users are relying heavily on platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to stay up to date with what's going on overseas. Where we once dutifully turned on the TV at 6:00 PM to catch the news or pored over the newspaper, we now have access to information and misinformation from people on the ground 24 hours a day. So how is this so called social media war different from previous conflicts? How do we discern what's real from fake news? And what is up with the casual racism being thrown around by seasoned reporters and respected journalists? Listen on to hear my thoughts on the situation.

Sonya:
Welcome to the Boom Your Biz Podcast, a podcast for the movers, the shakers, and even bigger action takers in business. I'm your host, Sonya McIntyre-Reid, and each week I'll be exploring the question of what really makes businesses and organizations thrive? I'm on a mission to educate, empower and inspire business owners and myself along the way. In high school, I was a bit of a history nerd. I loved modern history and did extension history as part of my year 12 subjects. I've been to Vietnam twice and always loved the history of Vietnam War. Something that always stood out to me was the fact that this was considered the first TV war. For the first time, there was a medium that showed what was happening inside people's homes. Yes, they had seen it on the news and heard it on the radio in the past. But this TV method made it more real, more tangible in a way. No longer did people feel like the war was happening out there. It was happening in their living rooms every night.

Sonya:
And as a result, we saw this huge shift in sentiment around war. Speaking generally, World War I and World War II almost glorified. I remember my grandpa was war obsessed. He tried to head off to war, but always told us he was rejected because of his flat feet. I suspect he didn't pass his medical though due to a heart defect, but it always seemed to me that his obsession stemmed from this idea that he had missed out on being part of an exclusive club that everyone else around him was able to enter. When the Vietnam vets returned, they weren't celebrated as previous troops had been. Instead, they were criticized. We saw unprecedented levels of protesting in the 1960s and '70s against war and conscription. I attribute this to the footage and real stories coming from televised journalists. Decades later, we saw the Iraq and Afghan wars. We saw George Bush declare weapons of mass destruction as a guise to have allied troops enter Afghanistan.

Sonya:
Years later, the truths come out that there was never any evidence of weapons of mass destruction and in actual fact, it all came down to protecting oil prices and the economy. They say the best way to stimulate an economy is through war. And it appears that it was a driving factor in this case. Even during this period, social media was only in its infancy and certainly not what it is today. Prior to the rise of Facebook and Instagram, we received our information from media outlets that were largely owned by the same few of very rich white men. The information provided was often filtered through large media companies and those media companies often had an agenda, or at the very least glaringly obvious biases towards one side of the conflict. Today, we receive real time footage from everyday citizens with no quality control, no fact checking. And we also have the good old social media algorithm to contend with, which is designed to show users more of what they're interested in, creating what we call confirmation bias.

Sonya:
That means if you've liked, engaged, or even viewed a video that firmly sides with one side of the conflict, you'll be served up more of the same, even if you're not on the side widely accepted by the mainstream media or the masses. Now, if your tinfoil hat radar is going off at this point, I will point out that none of what I have just said is part of a conspiracy theory. I highly recommend if you want to learn more about Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, you check out the Netflix documentary called Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror. I'll link it in the show notes for you. For me, this was incredibly eyeopening. And if you want to learn more about confirmation bias, a quick Google search could be quite enlightening. So why this long intro? Well, what we've seen over the past few weeks with the Russia's attack on Ukraine is the first time we've seen a war of such massive scale with an impact on Western society, highly publicized across social media.

Sonya:
I want to point out here that yes, there are many other nations that have been in war across this time and haven't received anywhere near the amount of coverage that Ukrainian conflict is currently receiving. In fact, there are currently around 40 ongoing wars or conflicts occurring in around three dozen countries. But because they're taking place in regions and countries that don't directly affect or disadvantage us and are therefore not considered newsworthy, we just don't hear about them. I would suggest that we feel a certain kinship to Ukraine. We see them as an ally. We share a collective fear of Russia, a feeling of will we be next? And how will this affect me? I once heard a political commentator discuss the role of the entertainment media i.e., Hollywood in directing geopolitical sentiments. And I think you can agree that we've all seen our fair share of films, where the Russians are the bad guys and not to be trusted.

Sonya:
This messaging has been internalized by audiences for as long as I can remember. So it's interesting to see how this fear has been playing out in nations like Australia, where it could be suggested that our physical safety isn't under threat, but we may be expected to provide military support if and when our allies step in. There's a lot of commentary circulating about how the world is sitting up and taking notice because these people are just like us and a part of Europe, which is deemed to be "more civilized" than other continents. Please, these are not my words. I just want to clarify. We're seeing concerning level of casual racism being thrown around in our Western media. I'm also going to link to the show notes an excellent article by The Washington Post, which highlights just how problematic some of the commentary has been. For example, a commentator on a French news program said, "We're not talking about Syrians fleeing bombs of the Syrian regime backed by Putin. We're talking about Europeans leaving in cars that look like ours to save their lives."

Sonya:
On the BBC, a former deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine declared, "It's very emotional for me because they see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed every day." Even an Al Jazeera anchor said, "These are not obviously refugees trying to get away from the areas in the Middle East." While an ITV News reporter said, "Now the unthinkable has happened to them, and this is not a developing, third world nation; this is Europe." The implication for anyone reading or watching, particularly anyone with ties to a nation that has also seen for an intervention, conflict, sanctions, and mass migration is clear. It's much worse when white European suffer than when it's Arabs or other non-white people. Well, Libyans, Afghans, Palestinians, Syrians, they're all used to it, right? The insults went beyond media coverage.

Sonya:
A French politician said, "Ukrainian refugees represent high quality immigration." The Bulgarian prime minister said, "Ukrainian refugees are intelligent, they are educated. This is not the refugee wave we have been used to, people we're not sure about their identity, people with unclear pasts, who could have even been terrorists." "It's as if, in our anger and horror at the scenes of Russia's aggression, we are incapable of recognizing a simple fact: We've seen this before." A Vanity Fair special correspondent denied precisely that in a tweet. This is arguably the first war we've seen actually seen in real time, take place in the age of social media, and all of these heart wrenching images make Russia look utterly terrible. The tweet was erased like the experiences of many who have documented the horrors of war in recent decades on social media and beyond. So the point of all of that intro is that I want to acknowledge that, yes, this is not the first war that has occurred in the age of social media.

Sonya:
It is, however, the first time a war has been thrust in front of our gen zed and millennial eyes on social media, where conflicts such as the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia were widely televised, most households consume that content in their evenings and maybe in sound bites on the morning news. Today, we can't escape it. Many of us are spending hours on social media each day and where our parents got their information from newspapers and the TV, we are getting our information from literally everywhere. As I've been scrolling through TikTok, it's incredible to see footage taken by civilians and troops. And this has raised a lot of questions for me. It's also led a lot of discussions with other marketers and on the other side of the coin, family members of mine who are not on social media and still rely on traditional media for information and to stay up to date. I'm not sure how much structure this episode is going to have, but I'm just going to break this down to the core areas that I have been pondering.

Sonya:
Let's start with the war that's actually being shown on social media right now. I don't know about you, but I'm seeing a ton of content from people in Ukraine right now. This is range from men standing in full military get up, just waiting for the Russian troops to arrive to full real time footage of people fleeing their homes. There was also a video that went viral of a Ukrainian woman walking up to Russian troops demanding to know what they were doing here. She handed them sunflower seeds and said, "Here, put these in your pocket. When your body falls, you'll grow sunflowers." And as with anything involving social media, the meme army has been hard at work, not making light of the situation as such, but poking fun of our mate, Putin. Check out my Instagram page. You'll see some of my faves. And it is so interesting to see what is being pushed out on TikTok because it's not a platform owned by the behemoth Facebook, or should I say Meta?

Sonya:
And so it's not put under the same scrutiny around fake news, verifying information or any alliances and laws they have to follow. The TikTok platform is created in China. Interestingly, China is technically an ally of Russia, although they've tried to publicly distance themselves from the actions Russia is currently taken. There are always two sides to every story, right? And I have been quite wary of the fact that I have seen next to no content on TikTok that has originated from Russia. So I had a bit of a research and look into why this was, but my thoughts are that there are a few reasons, although I do not have solid black and white answers for you at this stage. Regardless, here are a few things to ponder. Number one, is the rate of English speaking higher in Ukraine than it is in Russia? For that reason, are there more videos going out that are spoken in English by the Ukrainians and videos captured in English?

Sonya:
As you can imagine, if there was a video that was in a foreign language with no subtitles in English, it's going to get no engagement and won't be pushed out to a more Western English speaking nations. Two, are the Russian troops allowed to have their phones? I'm guessing, yes, because of the Tinder thing. What Tinder thing? I'm going to tell you that in a little bit. But if you think about it, Russia's plan is attack for some time with a highly structured, highly organized, highly prepared army, many of whom are career military men and possibly women. In Ukraine, every man age 18 to 60 has been handed weapons and instructed to defend their country. Yes, they have their own official army as well, but there's not the entire professional element that it is such as where it's a job for the Russian troops.

Sonya:
It's a real David and Goliath story and you can't help but think that the Russians aren't likely to be making TikToks while they're waiting for instructions or heading into battle. Number three, because we are seen as allied troops of Ukraine, our algorithms geared towards showing us Ukrainian content more. The narrative in our media is that Ukraine is good, Russia is bad. The TikTok algorithm responsiveness is unlike anything we've ever seen. Their goal is to keep us on the platform as long as possible so it makes sense or more likely to see Ukrainian content and ignore Russian content. Something that has also happened and is potentially stopping us seeing the Russian side is that Meta aka Facebook and TikTok have banned Russian state media. I wouldn't be surprised then that with TikTok, they're also filtering out any general Russian content from soldiers too, despite them not being official state media. Is this a form of censorship or is it a savvy move to stop the spread of misinformation?

Sonya:
Some measures have certainly been warranted. On Sunday, Facebook announced the removal of a pro-Kremlin propaganda campaign, as well as a hacking campaign targeting its users in Ukraine. On Monday, Twitter started labeling any tweets containing links to Russian state affiliated media outlets. The users would be aware of the information sources and potential bias and misinformation. And while I can see the logic behind taking these measures, I have to ask, who decides what is propaganda and what is simply the opposing side of the conflict? I'm by no means pro-Russia, don't misunderstand me here. I'm just pointing out that the company ownership and by extension allyship certainly plays a part here. If the US and Russia were allies, I'm confident we'd be hearing a completely different story. In response to all of the above, Russia has limited its citizen's ability to access Facebook and other social media platforms in retaliation for Facebook clamping down on Russian state-controlled media services.

Sonya:
In a statement, Facebook representative said the Russian government retaliated because Facebook had fact-checked misinformation published on state-owned media pages on its site. Facebook then blocked Russian state-controlled media outlets from running advertising as has YouTube, which belongs to Google. It's also incredibly interesting to see the Ukrainian president's videos that have gone viral. The first was a professionally filmed address in Russian that he made to the people of Russia saying only you can stop this war. When have you ever seen a world leader address another nation's people in their own language? It was really powerful. And if you haven't seen the video, I suggest you seek it out. Naturally, it went viral and resulted in a large number of protests by the Russian people against the war and Putin. The second video, however, I would argue has been more powerful. It was filmed on a phone, looked very native to TikTok, and show the Ukrainian president with a bulletproof vest on preparing to go and fight with his Ukrainian people.

Sonya:
He also addressed the allied nations leaders saying this may be the last time that you see me alive. Not only was this incredible leadership from a man who was once a comedian, it had a real feeling of I'm here in the trenches with my people. I know we've all heard. We're all in this together so many times during COVID that you shutter just hearing those words, but it really degenerate that sense of comradery shown through action, not words, not to mention a huge outpouring of support and respect. These videos also serve to propel the conversation occurring around Ukraine on social media. They paved the way for the algorithms to favor content from Ukrainian creators and commentary from the perspective of Ukrainian people and their supporters. It's also been interesting to see how companies that have employees in Ukraine have responded to the war. Wix is a fantastic example of this. Wix evacuated most of its thousand employees and their families to Turkey for at least two weeks due to mounting military tensions.

Sonya:
They've now had to extend those stays. And the handful of employees that were considered critical for the company's infrastructure were moved to Poland. Wix paid for all transport, accommodation, and food for the employees. And it said that it's had many offers from employees in Israel to host Ukrainian employees in their homes. Amazon, Lyft, Snap and many other heavy hitters in the global economy outsource a huge share of their tech operations to Ukraine, where all eligible men are being drafted for military service and all non-eligible men and women are have more pressing priorities than to meet their deadlines. This is where one conflict can have a ripple effect in surprising ways. We're seeing a lot of companies now following Wix's lead and doing whatever they can to get their employees to safety.

Sonya:
And the cynical part of me wonders if this is another positive impact social media can have. The story about Wix went viral in such a way with speed and scale that it almost forced other companies with a large workforce in Ukraine to follow suit. Not a bad byproduct, right? So the Tinder thing I mentioned before. Boy oh boy, this is funny in my mind. It's been reported that the Ukrainian women had an idea of how far away the Russian troops were because of Tinder. Any of you that are not familiar with the app, it automatically updates your location to show how many kilometers or miles away you are from the people being presented to you to swipe left or right on. Even during a time of war, it seems our basic human instinct to perpetuate the human race can't be squashed. Russian troops have been active on Tinder and so are the Ukrainian women. Isn't that crazy?

Sonya:
Imagine invading a country, then being like: Hey, you up, DTF? Like, what? It's these little tidbits of information we've received, whether appropriate or not to be joked about at such a time that has helped spread the awareness of the war. We've seen so many memes coming out about this as well. One thing I am worried about is if we're poking market Putin, are we taking the situation less seriously than we should? I know its human nature to find some sort of comic relief in serious situations, but the power that man wields is quite frankly terrifying. I'm thinking our perception of the events and understanding of what is happening is going to be seen through a very different lens to what someone like say my dad who watches the ABC and reads the financial review cover to cover each day learns. For one, our information is far more up to date and current.

Sonya:
Notice, I said up to date, not factual. We're seeing things happen as they happen, but we don't really have a way on the spot then and there to verify that the information is correct. Anyone can create a TikTok account, dub it in Ukrainian, and post it. And in fact, we did see something like this happen. So the only video I've seen of the Russian side of things were some paratroopers jumping out of a plane. This went viral. However, it came out later that it was not from the current war and taken totally out of context. On one hand, I think it's incredible that we're getting civilian view of what is happening as it is happening. It does have the danger though of looking so granularly at something that we lose sight of the big picture. The other danger of course is the opportunity for false information to spread like wildfire. False information during wartime is nothing new.

Sonya:
And while it's certainly spread like wildfire during the First and Second World Wars, the scale and speed of social media means that where misinformation would've previously taken months to circulate and be accepted as fact by the mainstream, today it takes mere minutes to spread worldwide. Now, my observations on traditional media outlets. Of course, they have been so quick to yell about false information and fake news and discredit a lot of what we are seeing on socials well before they've had a chance to report on it and verify it's correct. We were always going to see them putting down any form of social reporting. That doesn't mean it doesn't have its place though. It's interesting to see the old school media outlets that did jump on TikTok months ago. And they're now reaping the benefits because they are able to reach an audience they've already built with verified information and reporting.

Sonya:
They are always going to be slower to the mark because they have an obligation to fact check, but it does give them a chance to reach the audience on TikTok with short formed digestible information. Okay. So with all of this information out there, it's easy to feel overwhelmed right now. We've got the floods happening. COVID is still around. And they've been massive economic implications to this war. I don't know about you, but I'm terrified to check my shares right now. I've lost a shitload of money, only on paper though. There's an underlying fear that we're watching World War III unfold. I think the question is then, how can we make a difference? How can we support Ukraine or feel we're making a difference in any way? The Age published an awesome article last week, which I've linked in the show notes. In it, The Age has outline organizations you can donate to, how you can support journalists on the ground or attend events.

Sonya:
I think it's important to make sure that if you are taking action, you're doing it in a way that will actually help. There's a lot of ways you can donate, but making sure it's going to an organization that is having a direct impact is important. And finally, an important note for creators. In times of distress, there is a level of volatility that simply can't be avoided. If you post that you've donated to a cause, there'll be someone out there who says you donated too much, too little, or to the wrong organization. If you decide to donate privately and not publicize the organization or amount, you may be accused of doing nothing. You're talking about it too much. You're not talking about it enough. You're too sensitive. You're over sensitive. You should be doing more. For us here in Australia, we're pretty lucky that collectively we remain pretty unaffected by international conflict and business can carry on generally as usual without much backlash.

Sonya:
If you have a launch, an event, or big news to share around the time of any conflict or natural disaster, my usual advice is to tread carefully. Review how your captions are worded. For example, you don't want to be saying holy smokes during bushfire season. Have a third party look over your content and paid ads just to make sure you don't appear tone-deaf or insensitive. Consider pushing back that sale or launch if all anybody can talk about is what is going on in the world. And for anyone consuming social media, which let's face it, everyone is that's listening to this anyway, as always, I encourage you to use your critical thinking skills. If something doesn't sound right, question it. If it does sound right, still question it. Who is controlling the narrative? What is their agenda? Who is being excluded from the conversation or a coverage? While older generations may think that social media rots your brain, there's certainly a place for it in modern news and current affairs.

Sonya:
As a side note, remember when they used to say that TV would rot your brain, the same TV they now get their news from? So that's it. If you're stuck with me to the end, thank you and well done. I know it's a heavy topic, but we need to be having these discussions in order to be able to form a balanced, well rounded opinion. I love to hear your thoughts about it. Jump over to Facebook and join the Boom Your Biz Facebook group, so we can discuss within our community.