TikTok mutes more anti-Putin content as Kremlin targets critics

The Kremlin sees the targeted bans as effective because popular TikTok users understood they’d lose income if they posted anti-Putin material, according to the Russian official. — AFP

Mikhail Petrov’s TikTok posts started going viral this year when he tapped into growing discontent in Russia with bite-sized explanations of the country’s budding protest movement.

His popularity exploded to over 250,000 followers and TikTok invited Petrov, a political science student at the Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg, to join a talent development program. Then the sound started disappearing from some of his videos.