TikTok suspends live-streaming, video creation in Russia

Yahoo Finance's Akiko Fujita reports that TikTok will be suspending live-streaming and video creation in Russia in light of the country's new 'fake news' law.

Video Transcript

AKIKO FUJITA: We've got more companies joining a growing list of tech companies who are halting their services in Russia. TikTok just the very latest, saying it is suspending its live streaming and new video content for its service in Russia, specifically because of a new law that bans the publication of news on the Russian invasion of Ukraine that Russia would consider to be fake.

Here's what TikTok said over the weekend in part. In light of Russia's new fake news law, we have no choice but to suspend live streaming and new content to our video service while we review the safety implications of this law. Our in-app messaging service will not be affected.

And Jared, TikTok, of course, just the very latest here. We saw last week, Russia blocked Facebook's Meta, saying that, essentially, Facebook had engaged in discrimination against Russian news media when they blocked Sputnik, as well as RT. But TikTok, you know, this is an interesting one because Russia is one of those growing markets for the social media platform.

If you look at where their user base is, the US is well out ahead in terms of the largest markets for them. But Russia comes in fourth behind Indonesia, as well as Brazil. We're talking about roughly 55 million users who now will not have access to that new content as a result of this new law that Russia has passed.

JARED BLIKRE: Yes, and the question I ask myself and I try to ask some of our guests is, at what point does the population of Russia revolt? Because they are facing life changing circumstances here. And this is a command and control economy, not to the extent that China is, but, you know, Putin does rule with an iron fist. And the punishments for violating this law are extreme-- three years, potentially, with fines, or up to 15 years. 15 years for violating this law-- it's no wonder that companies are doing this proactively, shutting down access to their services. And it's only going to grow.

I think another major development last week that was kind of underreported was Cogent Communications blocking their trunk-- that's all internet traffic-- to Russia. Now Russia has other sources. There are other trunks, but if others were to step up and do something similar, you could face a situation in Russia where they simply don't have an external conduit to the internet, which is kind of crazy to think about, but it's certainly possible.

And so getting back to the original discussion, when does the average person in Russia revolt? Well, people like their TikTok. As you saw in the chart before, number four. I think something like 55 million users-- nothing to sneeze at, Akiko.

AKIKO FUJITA: Well, and I would argue, Jared, that that revolt, if you want to call it that, has already begun. We're talking about 3,000 protesters who were arrested overnight in Russia. Those voices are there, but Russia has moved in very quickly to arrest those who have been protesting. And you're right.

I mean, when you think about all of the sanctions, everything that the US, along with European allies, have done to move in, it is to really create this chokehold on the Russian economy, with the hope that Russians will ultimately rise up here. Of course, we know how strongly information is controlled within the country. International organizations as well, including CNN, as well as BBC, now being pushed out of the country as well.

So Russia knows that they are losing the information war here. That's part of the reason why such a law is being passed. It's going to be interesting to see, though, how long these things hold, because to your point, the average Russian is not necessarily supporting the Kremlin per se. I mean, they are all users of the same platforms, all users of the same tech services that we use as well. It's going to be interesting to see how this starts to really affect the sentiment as well, and of course something we're watching closely.

By the way, Netflix also saying that they are suspending all of their services in Russia, so we're adding two more names, TikTok and Netflix, to a very long list of companies who are saying we simply cannot offer our services in Russia at this moment. Let's move on to what you are watching, Jared, today. And you've got the chart of the day, looking specifically at the yield curve.

JARED BLIKRE: I'm always excited to talk about the yield curve here. In fact, I haven't done it in a long time. The last time I think I was discussing it on the program, Reggie Wade gave me a shirt that had a picture of the inverted yield curve on it. And it said, ask me about the inverted yield curve. Anyway, we're getting to that situation. So let's get to the YFi Interactive here, where I have our chart. Now a bunch of squiggly lines here. Let me map this out. This goes back to 2003, so we're talking about 20 years here.

And these shaded areas here, that is recession territory, so we had one in 2008, 2009, very brief one during the pandemic. But this squiggly line, the blue one, is the spread between the two-year yield and the 10-year yield. And when it goes negative or inverts, that is a recession indicator. There are lots of reasons why that would be the case, kind of beyond the discussion here, but nevertheless, that's what's happening.

Now, this other line, this one up here, this is inflation expectations. And during the recession of 2007, 2008, you can see they cratered. Same thing with the pandemic. But what's going to happen next? So in the current situation, we have a falling or flattening yield curve. And we also have inflation expectations as represented in interest rates, basically at the highest level since 2010, 2011. So some people are saying, is this stagflation? Well, it has a potential to get there. I don't think we're there yet, but it's a possibility. Akiko.