> I'd like to see the source code to their bots so that this experiment can be reproduced.

You don't need the bots source code to reproduce the experiment, just as you wouldn't ask to borrow/inspect a biochemist's beakers to reproduce their experiment.You simply follow the same steps they did and see if you observe the same results.

While no the answer you are expecting, but the answer nonetheless. If you have android phone (or android emulator wink wink, nudge nudge), you can install modded TikTok client[1], which has a bunch of settings. The one you are looking for is "- Remove most of regional restrictions". Change your region to russland, and try scrolling it for yourself. If you are an advanced enough programmer, you can check out the changes made to the app in the github repository[2].

Bots may be prejudice to the war content in terms of how they watch videos and how they scroll through them, and as such changing recommendation algorithm, but the original reporting is about censorship of war related content. Which doesn't require that much of a proof, it is officially confirmed by TikTok even in the statement at the end of a submitted report - it doesn't show newly uploaded content in rus region.

[1] https://www.pling.com/p/1515346/ [2] https://github.com/tigr1234566/TikTokMod

You must have something wrong in your last paragraph.

Russia can't upload new things at all. There is nothing about the show from Russians to show.

Russia's are also not being shown new Ukraine videos. This is as designed as mentioned and as you know due to technical-implemnted regional bubbles.

What were you saying in your last two sentences?

Second paragraph is a response to @latchkey's question

  > How do we know their bots didn't have bugs in them that pushed the results in favor of the tone of the article?

And I'm replying, that the point of the report is to tell about information bubble. The same one you are describing.

  > how they watch videos and how they scroll through them, and as such changing recommendation algorithm

Bots' viewing rules can only change the *amount of war related videos* uploaded before March 4th, not the *reported lack of fresh videos* from the other side for the russian bot. And as such there should be no issues about the lack of source code.