Analysing TikTok hashtags from the command line

We're back! In our first meetup since February 2020 we'll be learning how to analyse TikTok hashtags using a tool built by the Bellingcat team.

TikTok has become even more prominent since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, described by the New Yorker as the 'first TikTok war'. The company claim the app is now used by over a billion people each month.

TikToks, along with the video and audio, often contain multiple hashtags -- and analysing patterns in this joint use of hashtags can help identify coordinated disinformation or influence campaigns, as well as just indicate which groups are connected to which.

We'll be using an open-source TikTok scraping tool, written with Node, and a set of scripts built by the Bellingcat team, which use the Python programming language. To set up and run everything we'll be getting familiar with the command line, a way of telling the computer what to do by typing instructions.

All of our events are suitable for beginners, and no programming experience is required. Bring a laptop along as this a practical, hands-on workshop. Before you arrive please install Node and Python if you can.

Before the event, do check out the shared doc we'll be using, and sign up for a Notion account if you don't already have one so you can edit it. Then please add links to the show and tell section! These can be great data stories you've seen, new tools, jobs you’re hiring for, announcements -- anything others might be interested in. We'll check out what everyone has shared at the start of the event.