Is TikTok pushing anti-Israel content? Why are calls to ban the app growing in US?

The Israel-Hamas war has divided the world and even social media networks are drawn in. Yes, disinformation is spreading fast but that’s not all. Now the world’s most popular app TikTok has been accused of being anti-Israel with calls growing to ban it in the United States. (The Chinese app is banned in India). America is Israel’s biggest ally. It is also the nation where TikTok is most popular – with an audience of 143.4 million as of October 2023, according to Statista. Now there are renewed calls to ban the entertainment app by members of the We take a look at the controversy surrounding TikTok. Why do some Americans want to ban TikTok? The Chinese ownership of TikTok and the possibility of the Xi Jinping government controlling it has been a big concern among both Democrats and Republicans because of the threat to personal data. But the new calls for a ban come amid the escalating Israel-Hamas war. According to a report in the New York Post, Republican lawmakers are worried about the “tide of anti-Israel content” on TikTok. Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn, who has been a longtime critic of TikTok because of its ties to China, has once again called for a ban. “It would not be surprising that the Chinese-owned TikTok is pushing pro-Hamas content,” she said. Other Republicans, Senator Marco Rubio and Rep Mike Gallagher have also joined the call for a ban on TikTok . “We’ve seen TikTok used to downplay the Uyghur genocide, the status of Taiwan, and now Hamas terrorism; This is further proof that the app needs to be banned and treated for what it is: foreign propaganda,” Rubio said. [caption id=“attachment_13335142” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Republican lawmakers and officials are calling for a ban on TikTok, alleging that it is promoting anti-Israel propaganda. File illustration/Reuters[/caption] There are allegations that the popular app is promoting content which is pro-Palestine and against Washington’s policy. However, the NBC News report points out that these claims are anecdotal and often pushed by right-wing media organisations like Fox News. Kara Frederick, director of the tech policy centre at The Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based conservative think thank, wrote on Twitter, “Platforms like TikTok seem to be fanning the flames of anti-Israel sentiment among teens—just as they light a fire under social contagions like gender dysphoria and self-harm.”

Another widely shared threat on X (formerly Twitter) by Jeff Morris Jr, a tech investor and former executive with Tinder wrote a now-viral thread titled “The Tikok War”, where he writes about why American students are getting the wrong information about Israel and Hamas. “One red flag was seeing San Francisco high school students who were aggressively anti-Israel and asking myself where they were getting news. Their protests happened right after the fake @nytimes headline that accused Israel of the hospital bomb,” he wrote. (The New York Times later admitted error in its reportage.) “When I engaged with one post on TikTok supporting opposing views, my entire feed became aggressively anti-Israel,” Morris wrote.

Is there a surge in anti-Israel posts on TikTok? Once you engage with a topic on TikTok, it serves similar content to users. That’s how the algorithm of the app and several other social media networks reportedly works. Hence it comes as no surprise that Morris’ feed was filled with pro-Palestine content. The “Stand with Palestine” and “Stand with Israel” terms are widely searched on TikTok. The hashtag “standwithpalestine” had 3.4 billion views worldwide as of Tuesday night, while “standwithisrael” had 313.6 million views worldwide — a more than 10-to-1 ratio, according to the NBC News report. “Israel is losing the TikTok war by a longshot,” Morris wrote. But is there any truth to this?

Misinformation has been peddled on social media since the war broke out and TikTok is no different. A video shared widely on the app and other social platforms shows buildings on fire and explosions lighting up the night sky. This is “the horrifying impact of an Israeli air strike on the Gaza Strip,” reads a caption on TikTok. Only that it is not. It is an old clip and not from Gaza. The footage is from Algiers where football fans were lighting fireworks across the city, says a report in The Telegraph. While the original video has been taken down, the clip is shared widely across TikTok and other social platforms. Several such pro-Hamas propaganda are prevalent, fuelling concern that apps such as TikTok could further increase cases of antisemitism and radicalise young users, the report says. Sam Lessin, a former Facebook executive, was quoted as saying by The Telegraph that “far too many smart people” ignored the issue of misinformation on TikTok: “And now, a few years later, we are paying for this major misstep.” [caption id=“attachment_13335172” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Pro-Palestinian supporters hold up signs during a demonstration. Young Americans believe that the US should back Hamas in the war, according to a poll. AP[/caption] Those using the app believe that TikTok shares on-the-ground reporting and opinions which are overlooked by the mainstream media. But there is also a lot of misinformation and propaganda flooding the platform. Some of these show doctored clips and older videos from other conflicts and even footage from video games, The Telegraph reports. Several posts glorifying Hamas are on TikTok including one that describes Israelis fleeing the Supernova music festival, where 260 people were murdered, as “mice”. But the hate is not one-sided. Islamophobic posts are also common on the platform and across other social media. However, experts say that the most vicious posts are “disproportionately antisemitic”. “Hatred towards Jews is much easier to find than any other kind right now. I think it poses as serious a threat to the Jewish diaspora’s safety as any that I can remember and possibly since the 1940s,” Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) told The Telegraph. [caption id=“attachment_13335192” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] A member of the white nationalist group NatSoc Florida protests against US support for Israel, in response to the war between Israel and Hamas, in Florida, US. There has been a rise in antisemitism in the West since the war began. Reuters[/caption] What does the data reveal? According to an Axios report, there have been nearly four times the number of views to TikTok posts using the hashtag #StandwithPalestine globally compared to posts using the hashtag #StandwithIsrael in the past two weeks, according to data from TikTok’s creator centre. In the US, there have been 8,000 posts using #StandwithPalestine over the past two weeks compared to 3,000 posts using #StandwithIsrael in that time, the report says. Across the world, there have been 210,000 posts with #StandwithPalestine and 17,000 using #StandwithIsrael since 16 October. What explains the popularity of pro-Palestine posts on TikTok? TikTok is a platform used largely by a younger audience. GenZ is increasingly turning to TikTok for news, a research from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found earlier this year. The users of the app are usually between the ages of 18 to 34. As of October 2023, about 18 per cent of its global audience was between 18 to 24 years of age. More than 16 per cent were aged between 25 and 34 – 16.3 per cent women and 16.6 per cent male. [caption id=“attachment_13335232” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] People hold signs as Pro-Palestinian protesters attend the ‘Flood Brooklyn for Gaza’ demonstration, in New York on 28 October. There have been nearly four times the number of views to TikTok posts supporting Palestine as compared to Israel. Reuters[/caption] A new poll reveals that while America backs Israel, the support among the younger generation is waning. The results of the survey published in the October Harvard CAPS / Harris poll show that three in ten of the youngest age group said that the US should back Hamas in the conflict. Those aged 18 to 24 registered the highest level of anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian, and pro-Hamas sentiment, reports The Jerusalem Post. American University communications professor Adrienne Massanari told the news platform Semafor, “TikTok’s engagement-driven algorithm, like other social medias’, likely fuels polarisation.” The suggested videos are heavily based on user behaviour. “Everything starts building, it appears as if all of the content on the platform is coming from that particular perspective.” That can push more creators to weigh in on the conflict, yielding “a lot of hot takes” she was quoted as saying. [caption id=“attachment_13335252” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] A person holds a sign that reads ‘Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem’ at a pro-Israel rally at Times Square in New York City. File photo/Reuters[/caption] What is TikTok saying? TikTok has refuted any claims of bias. “Our Community Guidelines apply equally to all content on TikTok and we strongly reject any of the baseless claims to the contrary. We’re committed to consistently enforcing our policies to protect our community,” the company said in an emailed statement, according to NBC News. TikTok does not allow terrorist content on its platform. Hamas, a TikTok spokesperson confirmed to Axios, is considered a terrorist group by the platform and is banned. A report in The Telegraph says that TikTok claims to have immediately deployed resources to tackle misinformation linked to the conflict, including hiring more moderators who speak Hebrew and Arabic. A spokesman added that the app had removed over 775,000 videos and closed over 14,000 livestreams for violating its community guidelines, including for misinformation and hate speech. With inputs from agencies