TikTok issued a lengthy explanation aka. “apology” for basically being antisemitic: The truth about TikTok hashtags and content during the Israel-Hamas war
Whether TikTok is antisemitic or not is up to debate. The facts and statistics though are not.
The Hashtags War
Using statistics, graphs and charts TikTok showcased this unsurprising data:
“if you look at public data on other platforms, such as Instagram, you'll find there are 5.7M total posts tagged #FreePalestine compared to 214K total posts tagged #standwithIsrael. Looking at public Facebook data, there are 11M total posts tagged #FreePalestine compared to 278K total posts tagged #standwithIsrael.”
The Algorithm War
Based on the above TikTok has issued the following recommendation:
“algorithm doesn't "take sides" and has rigorous measures in place to prevent manipulation”
A statistic they totally ignored and neglected is the fact that there are 2.1 billion Muslims in the world and only 15 million Jews.
Even with the consideration that not all Muslims and Jews use TikTok, still, the pure existential presence in population numbers of Jews compared to Muslims, who mostly align with their own, is incomparable.
Even if all Jews on planet earth would stand with Israel and a tenth of the Muslim population would stand with Hamas, still the algorithm would stand with Hamas.
Understanding that fact is knowing that the social media war cannot be won by Israel as long as Algorithm does not count population statistics and applies it to search criteria.
The Visual Content War
Another blindsided fact is that the content containing Oct 7 massacre footage, which was filmed and shared by Hamas themselves using go-pro cameras, was instantly removed from all social media platforms, often blocking and banning the users who published it.
Noa Tishby, and other Israeli activists, were all banned in masses on Oct 7.
TikTok reports “Between October 7 and October 31, 2023, TikTok removed more than 925,000 videos in the conflict region for violating our policies around violence, hate speech, misinformation, and terrorism, including content promoting Hamas.”
They do not report though how many Israeli accounts were banned that day, or how much content was removed showcasing what happened in Israel. But I’m assuming the numbers were much higher, considering my personal experience- my account, as well as every other Israeli account I know, was banned that day, with all content removed forever.
As far as TikTok is concerned, Oct 7 never happened.
TikTok continues its explanation/apology for being antisemitic by sharing additional graphs showing that young people hated Israel before TikTok was created
“the Pew Research data (taken from 2006-2016) below illustrates the upward trend of Palestinian support among Americans born after 1980. The data shows that this support is not new and was rising before TikTok was created, so it would be unrealistic to ascribe such broad sentiments to a single communications channel such as TikTok”
I guess that allows them to open the gates of hell for hate to flourish, with the good ol excuse- that’s what the majority of people feel so it must be right.
With that excuse in mind - If we took social media back in time to 1939, the Nazis would own TikTok, virally. As way more people hated Jews than cared for them, at the time.
Jews were always insignificant in population numbers. If algorithm and hashtags would lead WWIII, the Nazis would win the war online, possibly carrying with them millions across the globe.
The Silent Voices
Currently, 2 million Arabs live in Israel. Many of them have come out with great stories and information about how it is to actually live in Israel. They don’t stand a chance in the world of algorithms and hashtags to even be heard. And they have expressed that social algorithm suppresses their voices.
Palestinians from Gaza have been crying for help against Hamas. Sharing stories of horrors of how Hamas steals their food and supplies and shoots them as they attempt to get food.
Non of them will ever show up in your algorithm. Because they don’t really have time or access to film their struggle live, and they might be killed just for doing that. Their voices are nonexistent in the social realm.
Conclusion:
Maybe it’s time for social platforms to step back, reflect and rethink their use of algorithm as their leading force. Algorithms don’t counter population numbers.
Maybe hashtags are not the best indicator of reality, truth and facts. Popularity doesn’t make facts.
And maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t really matter what the majority of a young, uneducated, ignorant population thinks, and priority for content and information should be given to the people who actually live there, geographically, and know with their own flesh and bones what’s actually happening in real time.
The reality is that the mass majority of the information consumed on social platforms is created and shared by people who never stepped foot in Gaza or Israel, are not true Palestinians who live or ever lived in Gaza, and almost all of the content was originally created by extremists groups who are digitally savvy at spreading propaganda videos.
Another factual reality is that it’s easier to capture the physical outcome of the devastation of a war, than the behind the scenes effects- the massacre, the rape, the kidnapping, the beheadings, and the underground terror tunnels warfare for the Jewish men and women currently held captive in holocaust conditions.
If you took the footage back in time to WWII - the response by Britain, America and Russia would seem like a genocide, while what happened behind closed concentration camps gates was the real silent genocide. Jews could not film and share what happened there, so the world had to watch planes and bombs.
Perspective is critical in times of war.
Knowing where the truth lies is critical thinking, at any time.
Knowing what is a lie and what is the truth by looking at the source of the content is crucial.
Digging for the silenced voices that algorithms can’t find is critical.
And most importantly- identifying manipulated narrative fueled with hate for people of one specific religion or ethnicity, is a common logical trait that any critically thinking human should strive to possess.
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