"Critics renew calls for a TikTok ban, claiming platform has an anti-Israel bias"

Members of Congress, conservative activists and wealthy tech investors are renewing calls to ban TikTok in the U.S., arguing that the most popular content related to the Israel-Hamas war on the app has a pro-Palestinian slant that is undercutting support for Israel among young Americans. 

TikTok has been the target of criticism for years because of its Chinese ownership and concerns about government control over the app, a relationship that both Democrats and Republicans say is a threat to the personal data of U.S. users. 

Now, critics allege that TikTok is using its influence to push content that is pro-Palestinian and contrary to U.S. foreign policy interests. The claims about TikTok’s promotion of pro-Palestinian content are anecdotal, and they have been bubbling up on the social media platform X, in statements to the media and on conservative media outlets such as Fox News. 

TikTok said the allegations of bias are baseless. 

Ultimately the perceived performance of pro-Palestinian content on the platform depends on how you parse TikTok’s data...

The renewed calls for a ban took off after Jeff Morris Jr., a tech venture capitalist and former executive with the dating app Tinder, wrote a series of posts on X last week. In his viral thread, Morris wrote about a “TikTok War” in which high schoolers and college students are getting the “wrong information” about Hamas and Israel. Information about the Israel-Hamas war has become highly contentious and polarized across social media, including on TikTok.

Morris’ thread had over 9 million views Tuesday, according to X’s public metrics...

Morris also posted a screenshot of suggested hashtags generated by searches of the terms “Stand with palestine” and “Stand with israel” via TikTok’s search bar. 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. 

“Israel is losing the TikTok war by a longshot,” Morris wrote...

Morris did not respond to a request for comment...

A more constrained search on TikTok’s hashtag metrics discovery tool — using data only from the last 30 days — shows that pro-Israel hashtags in the U.S. may be receiving the same, if not more, attention on the app, bringing the claims of favoritism into question...

One possibility has to do with generational divide. Various polls have shown that younger people are more evenly divided between support for Israelis and Palestinians, while older people are more supportive of Israelis...

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., was among the people who reshared Morris’ thread on X. A longtime critic of TikTok who has sponsored legislation to ban the app, he alleged that it was a “Chinese spy engine” and a “purveyor of virulent antisemitic lies.” 

TikTok disputed the claims in a statement. 

“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...

In 2020, a TikTok executive testified in front of British lawmakers that the company no longer censored political topics but that previously it had suppressed content related to “the Uyghur situation” — referring to a Muslim minority in China. 

It’s not clear what content the senators were referring to as promoting Hamas in their statements. Blackburn’s office cited an article on Semafor reporting that some videos on TikTok “downplay Hamas’ attack on Israel.” Rubio’s office did not respond to a follow-up question asking for more detail. 

TikTok has also received the opposite criticism: that it has been too heavy-handed in removing some pro-Palestinian content. Last week, the government of Malaysia, a majority-Muslim country, warned it could take action against TikTok and Meta for blocking such posts, an allegation that the two companies denied. 

Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the renewed push for a TikTok ban among critics in response to the Israel-Hamas conflict was more about shutting down pro-Palestinian voices than national security...

But the idea of banning TikTok over its propaganda potential has gained supporters, including more venture capitalists from the tech industry...

Sam Lessin, a general partner at Slow Ventures and a former vice president of product at Facebook, called in a statement Sunday night for an immediate TikTok ban. Lessin, whose wife, Jessica Lessin, is the founder and CEO of the tech news outlet The Information, published his statement on The Information’s website.

“We made a big mistake to not ban TikTok when Trump opened the issue in 2020,” he wrote...

Lessin did not respond to a request for examples of “terrorist propaganda” he has seen on TikTok or any examples of its causing violence to people in the U.S.