"TikTok Responds to Claims of ‘Brainwashing Our Youth,’ Says Younger Generation is Pro-Palestine"

Tiktok has denied allegations that it has been promoting pro-Palestine content. Citing compiled data, the company noted that the presence of pro-Palestine content on TikTok isn’t due to the app’s algorithm, but instead, it's the support young adults have for the Palestinian people.

“Attitudes among young people skewed toward Palestine long before TikTok existed,” the company said in a press release on Monday. “Support for Israel (as compared to sympathy for Palestine) has been lower among younger Americans for some time. This is evidenced by looking at a recent Gallup polling data of millennials dating as far back as 2010, long before TikTok even existed.”

The statement follows accusations of the company from Israeli officials and GOP politicians who claim the social media platform’s spike in pro-Palestine content is “brainwashing our [American] youth” into supporting Hamas...

The statement also follows requests from Israeli officials to remove allegedly fabricated content. Per TikTok, it has been “rapidly and robustly responding” to content surrounding Israel and Palestine. 

The platform noted that it has removed 925,000 videos “in the conflict region” which it deemed to violate its community guidelines, “including content promoting Hamas.” 

In its statement, the company also said it has hired moderators fluent in Hebrew and Arabic to help vet content related.

According to Forbes, the Israeli state prosecutor’s office has sent Meta and TikTok over 8,000 requests to remove content related to the current situation in Palestine, that they allege violates the companies’ policies. Israel’s prosecutor’s office claims the requested content incites violence and terrorism. 

Hadar Katz, spokesperson for Israel’s state prosecutor’s office told Forbes, that nearly 60% of 9,500 total content takedown requests from the prosecutor’s office to major social sites were to Facebook and Instagram’s parent company. 

Several social media platforms are facing increasing requests for further censorship and content takedowns.

When compared to data from last year, TikTok reported it received nearly 2,300 requests in the second half of 2022, 82 of which were from Israel, compared to just 11 from the U.S. and 335 from Russia.

The news comes amid several politicians and other officials noting that their social media accounts have been suspended or deactivated for posting pro-Palestinian content on various social media platforms, including two-time Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein...

Others have alleged that disclaimers have been put on their account for calling for an end to the genocide in Palestine or that a shadow ban has been enforced.

A shadow ban refers to a user’s content or posts being muted or blocked from reaching audiences on a platform.

Per TechCrunch, users have reported that Meta-operated apps like Instagram have flagged and hidden comments containing pro-Palestine words and symbols as “potentially offensive.” As a result, many are trying to bypass such bans with symbols like the watermelon. Meta has attributed these instances to glitches, but similar reports were made in 2021...

Human Rights Watch is also documenting claims of people experiencing the suppression of their free expression rights “amid Israel’s intensive military operations in Gaza, including their right to protest war, support Palestinians or Israel, or oppose increasing acts of antisemitism and Islamophobia.”...