TikTok Ban Fueled by Israel, Not China
Congressional insiders spill the beans on how the law was passed
It all started with Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and concerns about anti-Semitic content on the social media platform TikTok. It all ended with a classified briefing and a foolish attempt, still alive, to ban the social media platform.
The company’s ownership by China never was the driving force in Congress eventually taking action.
This week at the Munich Security Conference, Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee, played “I’ve got a secret.” It’s a game national security officialdom loves to play, slyly claiming authority ‘if they could only tell you what they know.’
It is in that vein that Warner spilled the beans on what he called the “real story” behind the law that could still ban TikTok.
“I want to see if you're going to tell the real story,” a grinning Warner said, addressing former congressman Mike Gallagher, and now a Palantir executive who, along with Warner, first introduced the bill that claimed that TikTok was a national security threat, a claim still relevant given the app’s uncertain future.
Gallagher described how the national security bill was dead until Hamas’ attack on Israel, which brought the legislation back to life. As Gallagher said:
“So we had a bipartisan consensus. We had the executive branch, but the bill was still dead until October 7th. And people started to see a bunch of anti-Semitic content on the platform and our bill had legs again.”
The account by Gallagher makes explicit something there have been hints of for some time. Israeli officials and lobbyists told everyone that would listen in Washington that TikTok’s algorithm fueled American youth opposition to the Israel-Hamas war.
As I reported last year, a State Department source told me that a high-ranking Israeli diplomat was ranting about the supposed malign role of some Chinese-manufactured algorithm, purposely dismissive of the reality that the college protesters’ outrage was sincere, that it was about Israel’s military conduct in Gaza and not some “foreign malign influence” campaign hatched in Beijing.
NPR at about the same time reported on a memo written by Israel Foreign Ministry Deputy Director General Emmanuel Nahshon, which blamed TikTok’s algorithm for “turning young people against Israel.”
I’ve obtained a similar memo detailing the incident. The memo, produced by the State Department for its Near East Affairs diplomats, describes how Nahshon, the Israeli official, blamed youth opposition to the war in Gaza on the TikTok algorithm. Nahshon also ignored warnings from the Biden administration’s Assistant Secretary for Global Public Affairs, Bill Russo, “oblivious” to the “possibility generational damage to their reputation” they were facing internationally.
Quoting from the memo directly:
Nahshon disagreed with Russo's assertion that the United States and Israel faced a major credibility problem as a result of the unpopular war on Gaza. The Israelis seemed oblivious to the fact that they are facing major, possibly generational damage to their reputation not just in the region but elsewhere in the world. They made the following three main counterpoints to this argument:
Israel's main challenge, according to Nahshon, is "power projection."
Young people have turned against Israel in large part because the Tik-Tok algorithm favors pro-Palestinian content.
Public opinion polling shows there is a "silent majority" of people who continue to support Israel, especially in Europe and the United States. The "silver lining" of October 7 is that it now allows Israel to see who its real friends are.
Israel and China merged into the Biden administration’s campaign against TikTok, and in March of last year, a classified intelligence briefing was provided to Congress on the supposed threat of the social media platform. As Warner describes, the briefing tipped the anti TikTok legislation over the edge, passing through a key committee with a vote of 50-0.
“And he got it out of a committee that is the most diverse in the House from left to right, 50 to zero after a classified —” Warner said, before cutting himself off.
Despite the vote, some members expressed skepticism about the information contained in the briefing.
“Not a single thing we heard in today’s classified briefing was unique to TikTok,” congresswoman Sara Jacobs said at the time. “It was things that happen on every single social media platform.”
Senator Mitt Romney, a supporter of a TikTok ban, linked his support for shutting down the most popular social media platform amongst young Americans to the Palestinian issue. Romney says that TikTok’s frequency of pro-Palestinian posts is “overwhelming” compared to other platforms.
Romney says:
"Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature. If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians, relative to other social media sites — it's overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts."
In Munich, former congressman Gallagher also pointed to what he called “a huge miscalculation” by TikTok in its attempt to head off the ban. When TikTok pushed a notification out to its millions of users, urging them to call members of Congress to oppose the bill, Gallagher said it “proved the point” that the social media company was “brainwashing” American youth.
Per Gallagher:
“And then there was a huge miscalculation by TikTok when it became apparent that we were going to pass it out of committee. They forced sort of a pop up on the app that allowed people to call their members of Congress, and kids were calling into their members of Congress during school hours threatening to commit suicide if TikTok went away. And for those of us who were concerned about the use of this platform for propaganda purposes or brainwashing, it sort of proved the point in the moment.”
In January, right after the TikTok ban took effect, a 19 year old Wisconsin man set fire to the office of a congressman who voted for the legislation. There’s little doubt that young people have an affinity for the app, perhaps even an unhealthy one. What there isn’t evidence for is that any of this is being directed by the Chinese government. As I’ve reported, the U.S. intelligence community’s concerns about the national security threat of China’s ownership of TikTok are entirely hypothetical.
“So it was the threat of espionage, the threat of propaganda, the good work of Senator Warner, and a few other players that all conspired,” Gallagher said this week.
So the “real story” is pretty simple. Congress chose to take action essentially to suppress speech and protect Israel. The Biden administration hid behind China in its justification as to why a ban was essential. The classified briefing — still secret — did the dirty work. “Conspired” indeed, as Gallagher said. They’ve got a secret. They always do. And that leaves nothing for the public to push back on, which is the true conspiracy.
— Edited by William M. Arkin
If Israel believes Tiktok is fueling young people's attitudes on the Gaza/ West Bank/ Lebanon crisis, maybe it should start by preventing IDF soldiers from making Tiktoks of themselves abusing Palestinians, stealing Palestinians' property, making themselves at home in Palestinians' homes, and mocking Palestinians.
Or Israel could prevent its soldiers from simply engaging in these activities in the first place.
Tiktok bought themselves some time thanks in part to Molly Birkenes and Jeff Yass. I can stand on a street corner in my small southern home town in the U.S. and shout anti-American slogans and slurs and people would only consider me annoying. If I shout that the Israeli government is committing a genocide, I would be branded an anti Semite and literally be drug off the street by my local police.