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<a id="gmail-label" href="https://www.blackagendareport.com/tiktok-and-israel" rel="bookmark"><span><font size="6">TikTok and Israel</font></span>
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<span><a href="https://www.blackagendareport.com/author/Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist">Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist</a></span>
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20 Mar 2024
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<div class="gmail-field gmail-field--name-field-cover-image gmail-field--type-image gmail-field--label-hidden gmail-field--item"><a href="https://www.blackagendareport.com/sites/default/files/2024-03/Tik%20Tok%20845x400.png" title="Israel" class="gmail-colorbox gmail-cboxElement"><img src="https://www.blackagendareport.com/sites/default/files/2024-03/Tik%20Tok%20845x400.png" width="450" height="213" alt="Israel" class="gmail-img-responsive" style="margin-right: 0px;">
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<div class="gmail-field gmail-field--name-field-image-caption gmail-field--type-string gmail-field--label-hidden gmail-field--item">Image - Anson Chan for the Intercept </div>
<div class="gmail-field gmail-field--name-body gmail-field--type-text-with-summary gmail-field--label-hidden gmail-field--item"><p><em>The
TikTok social media platform is an indicator of U.S. imperialist angst
and an incentive for greed. First China was a political target and now
Zionists are on the attack in an effort to suppress information about
Israel’s war crimes. Of course stealing this profitable company is also a
goal of U.S. capitalism. </em></p>
<p>“We want Congress to tell TikTok that their time is up. We’re done
with the lies the platform spreads about the Jewish people and Israel.”<br>
<a href="https://x.com/jfederations/status/1767989253735133673?s=20" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">The Jewish Federations of North America<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a></p>
<p>The TikTok social media platform is used by millions of people in the
United States and all over the world. Most often they share videos of
their families or their pets or their latest dance steps. Sometimes they
share political opinions about the news of the day, and therein lies
the latest ginned up panic over TikTok.</p>
<p>The reasons that most people access TikTok seem rather harmless but
TikTok’s corporate owner, ByteDance, is headquartered in Beijing, China,
a fact which makes the company a political and economic target. China
hatred was originally the purview of the right wing of the Republican
Party, whose representatives engage in endless screeds about the Chinese
Communist Party, which ironically doesn’t even exist. There is a
Communist Party of China, but incorrectly stating the name appears to be
an important element in the politically motivated theatrics.</p>
<p>On March 23, 2023 <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/03/23/1165579717/tiktok-congress-hearing-shou-zi-chew-project-texas" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>
endured five hours of testimony before a congressional committee. The
pretext for the hearing was concern about data privacy and accusations
that TikTok is some sort of outlier in gathering personal information
about users. The concern is a legitimate one for every platform but
congress doesn’t act to protect consumers from social media, news
platforms, or the U.S. government, and all of these entities have troves
of data on every man, woman, and child without exception.</p>
<p>The attack on Chinese tech is a futile effort to diminish that
nation’s economic prowess and political power. The claim may be made
that the government of China is accessing our data or that TikTok causes
children and teens to take part in dangerous activity but the goal as
always is to destroy U.S. competition. <a href="https://blackagendareport.com/freedom-rider-tiktok-and-war-china" rel="nofollow">Donald Trump</a>
began the war on Chinese technology by severely limiting Huawei’s
ability to operate in the U.S. and then proceeded to bully its European
puppet states into doing the same thing.</p>
<p>Attacking TikTok for alleged Chinese government influence is now old
news. The latest anti-TikTok witch hunt is all about Israel. It is the
pro-Israel lobby which admits as much. In a <a href="https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2024/03/14/tiktok-us-israel/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">leaked phone call<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>, Anti Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt is heard saying, “We really have a TikTok problem in the U.S.”</p>
<p>Indeed they do. Thanks to social media, millions of people know that
Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza. They know that the Israeli
Defense Forces blow up hospitals and universities and bomb civilian
homes and target journalists for assassination and withhold supplies of
food and medicine. Thanks to social media, the corporate media blackout
is far less effective than it would be otherwise and so are the
pro-Israeli statements and actions of the Biden administration and
congress.</p>
<p>Now that interested parties are no longer restricted in their access
to information about the U.S./Israeli genocide, the attack on TikTok
began anew. On March 13, 2024 the House of Representatives voted by a
margin of 352 - 65 to force ByteDance to divest itself of TikTok’s U.S.
operation within six months or lose access to the American market. The
Senate has yet to act but Joe Biden has indicated that he will sign the
legislation.</p>
<p>U.S. imperialism, racist China hatred and Zionism have combined to
create the theft of a multi-billion company. No sooner had congress
voted than <a href="https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-mnuchin-house-senate-ffdf37776e63a09bb6966d741df7093b" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Steve Mnuchin<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>,
who served as Secretary of the Treasury in the Trump administration,
announced that he will put together an investment group to buy TikTok.</p>
<p>The Biden administration faces crises on multiple fronts as it is
losing the anti-Russia proxy war in Ukraine, but continues to ask
congress for billions of dollars in the lost effort. They have now made
the U.S. and its ally Israel reviled domestically and internationally.
They cannot control the narrative and are instigating a wider conflict
in the Middle East. Millions of voters, even some who supported Biden in
2020, are refusing to vote for “Genocide Joe” on election day.</p>
<p>Of course there are ways out of these messes but none of them allow
the U.S. to continue trying to dominate the world and to make enemies of
anyone who stands in the way. They spin stories about parachuting aid
or that building a fake pier controlled by Israel will end the suffering
of the people of Gaza. They are so desperate they have even shoved
Benjamin Netanyahu under a rhetorical bus to defend themselves after
giving a green light to an invasion of Rafah, the last refuge for 2
million people. No one believes them any more and as always more
overreach is seen as the only solution.</p>
<p>Unless ByteDance calls America’s bluff and shuts down its operations
in this country, someone will get rich, but the people will be worse off
with one less independent source of information. That outcome is what
we should expect from a greedy state, bent on domination. Surrender or
be destroyed is the U.S. motto with TikTok and with most of humanity.</p>
<p><em><strong>Margaret Kimberley is the author of <a href="https://steerforth.com/product/prejudential-9781586422486/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>. You can support her work on <a href="https://www.patreon.com/margaretkimberley" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Patreon<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a> and also find it on the <a href="https://twitter.com/freedomrideblog" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Twitter<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>, <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/margaretkimberley.bsky.social" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Bluesky<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>, and <a href="https://t.me/MargaretKimberley" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Telegram<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a> platforms. She can be reached via email at <a href="mailto:margaret.kimberley@blackagendareport.com" class="gmail-0">margaret.kimberley@blackagendareport.com<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a></strong></em></p></div></div>
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