"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."

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/tiktok-ban-fueled-by-israel-not-china

#SocialMedia #USA #SocialNetworks #TikTok #China #Israel #Palestine #Gaza