The US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill on Wednesday that could see TikTok banned in the United States.
The bill would ban the social media platform from operating in the United States or force the patent company Bytedance to sell it to a non-Chinese owner.
According to a report published by the Wall Street Journal, one of the reasons behind the renewed urgency to pass the bill could be attributed to Washington’s concerns about the way TikTok users interact with content regarding the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Speaking to WSJ, Jacob Helbert, a member of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, said that the US Congress recently regained interest in passing the legislation.
Major Shift in US Public Opinion on Israel’s War on Gaza – Poll
“When lawmakers went public last week with their plans, the broad support for the bill caught TikTok by surprise,” WSJ reported.
Helbert explained that Israel’s war on Gaza was a turning point in this swift change of attitude.
“It was slow going until Oct. 7. The attack that day in Israel by Hamas and the ensuing conflict in Gaza became a turning point in the push against TikTok,” Helberg was quoted by the WSJ as saying.
“People who historically hadn’t taken a position on TikTok became concerned with how Israel was portrayed in the videos and what they saw as an increase in antisemitic content posted to the app,” Helberg reportedly added.
The WSJ also reported that Anthony Goldbloom, a San Francisco-based data scientist, and tech executive, “started analyzing data TikTok published in its dashboard for ad buyers showing the number of times users watched videos with certain hashtags”.
“He found far more views for videos with pro-Palestinian hashtags than those with pro-Israel hashtags. While the ratio fluctuated, he found that at times it ran 69 to 1 in favor of videos with pro-Palestinian hashtags,” the WSJ noted.
Goldbloom has advocated for the TikTok ban and his research was also cited by Nikki Haley in a Republican presidential primary debate.
Recent polls have found wide disapproval of US President Joe Biden over his handling of the war in Gaza and that the majority of voters who backed him in 2020 oppose weapons shipments to Israel.
Young Americans Believe Israel is Committing Genocide in Gaza – Poll
Gaza Genocide
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 31,490 Palestinians have been killed, and 73,439 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 7,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire.’
(The Palestine Chronicle)
We already knew the JSA’s puppeticians were bad-mouthing TikTok to protect their master in the Spitsraeli-colony. Copying the article to recirculate.