Israel is losing the TikTok war.
“The TikTok War: Why High School & College Kids Are Getting The Wrong Information about Hamas & Israel,” Jeff Morris Jr., October 25, 2023:
I spent the weekend trying to reverse engineer the TikTok algorithm, as I am convinced this is the reason we’re losing the information war with high school & college students.
🚩One red flag was seeing San Francisco high school students who were aggressively anti-Israel and asking myself where they were getting news.
Their protests happened right after the fake @nytimes headline that accused Israel of the hospital bomb.
🚩The bigger red flag was seeing 51% of Americans ages 18-24 believe Hamas (terrorists who raped & murdered innocent women & children) believe Hamas was justified. Wtf.
My high school classmates who lived through 9/11 would have never believed this.
Why do high school students in San Francisco hate Israel so much?
I’d assume very few of them have been to Israel, let alone have a fully formed view of a multi-generation conflict.
They’re 16 years old and live in California. Let’s be serious for a minute.
For Gen Z, TikTok Is the New Search Engine
TikTok is the #1 search engine for more than half of Gen Z.
TikTok is the primary news source for many younger demos & while we have justifiable concerns about The New York Times & mainstream media, this has become a TikTok war.
When I engaged with one post on TikTok supporting opposing views, my entire feed became aggressively anti-Israel. It was as if I was placed in an AB test variant and was told to see this war with Israel being the evil side.
I then looked at the data and saw that Israel is losing the TikTok war by a longshot.
As an example, the top hashtag is 3b views for Palestine versus 200m views for Israel….
Jerry says
Losing to “know nothings.” That is pathetic! Dupe EZY…the new drug of the know nothing class.
Bexarkat says
It is not just social media, Mr. Spencer. The Jewish community’s “leadership” must bear significant responsibility for this. They have allowed this cancer to fester and grow, they have never challenged the lies coming from groups such as BDS, and they continue to support BLM, among others, despite their early comments about anti-Semitism.
Reflecting on this, I recalled some years ago I was invited to the home of my Rabbi for Shabbat dinner. Normally there was a large group, but this particular Friday night, with was the Rabbi and the rebbetzin, an MD, a PhD, and me. And of course discussion followed the meal. When I raised the issue of anti-Israel activities on campuses, they both scoffed and called it a passing fad. I then asked them, “What are you going to do in ten years when they are running the country?” Well, here we are. Biden speaking out of both sides of his mouth, the squad specifically, but generally the Democratic party inaction and lack of real support should be cause for alarm and concern.
We are long past a “charm offensive” from Israeli leaders and conservative supporters of Israel to help mitigate this problem.
commonsense says
Yes – the denial and cowardice of many Jewish “leaders,” both secular and religious, have been in evidence for a long time. I recall, for example, contacting a local rabbi some years ago about the need for a countervailing plan of action after seeing scores of local anti-Israel demonstrators protesting Israel’s defensive actions against Gazan attacks. The rabbi’s advice, to my disgust, was to merely ignore them. I contacted the rabbi of another nearby synagogue who appeared at first to be more realistic in terms of his grasp of the problem, but who resorted to a strategy entailing attempts to promote interfaith activity to build trust and understanding. To this end, he engaged the vile Muslim convert and apologist for Muslim terror, Ingrid Mattson, to speak at his synagogue. My objections fell on deaf ears. This was nearl two decades ago.
somehistory says
i don’t ”do” tik tok. Occasionally, I’ll see where some idiot kid has started a ‘trend’ and other kids are playing the game and dying.
Last night, I saw a news feed about some creep in CA who ”sucker-punched” two people, pushed one to the ground and he said, “It was a prank for tik tok” and he was hoping to get a lot of views and likes.
He said he didn’t have any bad feelings toward the people he assaulted and even went so far as to say that after he punched the guy, they ‘shook hands and hugged.’
The person who wrote about this, said the video didn’t show any of the claimed hand shake or hugs.
The mentality…”capacity for intelligent thought”… of the generation devoting so much time….isn’t tik tok a chinese thing?…to this nonsense is easily recognized as just about zero.
Those young people who go to tik tok for their news, follow the views…ideas, opinions…of their crowd…what they see as the ‘in-crowd’ and no amount of other, truthful information is going to make any difference in their thinking.
On some transportation services in some cities, “gen z ride free.”
The so-called “gen z” is getting a free ride to a very, very, dark place.
Steve Brown says
In the U.K. we pronounce the ‘Z’ as zed, which neatly fits in as as ‘Gen Z are brain dead’….just my observations as a boomer of many years standing.
somehistory says
Yes, Steve, it does neatly fit their condition.
A lot of people over the years have spoken about the kids being the future; these kids are ruining their present; destroying their own future.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
TikTok needs to be shut down by the next government. This time, I’d like President Trump to just do it, instead of waiting for negotiations w/ Microsoft or anyone else. Just shut it down!
Don McKellar says
China sure has America’s number under the fraud “president”. They sure hate Israel, too. But why does China hate Israel so much? That’s the question that always comes to mind when I read about this stuff. Why do they program TikTok to promote anti-Israel? What’s in it for Xi?
Clifford Fodor says
My guess is that Communist Red China depends on Arab oil for most of their needs. Also, it’s a temporary situation in which Communist Red China is allied with the Arabs against America’s ally Israel. Once Israel is (God forbid) out of the picture, Communist Red China will turn against the Arabs.
libertyORdeath says
Are these people serious? They spend decades pushing anti-colonialism and anti-White racism and then are surprised when their CCP app using kids get anti-colonial and Anti-White propaganda as their “news”?
This real-time recalibration by leftist jews and decent, anti-terrorist Westerners is pretty sad. The evidence has been in front of you the whole time. I’m sorry it took such brutality to see it.
The choices seem to be getting clearer for 2024.
Biden = 3 years, 2 wars (so far), 1 retreat, 8+ million illegals, 10%+ inflation, $4/gal gas, countless bribes, 50+ billion lost military equipment, 3 sabotaged pipelines.
Trump = 4 years, 0 wars, energy independence, $2 gas, Middle-east peace deals
Oh, and Biden has MULTIPLE terrorist supporters in his cabinet.
Trump for PEACE 2024!
James Lincoln says
libertyORdeath,
And all of the dead bodies that Biden racked up in the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, war in Ukraine, and war in Israel.
Highly unlikely that any of this would’ve happened under Pres. Trump.
Rigged elections have consequences…
Martha Rosenberg says
yet these “wokes” overlook what Hamas et al do to LBGs and women. What hypocrisy