World
TikTok denies antisemitism after Jewish celebs say platform isn't safe
Amy Schumer accused the platform of not protecting Jewish users
November 3, 2023 17:18
Amy Schumer accused the platform of not protecting Jewish users
November 3, 2023 17:18TikTok has denied failing to protect Jewish users and pushing pro-Palestinian content after Jewish celebrities said the platform is not safe.
The Chinese company said in a statement: "Hateful ideologies, like antisemitism, are not and have never been allowed on our platform."
It said it had removed millions of TikTok videos related to hate speech, hateful behavior, harassment and bullying since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
However, Jewish TikTok creators and celebrities, including comedian Amy Schumer, wrote an open letter on Wednesday accusing it of failing to protect Jewish users.
It read: ‘Dear TikTok, your platform is not safe for Jewish users
"Simply put, TikTok lacks critical safety features to protect Jewish content creators and the broader Jewish TikTok community, leaving us in digital and physical danger.
"Your Jewish creators - who regularly enliven the For You page with videos of dancing, cooking, singing, and positivity of all kinds - are being bombarded with abhorrent inhumanity solely due to our ethno-religious identity.
"This hate and vitriol is not rare, spontaneous or unexpected. Sadly, rampant antisemitism is a common problem that TikTok has failed to address for far too long.
‘The daily reality for Jewish content creators on TikTok includes death threats, endless threatening comments on posts (many just for being Jewish), and a barrage of harassment in all forms of TikTok-facilitated interaction.
‘And that was true before the massacres of Jews on October 7th. Since then, the hate directed at Jewish content creators has been compounded to unimaginable degrees. It’s relentless and, worst of all, it’s largely permitted.’
TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance. Antisemitism and anti-Israeli sentiment is surging across the Chinese internet and state media.
A former vice president at the dating app Tinder, Jeff Morris Jr., claimed that pro-Palestinian hashtags on TikTok received three billion views while pro-Israel hashtags only a couple hundred million.
He argued that TikTok was the reason Israel was "losing the information war with high school & college students."
Republican Senator Marco Rubio said: "TikTok is a tool China uses to spread propaganda to Americans, now it’s being used to downplay Hamas terrorism."
TikTiok appeared to hit back at Mr Morris, criticizing an ‘unsound analysis of TikTok hashtag data around the conflict’. It said the hashtag #standwithisrael had gained 46.3 million views since Oct. 7 in the United States compared with 29.4 million for #standwithpalestine.