TikTok is pushing back against claims that it fuels anti-Semitism
TikTok on Thursday pushed back against growing claims in recent weeks that it had failed to protect Jewish users and promoted pro-Palestinian content in the United States.
In a statement on its website the company said: “Hateful ideologies, such as anti-Semitism, are not and have never been allowed on our platform.” The company said it has removed millions of TikTok videos related to hate speech, hateful conduct, harassment and bullying since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
Many social networks have been criticized for spreading misinformation and hate speech during the war between Israel and Hamas. TikTok has the additional criticism that it is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. While Beijing has cast itself as a neutral mediator in the dispute, a wave of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment is spreading across the Chinese internet and state media.
Last week, Jeff Morris Jr., a former vice president at the dating app Tinder, claimed that pro-Palestinian hashtags on TikTok racked up three billion views, while pro-Israel hashtags racked up a few hundred million views. His post, published on
Republican lawmakers such as Senator Marco Rubio of Florida have done so jumped up such concerns. In a post on
But Mr. Morris’ post seemed to reference the hashtags’ positions from several years ago. The company appeared to reference Morris’ posts on Thursday, in which he criticized a “flawed analysis of TikTok hashtag data surrounding the conflict.” TikTok said the hashtag #standwithisrael has been viewed 46.3 million times in the United States as of Oct. 7, compared to 29.4 million for #standwithpalestine. Mr. Morris did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A group of Jewish TikTok creators and celebrities who post on the platform, including comedian Amy Schumer and actors Michael Rapaport and Debra Messing, wrote an open letter to TikTok said Wednesday that it “fails woefully by failing to protect the safety of its Jewish creators and community and by failing to monitor and guide public debate to ensure the platform does not become a permanent cesspool of indiscriminate and aggressive anti-Semitism.”
The group said it was difficult to filter anti-Semitic comments on TikTok as hostile users replaced letters like ‘S’ with ‘$’. They added that when reporting death threats, TikTok moderators said the comment “I hope you die” was allowed. The letter also said that personal accounts of atrocities experienced by Israeli citizens had been flagged, presumably by anti-Israel users, and removed, and accused TikTok’s algorithm of diverting attention from Jewish creators’ posts about Israel.
TikTok said it was investing in moderation, including training for teams to stay ahead of new forms of hate speech and behavior, and consulting with groups like the Anti-Defamation League.
Yaël Eisenstat, vice president of the Anti-Defamation League, said her group has provided TikTok training on anti-Semitic content and that the website maintains a “glossary of extremism and hate” that it uses regularly. updates.
Ms. Eisenstat said she appreciated TikTok’s help to her group, but added “that this does not absolve them of the responsibility to actually provide more tools for civil society groups to study what is actually happening.” She said the recent outrage over the site’s posts showed that TikTok should offer data on how it serves videos to civil liberties groups. The company said it has begun offering such data to academic researchers and will include other groups in the future.