By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers
Why TikTok Needs To Get Out Of The Hands
Of The Chinese Government
Social media sites like TikTok are partly to blame for
widespread criticism of Israel’s war effort against Hamas in Gaza, according to
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The comments came as
part of a conversation at the McCain Institute’s 2024 Sedona Forum in Sedona,
Arizona, between Secretary Blinken and US Senator Mitt Romney.
The Utah Republican
asked the top diplomat why “the PR has been so awful” against Israel since the
beginning of the 7 October conflict.
“Why has Hamas
disappeared in terms of public perception?” he continued. “An offer is on the
table for a ceasefire and yet the world is screaming about Israel.”
Blinken said that
part of the reason for that dynamic was a changing media environment, where
people no longer all read from the same authoritative news sources and instead
learn about current events on chaotic social media feeds.
“Now of course we’re on an intravenous feed of
information with new impulses, inputs every millisecond,” Blinken said.
“And of course, the way this has played out on social media has dominated the
narrative. You have a social media ecosystem, an environment in which context,
history, and facts get lost and the emotion and the impact of images dominate.
We can’t discount that, but I think it also has a very very
challenging effect on the narrative.”
Romney appeared to
agree, saying the effect Mr Blinken was describing
was why “there was such overwhelming support for us to potentially
shut down TikTok.”
The US secretary, at
another point in the conversation, also emphasised
the “inescapable reality” that Palestinian civilians “continue to suffer
grievously.”
“We have to be
focused on that and attentive to that.”
The comments echoed a
wider narrative that’s been put forth about critics of Israel in the US,
particularly on college campuses: that their criticisms don’t stem from the
facts of the conflict, and instead are the product of alarming outside
influence.
New York mayor Eric
Adams recently accused students at universities of falling under the sway of “outside
agitators,” though the NYPD
has offered little
compelling evidence to
support that charge.
Protesting students
interviewed by The Independent said they had been moved to act
by seeing images of destruction and suffering caused by Israel in Gaza, with
the full backing of the US.
“You know, when I
wake up in the morning and see a video of a parent carrying bits of their child
in a plastic bag, that should not be normal, that should not be acceptable,”
said Ava Lyon-Sereno, a Columbia student protester.
It’s not just social
media where Israel’s war effort has been criticized though.
In March, the UN
special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian
territories argued in a report that there are “reasonable grounds”
to conclude Israel has committed acts of genocide in Gaza.
This week, a group of
88 congressional Democrats urged the Biden administration to consider restricting
aid to Israel, arguing there’s compelling evidence that the country has stopped
humanitarian aid from the US and other countries from reaching Gaza, where
civilians are experiencing famine levels of hunger.
“The extent of
Israel’s continued restrictions on the entry of aid into Gaza, together with
how it continues to conduct hostilities, may amount to the use of starvation as
a method of war, which is a war crime,” UN human rights chief Volker Türk said
in a statement in March.
In late April, health authorities in Gaza said so many
civilians have been killed, and the country has been so devastated by
widespread Israeli bombing, that officials are
no longer able to count the dead. At least 34,000 people, mostly civilians, have been
killed in Gaza since the conflict began.
For updates click hompage here