EXTREMISMTikTok Ban Feared, Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories Follow
Soon after the news broke about the House, on 13 March 2024, passing a bill that could potentially lead to a nationwide ban of the popular social media platform TikTok, influencers and extremists from across the political spectrum began framing the bill as an outright ban and speculating that the bill is a product of Jewish or Zionist influence, calling it an effort to infringe on free speech by limiting the reach of pro-Palestinian content.
On March 13, 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that could potentially lead to a nationwide ban of the popular social media platform TikTok.
According to the bill, the issue stems from TikTok being owned by a “foreign adversary,” which poses a national security threat. TikTok’s China-owned parent company ByteDance would be required to find another buyer within six months to avoid the app being pulled from app stores in the US. While the bill has not yet made its way through the Senate, President Biden said that he intends to sign it if it lands on his desk.
Soon after the news broke about the House passage, influencers and extremists from across the political spectrum began framing the bill as an outright ban and speculating that the bill is a product of Jewish or Zionist influence, calling it an effort to infringe on free speech by limiting the reach of pro-Palestinian content.
Conspiratorial claims about Jewish influence in the media are nothing new, dating back to the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, one of the most notorious and egregious antisemitic texts of the early 20th century. Allegations of Zionist media control are also widespread on both the far-right and the far-left, on social media and at demonstrations—most recently, at protests against the Israel-Hamas war. In the wake of the TikTok bill, these narratives have resurfaced to focus on three targets: Jews, Israel and Zionist organizations.
