Who’s behind TikTok’s alleged support for Hamas? Uncovering surprising connections.
By John Wilson, Gatestone
Surprisingly, by far the largest group supporting Hamas appears to be TikTok.
“Some have argued that there is a constitutional right to TikTok, that banning it would violate Americans’ rights under the First Amendment.
But the First Amendment surely does not require us to allow social media apps controlled by foreign adversaries to dominate the U.S. market.” — US Rep. Mike Gallagher, chairman of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, The Free Press, November 2, 2023.
Other groups leading anti-Israel protests reportedly include….
There appears to be more moral rot around than is good for any nation.
The US, the UK and countries in Europe that encourage racism and other ways of pitting groups against one another — which for many now is “Big Business” — would do well to get rid of all of it, the sooner the better.
Even before the bodies of roughly 1,200 people in Israel , including dozens of children, were cold after being tortured, raped and massacred on October 7 by the Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas, not just Palestinians and Arabs, but people in the West could be seen demonstrating in support of the torturers, murderers and rapists.
Even the otherwise outraged hashtag women’s groups have yet to be heard from, with at least one politician in the US, a woman, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), actually “downplaying” the atrocities and other members of the public denying that they had even happened.
Who are these people and groups supporting a terrorist group, Hamas?
Of course, when it may not appear seemly to support a designated terrorist group, one can always hide behind “supporting Palestinians” although how destroying Israel and killing Jews furthers that goal remains unclear.
The people now suffering in Gaza are not doing so because of Israel — which might with historic justification say that its land has been stolen — which gave Gaza to the Arabs in 2005 there so they could build a Singapore by the Mediterranean, not terror tunnels.
The suffering of the Palestinians comes from their own corrupt leaders (here and here) who have imposed decades of cold-blooded rule.
Surprisingly, by far the largest group supporting Hamas appears to be TikTok.
The popular social media app claims about 150 million monthly users — just in the United States — about 44% of the population of the entire country. TikTok operates by tracking what you like and then giving you more of it.
TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — as are, by law, all companies in China – therefore “promotes or suppresses” material presumed to further the interests of the CCP.
Many Americans — and Britons – particularly, young people, apparently now get their news from TikTok — and what TikTok shows reflects a significant anti-Israel bias. Two other Chinese platforms, Alibaba and Baidu, have already erased Israel from the map.
As US Rep. Mike Gallagher, chairman of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, wrote:
“According to a Harvard/Harris poll, 51 percent of Americans ages 18–24 believe Hamas was justified in its brutal terrorist attacks on innocent Israeli citizens on October 7…
“A growing number of Americans rely on it for their news. Today, TikTok is the top search engine for more than half of Gen Z, and about six in ten Americans are hooked on the app before their seventeenth birthday. And it is controlled by America’s foremost adversary, one that does not share our interests or our values: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is Chinese, and in China there is no such thing as a private company. As if to underscore the point, ByteDance’s chief editor, Zhang Fuping, is also the boss of the company’s internal Communist Party cell.
“We know of TikTok’s predatory nature because the app has several versions. In China, there is a safely sanitized version called Douyin. That version, using much of the same technology, shows kids science experiments and other educational content, and its use is limited to forty minutes per day… ByteDance and the CCP have decided that China’s children get spinach, and America’s get digital fentanyl.
“And we are absolutely hooked, with 16 percent of teens using it ‘almost constantly.’ Today, 69.7 percent of Americans aged 12–17, 76.2 percent aged 18–24, and 54 percent aged 25–34 use TikTok….
“To cover their tracks in the U.S., TikTok and ByteDance have hired an army of lobbyists, including former congressmen and senators, who are working overtime to stall legislative efforts to ban TikTok or force a sale to an American company. (Also helping the effort—the fact that powerful American investors have hundreds of billions of dollars invested in ByteDance’s success.) …
“Some have argued that there is a constitutional right to TikTok, that banning it would violate Americans’ rights under the First Amendment. But the First Amendment surely does not require us to allow social media apps controlled by foreign adversaries to dominate the U.S. market.”
Other groups leading anti-Israel protests reportedly include the Democratic Socialists of America, Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, and Students for Justice in Palestine, and the National Lawyers Guild.
To these, the ADL added: Samidoun, Palestinian Youth Movement, U.S. Palestinian Community Network, American Muslims for Palestine, Within Our Lifetime-United for Palestine, and The Party for Socialism and Liberation.
Who is funding them?
Neville Roy Singham and his wife, Jodie Evans, called “millionaire Marxists.” They have reportedly donated $20.4 million through shell companies to The People’s Forum from 2017 to 2022 . “Since 20017,” according to the New York Post, Singham has been the main funder of The People’s Forum, which has co-organized at least four protests,” after October 7, including the October 8 rally in New York’s Times Square.
George Soros, who, according to the New York Post, “has funneled more than $15 million since 2016 to groups behind this month’s pro-Palestine protests, where demonstrators openly cheered Hamas militants’… terrorist attacks on Israel…”
“A Post examination of Open Society Foundations records shows Soros grant-making network gave $13.7 million through Tides Center… Tides’ beneficiaries include Illinois-based Adalah Justice Project, which on the day of the Oct. 7 massacre, posted a photo on Instagram of a bulldozer tearing part of Israel’s border fence down…”
On Oct. 20, “Adalah’s members also co-sponsored a rally that same day in Bryant Park where hostile demonstrators spewed antisemitic chants and waved a sign that read ‘I DO NOT CONDEMN HAMAS.'”
The Open Society Foundations also reportedly had funded groups, such as Desis Rising Up and Moving, which co-sponsored the Bryant Park Protest, and the Arab American Association of New York, that “helped plan a hate-filled ‘Flood Brooklyn for Palestine’ protest… on Oct. 21, where protestors called for the eradication of Israel and held a sign of the Israeli flag in a trash basket that read ‘Please keep the world clean!'” Of whom could that mean?
And Dark Money: The Tides Nexus , a modern “pass-through ” — also described as “charitable money-laundering”:
“The Tides Nexus is a collection of related left-of-center grantmaking, fiscal sponsorship, and advocacy nonprofits headquartered in San Francisco, California….
“The Tides Nexus has been described as an organization that ‘washes’ away the paper trail between its grants and the original donor…. The Tides Nexus (a blanket term covering all associated groups) has since grown to incorporate eight nonprofits, including various supporting entities, investment management nonprofits, a 501(c)(4) advocacy group, and a single controlling organization (the Tides Network).”
There appears to be more moral rot around than is good for any nation. The US, the UK and countries in Europe that encourage racism and other ways of pitting groups against one another — which for many is now “Big Business” — would do well to get rid of all of it, the sooner the better.