Tag: tik tok

The frenzy to ban TikTok is another National Security State scam

On November 20, 2023, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, wrote in a joint letter to the CEO of TikTok that the platform was guilty of “stoking anti-Semitism, support, and sympathy for Hamas” after the October 7 attack on Israel. “This deluge of pro-Hamas content is driving hateful anti-Semitic rhetoric and violent protests on campuses across the country,” McMorris Rodgers charged. A year ago, in March 2023, she had already declared: “TikTok should be banned in the United States of America.”

This week the plan came to fruition, with McMorris Rodgers and her colleagues orchestrating what could be best described as a legislative sneak attack: suddenly the House of Representatives, a notoriously dysfunctional body — particularly this Congressional term, with all the Republican leadership turmoil — took decisive, concerted, expedited action to pass legislation banning TikTok before most of the public would have even gotten a chance to notice. The bill was introduced March 5, 2024, advanced by a unanimous committee vote on March 7, 2024, then approved for final passage March 13, 2024. Almost nothing ever passes Congress at such warp-speed.

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TIKTOK THREAT IS PURELY HYPOTHETICAL, U.S. INTELLIGENCE ADMITS

THE PURPORTED THREAT of TikTok to U.S. national security has inflated into a hysteria of Chinese spy balloon proportions, but the official record tells a different story: U.S. intelligence has produced no evidence that the popular social media site has ever coordinated with Beijing. That fact hasn’t stopped many in Congress and even President Joe Biden from touting legislation that would force the sale of the app, as the TikTok frenzy fills the news pages with empty conjecture and innuendo.

In interviews and testimony to Congress about TikTok, leaders of the FBI, CIA, and the director of national intelligence have in fact been careful to qualify the national security threat posed by TikTok as purely hypothetical. With access to much of the government’s most sensitive intelligence, they are well placed to know.

The basic charge is that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, a Chinese company, could be compelled by the government in Beijing to use their app in targeted operations to manipulate public opinion, collect mass data on Americans, and even spy on individual users. (TikTok says it has never shared U.S. user data with the Chinese government and would not do so if asked. This week, TikTok CEO Shou Chew said that “there’s no CCP ownership” of ByteDance, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.)

Though top national security officials seem happy to echo these allegations of Chinese control of TikTok, they stop short of saying that China has ever actually coordinated with the company.

Typical is an interview CIA Director William Burns gave to CNN in 2022, where he said it was “troubling to see what the Chinese government could do to manipulate TikTok.” Not what the Chinese government has done, but what it could do.

What China could do turns out to be a recurring theme in the statements of the top national security officials.

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Banning TikTok is a Power Grab for the Deep State 

Legislators have made exceedingly clear that the intent of the bill they’re currently fast-tracking through Congress is “to finally ban TikTok in the United States,” as Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), chair of the House Republican conference, proudly put it.

“TikTok must be banned,” concurred Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA), the Republican chief deputy whip.

“I applaud the strong bipartisan effort to ban TikTok,” added Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“No one is trying to disguise anything,” clarified Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX). “We want to ban TikTok.”

Some of the bill’s proponents, like Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), have been less forthcoming than their colleagues. Sherrill strangely repeats the common yet obviously specious claim that the bill “doesn’t ban TikTok,” which is just pure politician sleight-of-hand: No, the text does not specifically provide for an immediate, automatic, blanket ban of TikTok, but it does provide for a fatal ultimatum to effectuate the ban of TikTok within six months, requiring TikTok to comply with U.S. demands for divestiture from its parent company, ByteDance, or face federal prohibition. So while the legislation would not impose the ban right away, it does create the exact statutory mechanism by which TikTok is named and targeted for banning in the very near future.

Ultimately, the desired end-result is the same one that has been long sought by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), the bill’s leading sponsor: “To ban TikTok … before it’s too late.” The forced divestiture is merely a mechanism to achieve this predetermined outcome.

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The Big Flaws in That Study Suggesting That China Manipulates TikTok Topics

The latest wave of fearmongering about TikTok involves a study purportedly showing that the app suppresses content unflattering to China. The study attracted a lot of coverage in the American media, with some declaring it all the more reason to ban the video-sharing app.

“Hopefully members of Congress will take a look at this report and maybe bring the authors to Washington to give testimony about their findings,” wrote John Sexton at Hot Air. The study “suggests that the next generation will have had a significant portion of their news content spoon fed to them by a communist dictatorship,” fretted Leon Wolf at Blaze Media. “TikTok suppression study is another reason to ban the app,” declared a Washington Examiner editorial.

But there are serious flaws in the study design that undermine its conclusions and any panicky takeaways from them.

In the study, the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) compared the use of specific hashtags on Instagram (owned by the U.S. company Meta) and on TikTok (owned by the Chinese company ByteDance). The analysis included hashtags related both to general subjects and to “China sensitive topics” such as Uyghurs, Tibet, and Tiananmen Square. “While ratios for non-sensitive topics (e.g., general political and pop-culture) generally followed user ratios (~2:1), ratios for topics sensitive to the Chinese Government were much higher (>10:1),” states the report, titled “A Tik-Tok-ing Timebomb: How TikTok’s Global Platform Anomalies Align with the Chinese Communist Party’s Geostrategic Objectives.”

The study concludes that there is “a strong possibility that TikTok systematically promotes or demotes content on the basis of whether it is aligned with or opposed to the interests of the Chinese Government.”

There are ample reasons to be skeptical of this conclusion. Paul Matzko pointed out some of these in a recent Cato Institute blog post, identifying “two remarkably basic errors that call into question the fundamental utility of the report.”

The errors are so glaring that it’s hard not to suspect an underlying agenda at work here.

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Is TikTok brainwashing the kids about Gaza? No, this is just an old moral panic in a new form

In a famous two-frame meme from The Simpsons, Principal Skinner asks himself: “Am I so out of touch?” “No,” he decides, with resolve. “It’s the children who are wrong.” It’s the easiest thing, dismissing the views of young people when they question our beliefs. It’s even easier when those views are mainly expressed on a social media platform that can also be dismissed as a lawless land of misinformation and clickbaiting. And so as Palestine- and Gaza-related content explodes on TikTok, predictable responses have arrived, and some have been pretty out there.

The Republican presidential contender Nikki Haley called for the banning of TikTok altogether when she said in a primary campaign debate last week that “for every 30 minutes that someone watches TikTok, every day they become 17% more antisemitic, more pro-Hamas based on doing that”. Last month, a Republican congressman said that TikTok was “digital fentanyl”, brainwashing young Americans against their country and its allies. Over at the Telegraph, we are told that the app’s “threat is real”.

TikTok responded by stating that it’s just how the algorithm works. It does not “take sides” but simply personalises the user’s news feed to show more of the kind of content they interact with. And as Israel, Palestine and Gaza began to dominate the news cycle, users naturally began to search and consume more content relating to them. That has resulted in a whole churn of videos. Some informative, such as Gaza map breakdowns; some poorly sourced and propagandistic on both sides; and some competitively supportive of one party or another. Within those interactions, there are nuances, such as breakdown of support by location and age profile. The overall picture, though, shows a much higher appetite for content that is supportive of Palestine; views attached to pro-Palestine hashtags vastly outnumber those such as #istandwithisrael.

Dismissing this as “brainwashing” is to write off not only millions of young people, but also an entire social media development that is not just a fad, but a new way of consuming news and information. TikTok is the most downloaded app for 18- to 24-year-olds, and the way they use the platform to navigate their daily lives means it is no longer just for viral dance videos, but increasingly a search engine that users turn to instead of Google. Instagram has evolved in the same way. Prabhakar Raghavan, a Google senior vice president, in an acknowledgment of the encroachment of these apps on Google’s territory, said that according to Google’s own studies, “almost 40% of young people, when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search. They go to TikTok or Instagram”.

Ignoring these developments also assumes that all information on TikTok is bad, self-generated and highly manipulable garbage. The reality is that news reports about Gaza from mainstream media are frequently clipped and circulated on TikTok, extending their window of relevance and consumption. Over the past few days the most-watched clip on CNN’s TikTok account, which has more than 3 million followers, is one of its news anchor Jake Tapper taking Mark Regev, senior adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu, to task over the killing of the family of one of CNN’s producers in Gaza by Israeli airstrikes. On the Guardian’s TikTok account, the most-watched video of the past six weeks, with more than 7m views, is of a protester interrupting the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and calling for a ceasefire.

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Judge Halts Montana’s First Amendment-Violating TikTok Ban

A TikTok ban in Montana is likely unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled on Thursday.

Judge Donald Molloy, with the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana, issued a temporary halt to enforcing the ban. It was scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2024, and would have meant $10,000 penalties per day for app stores or TikTok “each time that a user accesses TikTok, is offered the ability to access TikTok, or is offered the ability to download TikTok.”

The ruling “is a welcome victory in the face of a relentless and illiberal campaign against the First Amendment and the Internet,” said Ari Cohn, free speech counsel with TechFreedom. “Wholesale bans on speech-enabling platforms are an affront to the First Amendment, and it is deeply troubling that so many have cheered them on based on panic, fear, or a general disdain for the platform.”

Montana’s TikTok ban (SB 419) was signed into law by Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte last May, calling it a measure “to protect Montanans’ personal and private data from the Chinese Communist Party.” The move came amidst a flurry of official paranoia—and propaganda—about how the app, with its Chinese parent company, could be a threat to national security, personal privacy, and America’s youth.

TikTok creators and TikTok itself sued, arguing that the ban was unconstitutional. The two suits were since consolidated.

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TikTok will SCRUB videos of anti-Israel Gen-Zer’s fawning over Bin Laden’s vile 2002 ‘Letter to America’ because it ‘clearly violates our rules on supporting any form of terrorism’

TikTok has blasted users promoting a vile letter written by Osama Bin Laden in regards to the 9/11 atrocities and promised to remove any content referring to it.

‘Content promoting this letter clearly violates our rules on supporting any form of terrorism,’ TikTokPolicy wrote in a post to X, formerly Twitter.

‘We are proactively and aggressively removing this content and investigating how it got onto our platform.’

The video-sharing platform claims the number of videos on TikTok is ‘small’ and ‘reports of it trending [on the] platform is inaccurate.’  

‘This is not unique to TikTok and has appeared across multiple platforms and the media,’ the post added.

Bin Laden, who founded terror group Al-Qaeda with the aim of waging holy war on the western world, wrote a ‘Letter to America’ in 2002 to defend the motivation behind his murderous attack on mainland America that killed thousands of innocent people.

In the viral letter, bin Laden spews anti-American, anti-Semitic and anti-Western viewpoints, citing one of the main reasons for 9/11 being the US support for Israel.

At the time of writing, videos with the hashtag ‘LettertoAmerica’ have been viewed 7.3 million times. 

Extraordinarily the majority are claiming support for the twisted reasoning Bin Laden lays out without a thought for the freedoms he criticizes.

The letter began to gain traction online after UK newspaper The Guardian linked to a 2002 article which translated it in full in a piece about the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. 

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TikTok-Famous Police Chief Swapped Incest Vids on Secret Twitter Account: Feds

A TikTok-famous small-town police chief traded incest videos via a secret Twitter account discovered during a search of his home office, according to a newly unsealed federal complaint reviewed by The Daily Beast.

Joel Justice Womochil, 38, went by “@ictbaddad” on the social media platform now known as X, with a profile picture of “Pedobear”—which the complaint describes as “a pedophilic cartoon utilized by some individuals engaged in the pedophile community.”

“Hello kids :)” read the banner across the top of the now-defunct account’s profile page. Womochil, as @ictbaddad, described himself online as a “38 w male looking 4 that special girl that was raised right and wants 2 continue the tradition,” according to the complaint. “If u luv the little things In life message on Wire same name[.]”

Womochil became police chief in Burns, Kansas, a town of 250 people, in February 2022, and served until his sudden resignation in early August. He said only that it was in the “best interest of me and this department,” though he continued working part-time as a detention deputy in neighboring Butler County. A little over a week later, Womochil was arrested on state charges of possessing child sexual abuse material. As of Friday, he is now facing two federal counts of receipt and possession of child pornography, with penalties that could put the disgraced lawman behind bars for decades.

The details of what Womochil allegedly had been seeking out and exchanging online have not been previously revealed.

His TikTok videos of life as a police officer regularly racked up tens of thousands of views, with some getting more than 600,000.

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TikTok star and English language teacher Luke Rockwell, 29, with 2m followers is arrested for ‘having sex with a minor he infected with STDs’ while working at private Christian schools in Bangkok

TikTok star and teacher Luke Rockwell has been arrested for allegedly having sex with a minor her mother says he infected with STDs while teaching English at private Christians schools in Bangkok.

The 29-year-old, from Florida, reportedly contacted a 16-year-old schoolgirl on social media before having sex with her ‘on multiple occasions’ while recording it and telling her to ‘keep it a secret’.

Last month the young girl fell ill with abdominal pains caused by chlamydia and gonorrhea passed onto her by Rockwell, who uses the name Teacher Luke for his TikToks, according to the girl’s mother.

Her worried mother rushed her to hospital before uncovering the alleged sex. 

The horrified mother filed a police report on August 29 and Rockwell was arrested yesterday at his luxury apartment for ‘sex with a minor’ and ‘recording the acts’. 

Speaking today, the shaken mother said: ‘My daughter had been messaging Teacher Luke for months using my phone. She deleted the messages after they chatted.

‘They met and had sex without me knowing, then my daughter caught gonorrhea and chlamydia from him.

‘I knew something was wrong when my daughter looked very sick. She looked pale and she was clutching her tummy complaining about the pain in that area. I kept on asking her questions until she told me about this man called Teacher Luke.

‘My daughter said the first time they had sex, Teacher Luke used protection but after he did not use any. She trusted him.

‘Teacher Luke told her to keep everything a secret until she turned 18. He told my daughter that he loved her and would let her come live with him when she’s no longer a minor.

‘My daughter messaged him the STD test result where she had tested positive for gonorrhea. He promised that he would take responsibility for the costs.

‘I’m not complaining to the police because I want money or compensation. I don’t care about the money.

‘I want every woman and child to know how evil Teacher Luke is. It’s embarrassing for me to tell people about what’s happening to my family but I hope it prevents Teacher Luke from ever taking advantage of any girl in the future.’

Rockwell is from Melbourne, Florida. He graduated from the University of Central Florida. He previously worked at the prestigious Wall Street English college in Bangkok, where he taught locals.

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Biden Wanted To Partner With Communist Chinese App To Spy On Americans

A Forbes report has revealed that the Biden Administration attempted to forge a contractual agreement with TikTok that would have allowed the government to control features of the Chinese app to spy on Americans.

Forbes managed to get hold of a draft of the contract between TikTok and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) that would have essentially allowed multiple US agencies to access the app’s records and operations in exchange for allowing it to continue operating in the U.S.

The report notes that the draft agreement dating from mid 2022 would have given the Department of Justice and Department of Defense direct access to TikTok users’ activities, allowing for searches of TikTok’s US headquarters, files, and servers without providing any notice.

The U.S. government would have basically been using the exact same methods via TikTok that the Communist Party in China uses to monitor its citizens.

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