The Palestinian journalist has spent years documenting life in Gaza under Israeli occupation and, recently, amid Israel’s genocide. Her series with Al Jazeera’s AJ+ has won numerous awards, including a Peabody Award, an Edward R. Murrow Award, and even an Emmy. At the same time, pro-Israel voices have sought to silence Owda, including in a campaign in 2024 to pressure her Emmy nomination to be withdrawn.
In her Instagram video, Owda said that the ban was “expected” due to pressure from high-powered figures to censor Palestinian voices from TikTok.
She overlaid a video of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks at the UN General Assembly in September, in which he named TikTok as a “number one” priority of Israel.
She also shared a video with the company’s U.S. CEO, Adam Presser, saying that the company made a change to designate critically labelling someone as a “Zionist” as hate speech. “Over the course of 2024, we tripled the amount of accounts that we were banning for hateful activity,” Presser bragged at a conference last year.
42 Comments
JoMiran@lemmy.ml · 60 pts · 206d
Finally. Someone finally calls out Larry Ellison by name.
FYI: He also owns Oracle and Paramount/Skydance (CBS). His reach into our data and the information we consume runs very deep.
ytg@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 205d
Was reminded of this article if you’ve got some time to read
WhatSay@slrpnk.net · 27 pts · 206d
Tiktok went from Chinese propaganda to Maga propaganda, from bad to worse.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 206d
TikTok was never "Chinese Propaganda". It had roughly as many American investors as Chinese investors, with management centered in Singapore.
But the Singapore owners didn't bend over backwards to purge any Palestinian Rights power users. So it got slandered as "China Social Media" as an excuse to force the sale of the US operations.
0_o7@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 205d
Tiktok is not a Chinese propaganda like fb, twitter, and reddit "aren't" US propaganda.
A mega addictive social media platform with a world wide audience would not be able to operate independently without its state wanting to exploit that reach.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 205d
The line from the Biden Administration was that TikTok propagated anti-Zionist mass media. It was "Hamas Propaganda" according to the prior regime's leadership.
edible_funk@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 205d
Exactly, this isn't complicated. As you say, reddit facebook and Twitter are absolutely undeniably American propaganda and anyone disagreeing doesn't understand what the word means. In the same vein, tiktok was Chinese propaganda.
edible_funk@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 205d
It was absolutely Chinese propaganda, it's absurd anyone would say that it wasn't. Literally you thinking it isn't Chinese propaganda is a result of the Chinese propaganda on it.
enterpries@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 205d
How was it chinese propaganda? Did they ban people for saying tiannamen square or something?
I've only heard FUD surrounding tiktok, like the CCP having access to all of its data. That's not the same as propaganda. I've also never seen proof of them use that access maliciously and the US government now has access to all of the data a la PRISM.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 205d
We're moving from reality to orthodoxy. You're making an unfalsifiable claim.
edible_funk@sh.itjust.works · -3 pts · 205d
It censored Tiananmen Square and fostered a positive impression of China politically, economically, and socially. It openly promoted propaganda. Hell, all those "traditional Chinese manufacturing" videos were literally state sponsored. Are you operating on some extremely narrow definition of propaganda?
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 205d
The crime TikTok users committed was fostering a positive impression of Gaza.
enterpries@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 205d
Looks like you're wrong. Hopefully you can learn from this so you can prevent it from happening in the future.
Unfortunately, nobody expects you to own up to it because that's just how your kind operates.
edible_funk@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 205d
People on lemmy can't read any better than people on reddit. Censored. Past tense. This was all in the news a few years ago for those of us that haven't had their attention spans ruined by tiktok and can remember longer than a week or two at a time. Pro-China content is literally propaganda on a state sponsored app. Positive PR for a country is called propaganda. Hope this helps with your ability to understand relatively basic concepts in the future.
DaMummy@hilariouschaos.com · 1 pts · 204d
Is showing roads in Tiananmen Square not having potholes also considered Chinese propaganda?
CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works · -4 pts · 205d
Do you think there's any social media platform isn't being used as a propaganda machine at this point? If not, why wouldn't the Chinese government use it for this purpose? If so, what makes TikTok different than anyone else?
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 205d
TikTok was replete with all sorts of advertisements, marketing campaigns, and influencer content. Nobody is claiming it lacked a surplus of propaganda.
The claim Biden's administration made was that Beijing bureaucrats were dictating the social media feed of American TikTok users based on Palestine-friendly media content served up during the 2024 primaries. This is a fully unsubstantiated allegation. Nevertheless, it was used to justify the forced sale of the US branch of the application to Trump-aligned business interests.
CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 205d
Well we can't do more than speculate since we don't have inside information, but this push started during Trump's last term before Biden was elected so it seems both of them are aligned on this point. Considering everyone is using social media to push their own nationalist propaganda, I don't see how one could argue China wasn't doing it too especially considering they're also a global superpower just like the US. Why wouldn't they use it for this purpose?
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/06/900019185/trump-signs-executive-order-that-will-effectively-ban-use-of-tiktok-in-the-u-s
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 205d
We have individuals in the government on record for their reasoning.
...
eskimofry@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 205d
this claim is totally different from "TikTok is Chinese propaganda".
"Could/Would" is not the same as "is"
CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 205d
It's not a totally different claim. "Could/would" is what we use when we're forced to speculate due to a lack of insider knowledge. Claiming that it "isn't" is no more valid than claiming that it "is" in this situation, but we can use context clues like the fact that other nations are using social media for the same purpose and it originating in China, a fellow world superpower, to reason that they would be using it for similar purposes. Why wouldn't they be using an effective tool like this? This stuff isn't being created for altruistic reasons.
eskimofry@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 204d
You mean you want people to believe unsubstantiated claims that lack evidence?
Still don't see any argument that justifies substituting "could/would" with "is" except vague notion of "we do it, so they're definitely doing it"
WhatSay@slrpnk.net · -2 pts · 205d
If you searched for Tiananmen Square, it would censor/remove anything about the massacre, and promote anything about tourism.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 205d
enterpries@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 205d
Looks like you're wrong. Hopefully you can learn from this so you can prevent it from happening in the future.
Unfortunately, nobody expects you to own up to it because that's just how your kind operates.
WhatSay@slrpnk.net · -2 pts · 205d
Lol, you know nothing of "my kind"
A modern search does not equate to a search from a year ago.
enterpries@sh.itjust.works · -1 pts · 204d
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz · 14 pts · 206d
It is reasons like this we are being distracted by a moral panic about social media being bad for our health.
dominic.borcea@piefed.social · 7 pts · 206d
We need to forbid American social media at national or EU level
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 204d
I am curious how many have heard of UpScrolled which is pitched as a Palestinian alternative to Tiktok (although it isn't much like tiktok)?
It only has 2.5m users, although I guess that's twice what Lemmy has. It's also less than a year old.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 204d
I mean, there's RedNote, which has a much larger audience and absolutely is controlled by the Chinese government.
The problem with these smaller services is that there's very little content, relatively speaking. Outsiders want to know about the genocide but they don't want it to be their exclusive fixation.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 204d
I actually found Upscrolleds platform to be more similar to Rednote than it was of Tiktok. But your right, outside of genocide content there isn't much content yet.
Limerance@piefed.social · 2 pts · 206d
The account is back evidently.
enterpries@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 205d
Everyone on tiktok deserves that's coming to them.
They should be smarter and use Mastodon!
Railcar8095@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 204d
Isn't mastodon the better Twitter? And loops thee tik tok equivalent?
luciferofastora@feddit.org · 3 pts · 204d
"Smart" depends on the purpose. If you want miniblogging without corporate control, sure.
If you wanna reach many people, Mastodon isn't smarter than any of the large platforms with way more people. It sucks, but Twitter and TikTok and Instagram all have a wider audience.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 204d
There is Upscrolled which is owned by someone who is Palestinian. But that seems more like what I imagine Instagram is like and doesn't have many users yet.