Jewish tech executives met with TikTok CEO over concerns about pro-Palestinian bias: reports
A group of 40 mostly Jewish tech leaders and business executives confronted TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew over concerns about anti-Semitism and the allegedly disproportionate popularity of pro-Palestinian videos on the app, according to multiple reports. .
During the Zoom meeting last month, executives reportedly presented an analysis of TikTok data during the war between Israel and Hamas and pressed for answers about what they considered an “unexplained discrepancy” in content that favored the Palestinians, Fortune reported.
The analysis was supported by 90 co-signers, including Tinder co-founder Sean Rad, former Meta chief revenue officer David Fischer, and Bonobos co-founder Andy Dunn, according to Bloomberg.
“For every view of pro-Israel posts, there are about 54 views of pro-Palestinian posts,” said one of the executives, Anthony Goldbloom, a partner at AIX Ventures, told fortune. “If TikTok was just a mirror reflecting what people believe, it shouldn’t have a 54:1 ratio.”
The executives also expressed concern about the rise in anti-Semitic violence and urged TikTok to reconsider its thinking about which videos violate its guidelines.
The meeting, which was said to be “cordial”, came during a period of renewed criticism over the Chinese-owned app. Chew was reportedly one of multiple TikTok executives in attendance.
“This is an extremely difficult time for millions of people around the world and in our TikTok community,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement to Bloomberg. “We believe it is important to meet and listen to creators, human rights experts, civil society and other stakeholders to help guide our continued work to keep our global community safe.”
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the meeting.
The spread of inflammatory content related to the war between Israel and Hamas has led to critics alleging that the Chinese Communist Party uses the app as a propaganda tool to influence Americans and capture their data, accusations that TikTok has denied.
As The Post reported, several Republican lawmakers renewed their calls for TikTok to be banned in the U.S. over concerns about the spread of anti-Israel posts on the platform. TikTok said there was “no basis for these false claims” that pro-Palestinian videos were spreading more quickly.
The uproar intensified in mid-November after TikTok influencers posted a series of viral videos praising 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden’s 2002 “letter to America,” in which terrorist leader described the creation of Israel as a “crime that must be erased” and referred to the AIDS epidemic as “an American satanic invention.”
TikTok had pushed back against the criticism in a Nov. 13 blog post that criticized what the company described as “misinformation and mischaracterization about how the TikTok platform actually operates.”
The company said it has worked quickly to remove any videos that violate its policy against hateful content.
“Direct comparisons of hashtags are highly misleading and misrepresent activity on TikTok,” TikTok said.
“For example, the hashtag #standwithIsrael may be associated with fewer videos than #freePalestine, but it has 68% more views per video in the US, meaning more people are viewing the content,” the post adds. .
The company has also described claims that pro-Palestinian videos have been spread more than pro-Israeli videos as “simply false.”
TikTok is not the only social media platform facing scrutiny for its response to the conflict between Israel and Hamas. A growing number of major companies, including Disney and Apple, have suspended advertising on X due to concerns about anti-Semitic content, including problematic posts from company owner Elon Musk.
Musk responded in a now-infamous interview at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit this week, telling companies that took advertising dollars to “fuck off” and specifically criticizing Disney CEO Bob Iger.
Musk has denied that the problem is worse on X than on other social media platforms.
