Jewish comedian Sacha Baron Cohen angrily accused TikTok of creating “the biggest antisemitic movement since the Nazis.”
The “Borat” star lashed out during a virtual discussion Wednesday with executives from the social media site that has since been flooded with people even praising the late al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and justifying the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
He was joined by fellow celebrities Debra Messing and Amy Schumer and more than a dozen Jewish content creators, according to recordings of the meeting obtained by the New York Times.
“What’s happening on TikTok is that it’s creating the biggest antisemitic movement since the Nazis,” Cohen told officials on the site, where he apparently doesn’t have an account.
“If you think back to October 7, the reason Hamas can behead young people and rape women is that they were given an image when they were young that made them hate,” he continued, the Times said.
The British star told TikTok executives that they could only “flip a switch” to fix antisemitism on the platform, which the meeting was told included people saying “Hitler was right” and “I hope you end up like Anne Frank.”
“Shame on you,” he told executives, led by TikTok’s chief operating officer, Adam Presser, and head of global consumer operations, Seth Melnick, the Times report said.
Sacha Baron Cohen took aim at TikTok for creating “the biggest antisemitic movement since the Nazis” in a meeting with executives on Wednesday.Getty Images
The executives — who are both Jewish — appear to be aware of the criticism, the Times suggests.
“Obviously a lot of what Sacha says, there’s truth to it,” Presser said, maintaining there was no “magic button” to fix it.
Still, he admits: “We can do better.”
“Will and Grace” star Messing — who has more than 37,000 followers on the platform, — also used the opportunity to pressure executives at TikTok to ban the pro-Palestinian phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which many see as a call for wipe out Israel.
Amy Schumer also signed a letter calling out TikTok’s alleged antisemitism. Getty Images for Good+Foundation
The phrase, deemed antisemitic by the Anti-Defamation League, has appeared in comments on many videos of Jewish TikTok users — regardless of what they posted.
But Presser said the use of the phrase is up to interpretation by TikTok’s 40,000 moderators.
“If it’s clear what they mean – ‘kill Jews, destroy the state of Israel’ – the content is infringing and we remove it,” the executive said.
But “Our approach up until Oct. 7, continuing to this day, was that in instances where people used an obscure phrase, where someone just used it casually, then that was considered acceptable speech,” he said.
Messing then asked the company to reconsider its position.
“It makes more sense to stop it at this point than to say, ‘Oh, well, some people, they’re using it in a different way that it was actually created to mean.’
“I understand that you are in a very, very difficult and complicated place, but you are also the main platform for the spread of Jew hatred,” he said.
Others who spoke at the 90-minute hearing questioned why they couldn’t contact individuals directly on TikTok when they were harassed on the app, with one user saying that after he reported an incident, administrators took three to five days to respond.
Presser and Melnick blamed it on understaffing.
It’s now trying to restructure its creator management team to get more individual or community support for larger accounts, Presser said.
The virtual fight came after many of the same groups sent an open letter to TikTok condemning Jewish users for being bombarded with such hate.
“In short, TikTok lacks critical security features to protect Jewish content creators and the broader Jewish TikTok community, leaving us in digital and physical danger,” said the letter, which was also signed by Messing and Schumer.
“Unfortunately, rampant antisemitism is a common problem that TikTok has failed to address for far too long.”
“The daily reality for Jewish content creators on TikTok includes death threats, endless threatening comments on posts (mostly just because they are Jewish) and a barrage of harassment in all forms of interaction that TikTok facilitates,” the letter reads.
“As Jews, we are scared, disappointed and at the breaking point,” he said, claiming, “this is not just ‘digital disruption.’ There are real-world implications.
“We fear that only an unforeseeable tragedy befalling Jewish TikTok creators will lead to change,” they wrote. “Is that what you were waiting for?”
They concluded by saying, “TikTok is more than just an app, and you have a huge responsibility as a manager of the daily influence and media consumption of more than a billion people.”
But as TikTok users and celebrities met virtually on Wednesday, other users on TikTok shared Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to America,” in which he claimed he masterminded the deadly attack on the World Trade Center that killed nearly 3,000 Americans because the US “attacked we are in Palestine.
The terrorist leader also called the creation of Israel a “crime that must be erased,” and went on to insist that in the US, Jews “control your policies, media and economy.”
Speaking of videos of Gen Z users promoting the letter, one person at Wednesday’s meeting claimed it had become “app talk,” and added, “Regarding the trending topic as we speak, this trend needs to end .
“This app needs to ban this letter.”
A TikTok spokesperson has since said that “the content promoting this letter clearly violates our rules about supporting any form of violence” and added that the company is “proactively and aggressively removing this content and investigating how it got onto our platform.”
At the same time, the company tried to deny that any bin Laden-related content had gone viral – despite the videos getting hundreds of thousands of views.
“The number of videos on TikTok is small and reports of them trending on our platform are inaccurate,” the spokesperson added.
“This is not unique to TikTok and has appeared on various platforms and media.”
TikTok previously denied that it influenced young users, and claimed it had released nearly a million videos related to the Israel-Hamas conflict, according to The Telegraph.
It also claims that the number of pro-Palestinian posts on its platform reflects the fact that the younger generation is more likely to sympathize with the cause.
“We realize this is a very difficult and scary time for millions of people around the world and in our TikTok community,” company executives said in a statement to the Times.
“Our leaders have met with creators, civil society, human rights experts and stakeholders to hear their experiences and feedback on how TikTok can remain a place for community, discovery and authentic sharing.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
