Adam Kredo of the Washington Free Beacon notes a disturbing pattern among TikTok supporters’ recent online complaints about Congress.
TikTok supporters online are claiming that “pro-Israel lobbying groups” and Jews are responsible for pressuring Congress into fast-tracking bills that would ban the Chinese social media app, which the U.S. intelligence community deems a national security threat.
Online activists across X, Reddit, and other popular internet forums are spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories claiming that prominent Jewish-American leaders oppose TikTok because it has emerged as a central repository for anti-Israel criticism related to the war against Hamas.
One X account with nearly a million followers pinned blame for the ban on Jonathan Greenblatt, the Jewish leader of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a watchdog group that has raised concerns about the prevalence of anti-Semitism on TikTok. The claims parrot classic examples of anti-Semitism alleging that Jews control politics and use this power to silence criticism of Israel. The emergence of this argument is raising concerns on Capitol Hill amid a massive rise in Jew-hatred across America in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror strikes on Israel.
“Seeing Gen Z in the US overwhelmingly support Palestine in the face of Israeli aggression, TERRIFIED [Greenblatt],” wrote X user “Censored Men” in a March 13 missive to more than 983,000 followers. “Is it such a coincidence that today the ‘TikTok Ban Bill’ passes after MONTHS of congress pushing for it so heavily?”
“With the speed they moved to ban TikTok, there is 0 doubt in my mind pro-Israel lobbying groups are behind the pressure,” wrote another X user, “Lolo,” to more than 155,000 followers. “Israel has been getting absolutely cooked on TikTok the last few months and it doesn’t help that their own bozo soldiers are posting videos of them doing war crimes once a week.”
