Why Now? What's Different?

Russia is not longer the USIC's focus.  A Cold War with China is brewing...?  

Or is it to protect Israel from criticism? (Excerpt from video:)

Here's the Wall Street Journal's explanation: "Jacob Hellberg, a member of a congressional research and advisory panel called the US China Economic and Security Review Commission has been working on building a bipartisan bi-coastal Alliance of China Hawks, united in part by their desire to ban Tik Tok." "It was slow going until October 7th. The attack that day in Israel by Hamas and the ensuing conflict in Gaza became a turning point in the push against Tik Tok, Helberg said."

So, this was a bill that was having a great deal of difficulty until October 7th. October 7th, of course, was the day that Hamas attacked Israel setting off this horrific War that's still ongoing into its six month of Israel destroying Gaza. Why would October 7th, a conflict between Hamas and Israel, what would that have to do with suddenly taking a bill ostensibly about China, and that was slow going, and then suddenly accelerating it?

Here's the Wall Street Journal quote: "the attack that Day in Israel by Hamas and the ensuing conflict in Gaza became a turning point in the push against Tik Tok."

So, that's the answer so far from The Wall Street Journal. What changed in the last few months was October 7th. The Hamas attack on Israel, the ensuing Israeli attack on Gaza. The article goes on people who historically hadn't taken that position on Tik Tok became concerned with how Israel was portrayed in the videos and what they saw is an increase in anti-semitic content posted to the app.

I just I have to stop here, again, because I just want to make sure this point gets across. And the Wall Street Journal is by far not the only credible Outlet reporting this. People who historically had not really cared about Tik Tok before that's why it wasn't making any progress in Washington suddenly became concerned with how Israel was portrayed on Tik Tok.

That is why it picked up so much steam in Washington. Because a lot of Democrats, a lot of Republicans, who did not think that Tik Tok Banning Tik Tok was a priority suddenly realized there was one platform that was allowing a lot of criticism of this foreign country called Israel, and when they saw that they said, "Wait a minute, Tik Tok actually does seem to be a problem to the United States. Not because of China, or anything having to do with the Chinese Communist party, but because it seems like there's a lot of criticism of Israel taking place on Tik Tok. And that is what we can't allow."

Now again this is not my saying this. This is reporting from The Wall Street Journal about why suddenly this bill has mad its way through Congress.

Anthony Goldblum, a San Francisco based data scientist and Tech executive, started analyzing data that Tik Tok published in its dashboard for, and buyers showing the number of times users watch video with certain hashtags. He found far more views for videos with Pro Palestinian hashtags than those with pro-israel hashtags. Now, what is the crime that Tik Tok was found to have committed in the last several months that suddenly caused the bipartisan obsession with punishing it, and even Banning it? Here's the Wall Street Journal: "there were far more views for videos with Pro Palestinian hashtags than those with anti-israel hashtags."

Remember when Nikki Haley said, in it seemed like such a laughably Preposterous assertion, that the more, that for every 18 minutes or whatever it was that you spend on Tik Tok, you become 32% more anti-semitic? She was responding to studies like these that show that a lot of people who use Tik Tok, more people who use Tik Tok were Pro Palestinian then pro Israel.

Now, the last time I checked the American Constitution and the current Supreme Court interpretation of it, as an American citizen you are actually allowed to be more Pro Palestinian than pro-Israel if you want to be. One of your rights as an American citizen is to take sides in a particular foreign conflict, or to not take sides at all. And people on Tik Tok were taking sides. And they were taking side the side of Palestine more than they were taking the side of Israel.

Now that is not a surprise. And the reason it's not a surprise is because polling data has shown for a long time that Young Americans including Young American Jews are becoming increasingly critical of Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians. You don't have to like that, but that is the reality. And since Tik Tok is a social media platform where more young people go to express their political beliefs and find political Community, it stands to reason that Tik Tok as a place where more young people are, would have more Pro Palestinian content than pro-Israel content, whereas social media Outlets that tend to cater to older people, like Facebook, probably you would expect to find the reverse.

[...]

Now "The Economist" in March reported something quite similar, which was an article entitled: "Will Tik Tok still exist in America?" And it began picking up on this sentiment in Congress as well. "As Congress starts the clock on a ban, the app must consider its options." And they, too ask the question of what suddenly changed?: "The Proposal gained momentum partly as a consequence of disquiet over the app's handling of misinformation on anti-semitic content following Hamas's attack on Israel in October. Tik Tok's effort to stall the bill failed spectacularly."

So, those are two major credible media Outlets telling you that the reason why this bill suddenly picked up steam is not because of concern about China, but because of concern about protecting Israel. Protecting Israel, not from foreign actors, but from the views of American citizens. Being concern that Tik Tock permits American citizens who are critical of Israel to freely Express their views about Israel and Palestine.

The executive director of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblat, who long before October 7th has been a crusader for censorship of things he doesn't like. He was urging Fox News to fire Tucker Carlson for years, went on to Morning Joe and essentially made clear that the concern of the pro-Israel Lobby in the United States, as that there are too many social media Platforms, in particular, the ones catering to a younger generation, that are allowing too much anti-Israel content in the United States.

Here's what he told Morning Joe: "Speaking frankly about it we've been on the show we've talked about Instagram, we've talked about Twitter or X, and you've seen my back and forth with Elon Musk, but we need to talk about Tik Tock. Tik Tock, if you will, it is the is the 24/7 news channel of so many of our young people and it's like Al Jazerra on steroids amplifying and intensifying the anti-Semitism and the anti- Zionism with no repercussions. I've got to ask Joe..."

Is it a coincidence that the Anti-Defamation League went on to MSNBC and announced that their main concern was Tik Tok and the fact that Tik Tok is allowing too much Israel anti-Israel speech?

Or is it what I believe to be even more true... to protect politicians from criticism over their support of policies that the American people don't support.   Like "Israel v. Palestine". Or "Trump v. Deep State"?  Or of Ukrainian war policy critics... 

...but MOSTLY, I think that control of Tik Tok is desired specifically to protect Democrats from their own Leftist idiots boycotting and primary challenging them by erecting a politically controlled social media censorship monopoly.