Conspiracy theories and paranoia go hand in hand with American politics like stars and stripes. Or, more accurately, it’s about what the United States loves most, like appeals to democracy and invasions of the Middle East.
The United States’ obsession with Chinese super-hackers stealing information is nothing new. American politicians love nothing more than accusing competing global markets of theft and espionage, except maybe rigging South American elections.
So when Trump floated the idea of banning the Chinese-owned app TikTok in 2020, Democrats and Republicans alike came together on common ground, deeming TikTok a national security threat by the Chinese Communist Party.
The “threat” of banning TikTok has resurfaced nearly every year since then.
In April 2024, Biden signed a Congressional Act which demanded TikTok’s owners to divest and sell to an American company.
The act’s sponsor, right-wing sock puppet and former House Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, claimed that TikTok’s algorithm pushed “rampant pro-Hamas propaganda” to trick Americans into sympathizing with victims of genocide.
Over the last 473 days of genocide in Palestine, which continues despite a Jan. 18 ceasefire, the Israeli occupation’s “major operation” shifted from Gaza to the West Bank. TikTok has been an essential tool for social and political mobilization, education, and international action.
Operation Olive Branch, started by comedian Erin Hattamer, has seen incredible success on TikTok by matching content creators with a vetted Palestinian family fundraising on GoFundMe.
Members of the operation, like author Hank Green and members of a viral love triangle, have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for their sponsored families through TikTok’s Creator Fund and audience donations.
Other than similar projects like Operation Watermelon, Palestinians in Gaza have used TikTok to educate and raise funds. Nineteen-year-old Medo Halimy gained 250,000 followers by documenting his life and garden in a refugee camp before he was murdered in August, causing an uproar online and in mainstream news while the occupation denied it ever bombed his location.
Bisan Owda, a 27-year-old journalist, has a total of 6.2 million followers, with 1.2 million on TikTok. Her documentary It’s Bisan From Gaza — and I’m Still Alive (2024), titled after her videos’ opening line, won an Emmy, despite Zionist groups decrying its nomination as antisemitic.
TikTok has also been used to organize global protests for Palestine, 150 of which took place on American university campuses last year and which several congressmen blamed on the app’s “coordinated efforts.”
Similarly, the advocacy organization Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East has been primarily using TikTok to plan events across Canada with other groups, including Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights, which organized the student encampments at McGill University last autumn.
Evidently, banning TikTok isn’t about protecting Americans’ information from the Chinese boogeyman but about crushing Palestine’s liberation movement.
In the first week of Trump’s second presidency, infamous billionaires such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerburg are already trying to buy TikTok and implement the same bigoted guidelines which have turned Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter into right-wing cesspools of misinformation.
Note: This is an Opinion article, reflecting solely the author’s views. It does not reflect or represent the views of The Concordian as a whole.