It sucks that you used the mediaβs term βIsrael-Hamas warβ. Equating the victims of genocide (Palestinians) to militant groups (Hamas) is a classic technique precisely for manufacturing consent for genocide - something similar was done during the Rwandan genocide. Big miss on this one.
It's a genocide on Palestinians and militant groups resisting it. Hamas is barely targeted, it is an obstacle. Israeli army killed the leader of Hamas by accident. They were busy bombing hospitals.
I'm not glorifying Hamas, military conflicts aren't a cartoonish good vs evil. But it is clear there is no symmetry between a colonial apartheid state and resistance to that state.
This comment is Orwellian nonsense. Your statement frames the war as something initiated by Israel and subsequently resisted by Hamas, when in fact Hamas started the entire thing on Oct 7 by killing 1,200 Israelis and kidnapping hundreds of others, including foreign nationals. Framing Hamas as a resistance when they actually triggered this latest cycle of violence is willful naivety or deliberate distortion.
Do you seriously think Hamas started the war on Oct 7? What ground do you have your head buried in. The genocide on Palestine has been happening over 70 years. It is Isreal who is being recognised as committing war crimes and violating human rights.
This has been happening ever since Israel, over the dogmatic following of Zionism, got granted Palestinian territory from the British in 1948. Arabs have been suffering from this ideology ever since: they have been dehumanized in the western world (Israeli education system, post-9/11 islam xenofobia and vice versa), which is why this genocide is so justified today and why you probably dismiss the whole history behind it and the innocent people it has made go through inhumane experiences.
Why media say opposite, that Palestinians attack on Isreali? It then looks like in that bad joke, about Israeli being provocateurs (boy who cried wolf + being that wolf)?
I didn't really expect this level of analysis from The Etymology Nerd, but there is a certain sense to it. It seems that relatively few, but a consistent few, really yearn to know what's going on outside of the box.
By calling Brian Thompson's murder an assassination, you are implying that he is a figure of importance, equating the CEO of a corporation with a political or religious leader. I see a lot of posts complaining that, when a rich white man is killed, it's an assassination, while the killing of thousands by denying health coverage is not even acknowledged as murder. People are pointing out that, when a rich white man is killed, there is an expensive manhunt, but when BIPOCs are killed, no resources are spent. And so on. So personally, I have stopped calling it an assassination.
From what I understand, βassassinationβ does not mean the person who was killed was important, it means the person was killed for political and not personal reasons, so it can be argued that this was an assassination.
The post ignores the fact that a TikTok ban had been discussed and was gaining momentum months, even years before the war in Gaza. Cherry-picks data to confirm the authorβs priors about Israel. Minimizes one of the most logical explanations for the ban which is that TT is owned by one of Americaβs largest adversaries and we are entering a new period of conflict with the East (China-Russia-Iran-NK alliance) and TT was another casualty of that conflict.
Itβs fine to discuss how pro-Israel leaders played a role in that larger, more complex conversation. Obviously figures like Karp had a voice. But to reduce the entire ban to what is essentially portrayed as a list of Jews who are seemingly manipulating the government, as Matzko has done, is to demonstrate an almost obsession with Jewish / Israeli influence that echoes some of the oldest anti-Semitic tropes from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
why do you think multiple previous attempts to block TikTok didn't succeed, and this one did?
calling my take reductive IS reductive - I never said this was just about Israel, but used it as one example of how TikTok breaks the narrative of manufactured consent
Thank you, came here to say the same thing. The author is revealing his critical thinking skills have become a victim of the platform he's trying to defend. Really made me lose some respect for him :/
Decentralisation is a process that scares many people because it implies a lack of control, and who has control of the present dictates both past and future. I donβt think people are that machiavellian and plan ahead such bans or even media coverage, instead, I do think people feel constant fear of losing their privilege and just act in ways that justify their opinions and thoughts. Pro-Palestinian movements and the Luigi case are pure examples of that. Generally what I am trying to say is that politics nowadays is dictated by fear of erasure rather than actually communal living and progress.
Good point. Personally, I think that the key to fighting back against this erasure in online spaces is precisely a community-based approach that traditional media struggles to do without big donors. The internet is a land of nomads; news stories will splinter into a thousand different viewpoints for different ideologies, and online communities, movements, and assemblages that are spread out across various platforms and accounts are the key to keeping these voices alive and elevating them in light of pushback.
While I think I need to do further research to say more confidently, I think that China does use tik tok algorithm to influence the public's opinion and affect the policies of its geopolitical rivals.
It makes complete sense for an authoritarian government to do it, there is no downside for them, and it's very difficult for democracies to battle against because banning tiktok would erode the freedom of speech and a lot of people would be justifiably against it.
That being said, I think it's a lesser of 2 evils (banning tik tok) as China's influence through their control of it would be worse (speaking from a utilitarian perspective). It's important to be aware that it sets a dangerous precedent, and part of the government's reasoning is definitely the expanded ability for censorship, however the underlying argument (tiktok harms democratic societies due to being controlled by an authoritarian regime) for banning it is sound.
Minus everything about TikTok spot on. Sorry, TikTok is a tool for an enemy of western governance. Full stop. You can use another platform to continue the same narrative and communication democratization.
You have an extremely poor understanding of the threat China poses and also the timeline of interest in banning TikTok.
Right now, as I type this, China is hacking into critical infrastructure around the US such as power and water plants. They have already impacted millions of computers. If they wanted to they could turn off electricity to millions. [1, 2]
Since 2016, foreign adversaries (including China) have been using social media to try and sow discontent and fear, ultimately to influence elections and de-stabilize the nation. [3]
Chinese companies are effectively controlled by the PRC as they are required to have functionaries of the Party as their leadership. [4]
Chinese companies such as Lenovo and Huwawei have been caught sending the data of Americans to servers in China. [5, 6] China has specifically used TikTok to track protesters in Hong Kong. [7]
China has gone to extremely great lengths to collect as much data about Americans as possible, including financial data and biometrics. [8]
People, including researchers outside the US, have been raising concerns about Chinese companies since at least 2015. The TikTok ban was first seriously discussed in the US in 2020, 3 years before the current escalations in Gaza.
Do you really, seriously think given all this that the reason people want to ban TikTok is *Gaza*? You donβt think thereβs even a slight chance that China, the country using every other tool at their disposal to subvert the US, could be using their largest social media platform similarly?
If you still do, then I have to wonder what *your* angle is. Why are you manufacturing a narrative that TikTok is innocent and the government doesnβt have legitimate reasons to want to ban it? Is it for magic Internet points?
I made a couple of suggestions to high public officials, one of them a university professor who works with the government, and they asked me to please take them off of my mailing list.
Great read. I just posted my first Substack talking about this too, but in a slightly different way. Love to see all the critical thought around the ban.
How can we avoid filter bubbles with social media though? I agree with everything you wrote, but I'm pretty sure pro-Israel users still only see pro-Israel content, just like they would with traditional media.
Great article, but it should be pointed out that TikTok suffers from the same kind of influence from its end -- the Chinese Communist Party is also a content filter over there.
I needed this post three days ago when I wrote 20 page paper on Luigi mangione through a sociological perspective ππππ
I want to read that paper!
It sucks that you used the mediaβs term βIsrael-Hamas warβ. Equating the victims of genocide (Palestinians) to militant groups (Hamas) is a classic technique precisely for manufacturing consent for genocide - something similar was done during the Rwandan genocide. Big miss on this one.
Edited, thanks for the clarification. Really good example of exactly what I was talking about
What is it then? /gen
It's a genocide on Palestinians and militant groups resisting it. Hamas is barely targeted, it is an obstacle. Israeli army killed the leader of Hamas by accident. They were busy bombing hospitals.
I'm not glorifying Hamas, military conflicts aren't a cartoonish good vs evil. But it is clear there is no symmetry between a colonial apartheid state and resistance to that state.
This comment is Orwellian nonsense. Your statement frames the war as something initiated by Israel and subsequently resisted by Hamas, when in fact Hamas started the entire thing on Oct 7 by killing 1,200 Israelis and kidnapping hundreds of others, including foreign nationals. Framing Hamas as a resistance when they actually triggered this latest cycle of violence is willful naivety or deliberate distortion.
Do you seriously think Hamas started the war on Oct 7? What ground do you have your head buried in. The genocide on Palestine has been happening over 70 years. It is Isreal who is being recognised as committing war crimes and violating human rights.
This has been happening ever since Israel, over the dogmatic following of Zionism, got granted Palestinian territory from the British in 1948. Arabs have been suffering from this ideology ever since: they have been dehumanized in the western world (Israeli education system, post-9/11 islam xenofobia and vice versa), which is why this genocide is so justified today and why you probably dismiss the whole history behind it and the innocent people it has made go through inhumane experiences.
But not all people in Israel is like that, or?
Why media say opposite, that Palestinians attack on Isreali? It then looks like in that bad joke, about Israeli being provocateurs (boy who cried wolf + being that wolf)?
I have watched so many of your vids that I can't help but read your Substack too in that hurried excited tone of yours ππ
I didn't really expect this level of analysis from The Etymology Nerd, but there is a certain sense to it. It seems that relatively few, but a consistent few, really yearn to know what's going on outside of the box.
By calling Brian Thompson's murder an assassination, you are implying that he is a figure of importance, equating the CEO of a corporation with a political or religious leader. I see a lot of posts complaining that, when a rich white man is killed, it's an assassination, while the killing of thousands by denying health coverage is not even acknowledged as murder. People are pointing out that, when a rich white man is killed, there is an expensive manhunt, but when BIPOCs are killed, no resources are spent. And so on. So personally, I have stopped calling it an assassination.
From what I understand, βassassinationβ does not mean the person who was killed was important, it means the person was killed for political and not personal reasons, so it can be argued that this was an assassination.
The post ignores the fact that a TikTok ban had been discussed and was gaining momentum months, even years before the war in Gaza. Cherry-picks data to confirm the authorβs priors about Israel. Minimizes one of the most logical explanations for the ban which is that TT is owned by one of Americaβs largest adversaries and we are entering a new period of conflict with the East (China-Russia-Iran-NK alliance) and TT was another casualty of that conflict.
Itβs fine to discuss how pro-Israel leaders played a role in that larger, more complex conversation. Obviously figures like Karp had a voice. But to reduce the entire ban to what is essentially portrayed as a list of Jews who are seemingly manipulating the government, as Matzko has done, is to demonstrate an almost obsession with Jewish / Israeli influence that echoes some of the oldest anti-Semitic tropes from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Longer timeline of the ban: https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/feature/TikTok-bans-explained-Everything-you-need-to-know
why do you think multiple previous attempts to block TikTok didn't succeed, and this one did?
calling my take reductive IS reductive - I never said this was just about Israel, but used it as one example of how TikTok breaks the narrative of manufactured consent
Thank you, came here to say the same thing. The author is revealing his critical thinking skills have become a victim of the platform he's trying to defend. Really made me lose some respect for him :/
Decentralisation is a process that scares many people because it implies a lack of control, and who has control of the present dictates both past and future. I donβt think people are that machiavellian and plan ahead such bans or even media coverage, instead, I do think people feel constant fear of losing their privilege and just act in ways that justify their opinions and thoughts. Pro-Palestinian movements and the Luigi case are pure examples of that. Generally what I am trying to say is that politics nowadays is dictated by fear of erasure rather than actually communal living and progress.
Good point. Personally, I think that the key to fighting back against this erasure in online spaces is precisely a community-based approach that traditional media struggles to do without big donors. The internet is a land of nomads; news stories will splinter into a thousand different viewpoints for different ideologies, and online communities, movements, and assemblages that are spread out across various platforms and accounts are the key to keeping these voices alive and elevating them in light of pushback.
Apes together strong, basically.
While I think I need to do further research to say more confidently, I think that China does use tik tok algorithm to influence the public's opinion and affect the policies of its geopolitical rivals.
It makes complete sense for an authoritarian government to do it, there is no downside for them, and it's very difficult for democracies to battle against because banning tiktok would erode the freedom of speech and a lot of people would be justifiably against it.
That being said, I think it's a lesser of 2 evils (banning tik tok) as China's influence through their control of it would be worse (speaking from a utilitarian perspective). It's important to be aware that it sets a dangerous precedent, and part of the government's reasoning is definitely the expanded ability for censorship, however the underlying argument (tiktok harms democratic societies due to being controlled by an authoritarian regime) for banning it is sound.
Minus everything about TikTok spot on. Sorry, TikTok is a tool for an enemy of western governance. Full stop. You can use another platform to continue the same narrative and communication democratization.
You have an extremely poor understanding of the threat China poses and also the timeline of interest in banning TikTok.
Right now, as I type this, China is hacking into critical infrastructure around the US such as power and water plants. They have already impacted millions of computers. If they wanted to they could turn off electricity to millions. [1, 2]
Since 2016, foreign adversaries (including China) have been using social media to try and sow discontent and fear, ultimately to influence elections and de-stabilize the nation. [3]
Chinese companies are effectively controlled by the PRC as they are required to have functionaries of the Party as their leadership. [4]
Chinese companies such as Lenovo and Huwawei have been caught sending the data of Americans to servers in China. [5, 6] China has specifically used TikTok to track protesters in Hong Kong. [7]
China has gone to extremely great lengths to collect as much data about Americans as possible, including financial data and biometrics. [8]
People, including researchers outside the US, have been raising concerns about Chinese companies since at least 2015. The TikTok ban was first seriously discussed in the US in 2020, 3 years before the current escalations in Gaza.
Do you really, seriously think given all this that the reason people want to ban TikTok is *Gaza*? You donβt think thereβs even a slight chance that China, the country using every other tool at their disposal to subvert the US, could be using their largest social media platform similarly?
If you still do, then I have to wonder what *your* angle is. Why are you manufacturing a narrative that TikTok is innocent and the government doesnβt have legitimate reasons to want to ban it? Is it for magic Internet points?
1. https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa23-144a
2. https://umbc.edu/stories/what-is-volt-typhoon-a-cybersecurity-expert-explains-the-chinese-hackers-targeting-us-critical-infrastructure/
3. https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/2024-10/Q3_2024_EAC_Threat_Briefing.pdf
4. https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/03/12/5-things-to-know-about-bytedance-tiktoks-parent-company/
5. https://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2018/05/23/flawed-by-design-electronics-with-pre-installed-malware/amp/
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Huawei#Consumer_electronics
7. https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-china-bytedance-user-data-d257d98125f69ac80f983e6067a84911
8. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-military-personnel-charged-computer-fraud-economic-espionage-and-wire-fraud-hacking
I made a couple of suggestions to high public officials, one of them a university professor who works with the government, and they asked me to please take them off of my mailing list.
Great read. I just posted my first Substack talking about this too, but in a slightly different way. Love to see all the critical thought around the ban.
Absolutely true!!
A rule of thumb says that if you want to understand any event in the world, just look at the political angle.
And if you want to understand politics, just look where the cash flows.
How can we avoid filter bubbles with social media though? I agree with everything you wrote, but I'm pretty sure pro-Israel users still only see pro-Israel content, just like they would with traditional media.
Claiming the ban of Tiktok (something done in many countries) is due to Aipac is as ridiculous as unabashedly siding with Hamas talking points.
Excited for your book.
Great article, but it should be pointed out that TikTok suffers from the same kind of influence from its end -- the Chinese Communist Party is also a content filter over there.