Empire Managers Say Russia, China and Iran Are Tricking Students Into Opposing Genocide
Empire managers and propagandists are losing their minds about student protests against the genocide in Gaza on university campuses, so naturally we’re seeing a mad push to frame this as the result of interference by Russia, China, Iran and Hamas. These demented conspiracies of foreign influence come even as Israel’s prime minister openly calls for the US government to quash the university protests by any means necessary.
In a speech supporting the ban of TikTok this past Tuesday, Senator Pete Ricketts said the protests are an example of “the Chinese Communist Party using TikTok to skew public opinion on foreign events.”
“Look what’s happening in our college campuses right now around this country,” Ricketts said. “Pro-Hamas activists are taking over public spaces and making it impossible for campuses to operate.”
“Why is this happening?” Ricketts continued. “Well, let’s look at where young people are getting their news. Nearly a third of adults 18 to 29, these young people in the US are regularly getting their news exclusively from TikTok. Pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas hashtags are generating 50 times the views on TikTok right now despite the fact that polling shows Americans overwhelmingly support Israel over Hamas. These videos have more reach than the top 10 news websites combined. This is not coincidence. The Chinese Communist Party is doing this on purpose. They are pushing this racist agenda with the intention of undermining our democratic values. And if you look at what’s happening at Columbia University and other campuses across the country right now, they’re winning.”
Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) comes right out and admits it: they’re about to ban TikTok because “young people are getting their news” from the app, and “pro-Palestinian” hashtags generate lots of views. He says Chinese Communists are “pushing this racist agenda” to undermine America pic.twitter.com/ahcRcnXXfU
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) April 23, 2024
These comments from Ricketts are repugnant and deceitful in a whole host of ways, but let’s touch on the big ones.
The senator’s claim that TikTok is being manipulated to artificially amplify pro-Palestine content is false, as evidenced by the fact that TikTok’s US-based rivals Facebook and Instagram have been showing the same massive gaps between the popularity of pro-Palestine content and the popularity of pro-Israel content. His argument is as logically fallacious as claiming that flat earth content is being artificially suppressed because it’s not as popular as round earth content. Pro-Israel content is just less popular, because it sucks and people don’t like it.
Ricketts’ assertion that “polling shows Americans overwhelmingly support Israel over Hamas” is deceitful; polling shows a majority of Americans oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza, regardless of whether they “support” the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Also noteworthy is the way Ricketts just comes right out and acknowledges that TikTok is presenting a problem because its pro-Palestine content has been going viral among young people in ways the legacy media can’t compete with. This amounts to an admission that empire managers like Pete R
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