Sen. Hawley urges Yellen to ban TikTok over alleged boosting of anti-Israel content amid war

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Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican, wrote a letter Tuesday to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen calling for a ban on TikTok over claims the social media platform has prioritized anti-Israel content amid the nation's ongoing war against Hamas terrorists.

Hawley warned of TikTok's "power to radically distort the world-picture that America's young people encounter" and that the war in the Middle East is a "crucial test case."

"According to one poll, 51% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 believe that Hamas’s murder of civilians was justified—a statistic notably different from other age cohorts," Hawley wrote. "Analysts have attributed this disparity to the ubiquity of anti-Israel content on TikTok, where most young internet users get their information about the world."

The senator was referring to a recent Harvard CAPS Harris poll in which 51% of registered voters between the ages 18 to 24 said they believe Hamas' attack against Israel on Oct. 7 can be "justified by the grievance of Palestinians." In comparison, the poll found that this statement was supported by 48% of people ages 25 to 34, 39% of people 35 to 44, 23% of people 45 to 54 and 11% of people 55 to 64.

Hawley alleges that young Americans' stance on the war is consistent with the Chinese government’s foreign policy preferences. Chinese President Xi Jinping has not condemned Hamas but has called for a cease-fire and an eventual two-state solution.

"And we know from past experience that political manipulation is business as usual for TikTok," he wrote. "To take just one example, in 2019, as ByteDance partnered with the Chinese government to surveil Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, TikTok censored American user content critical of this repression. It appears that ByteDance is once again up to its old tricks—as innocent Israelis suffer and die."

"This simply heightens the stakes of the TikTok question: the longer this app is allowed to operate in the U.S., the longer its Chinese Communist Party overseers will apparently be able to propagandize Americans," Hawley's letter continues. "That is unacceptable."