Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – TikTok is one of the companies that has been criticized and considered biased in responding to the conflict between the Hamas group and Israel.
United States (US) government officials had planned to completely block the TikTok application because it broadcasts a lot of pro-Palestinian content.
Senator Josh Hawley in an open letter said that content criticizing Israel would give rise to propaganda among US society.
Some US politicians blame TikTok for many young people supporting Palestine. They accused TikTok of spreading content that vilified Israel.
It is known that repeated Israeli bombardments in Gaza have killed nearly 12,000 Palestinians. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu still rejects world calls for a ceasefire.
In the midst of this cruel action, internet giants from the US such as Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) and Google were also considered biased and siding with Israel.
One of them, WhatsApp reportedly showed a boy carrying a gun emoji on a sticker depicting ‘Palestine’. Meanwhile for ‘Israeli Troops’, there are no images of weapons and smiling military members are seen.
Responding to US accusations, TikTok management opened its voice. According to the company, the TikTok algorithm never favors any one interest.
“Our algorithm recommendations are impartial and have fair measurements to prevent manipulation,” said TikTok, quoted from TechCrunch, Wednesday (11/15/2023).
“The content people see on TikTok is aggregated by our user community. Recommendations are based on content that has previously interested them,” the company added.
Al Jazeera reported that in the 30 days ending November 8, there were 6,000 posts related to conflict in the Middle East. 55 million views refer to the hashtag #standwithisrael and 37 million views refer to the hashtag #standwithpalestine.
A total of 177,000 posts collected views with the hashtag #freepalestine.
“It is important to understand that all hashtags on our platform are created by users, not TikTok,” said a TikTok representative.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
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