tiktok

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sadly primary on texas wildfire laser BS 3 24

SEE MANOSPHERE 4 spanish?

SEE BYTEDANCE YASS FUNDER

ELLISON NEO BABY

MURDOCH?

bogus, toxic pending

see misinfo

yikes primary pending gen z tucker willie soon

merri ok

see algorithm radical funnel

thugswarm ~ deplatform

recall image bypass brain critical abilities

short // early twit?

chinese co, not sure what happened from trump pressure to sell?

bak 3 24

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Study confirms what many suspected: the 2024 election was rigged

U.S. President Donald Trump places a hand over his heart during a Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, U.S., November 11, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

:{Thom HartmannJuly 10, 2026

It sure looks like tech billionaires and foreign dictatorships gave us Trump in 2024. This is as bad as the massive Russian bot presence on Facebook and Twitter back in 2016, which Robert Mueller documented gave Trump the presidency that time.

A peer-reviewed study released Thursday in Nature, the world’s most prestigious scientific journal, has finally put hard numbers to what a lot of us suspected the moment the 2024 election was called for Trump (and Republicans in Congress) by the big networks: the algorithms that control our largest social media platforms intentionally and explicitly tilted the playing field, and they tilted it for Donald Trump and the GOP.

Researchers at New York University Abu Dhabi created hundreds of “sock puppet” TikTok accounts in New York, Texas, and Georgia (via VPN), uploaded to them either pro-Democratic or pro-Republican videos to show their political leanings, and then watched what TikTok’s algorithm fed back to them every day over the 27 weeks leading up to Election Day.

Across more than 280,000 recommendations, Republican-seeded accounts received about 11.5 percent more “party-aligned content” than their Democratic counterparts, while the pro-Democratic accounts were force-fed 7.5 percent more attacks from the other side. As Professor Talal Rahwan put it:

“The algorithm wasn’t just giving people what they want; it was giving one side more of what the other side says about them.”

The pro-rightwing bias was even more dramatic when researchers looked at how the candidates’ own accounts did. Candidate Trump’s official TikTok videos were pushed to Democratic-leaning users 27 percent of the time, while Kamala Harris’s videos only reached Republican-leaning users just 15.3 percent of the time.

Translation: Leading up to the 2024 election, TikTok was working overtime to expose Democrats and lefties to MAGA’s most persuasive messaging, all while shielding rightwingers, independents, and Republican voters from Harris’s voice.

Making it even more astonishingly consequential, studies show that TikTok matters enormously to young people; roughly half of TikTok users under 30 say they use the app to keep up with politics and news, and that TikTok-engaged demographic shifted a mind-boggling full 10 percentage points toward Trump between 2020 and 2024 following this exposure.

Young men, for example, flipped from voting 56 percent Biden in 2020 to 56 percent choosing Trump in 2024, the kind of swing that decides battleground states.

Even more troubling, other research shows that TikTok isn’t an outlier. It’s one piece of a much larger algorithm-run social media ecosystem, and that system is now the main way a plurality of Americans engage with politics. Pew Research, for example, found that 42 percent of US social media users consider these platforms “important” for getting involved in political and social issues, and almost none of them have any idea how the top-secret social media algorithms decide what they see.

Sometimes it’s so obvious that it’s surprising it’s not a bigger news story.

Researchers at the Queensland University of Technology found a “structural break for Musk’s metrics around July 13th, 2024,” the exact day Elon Musk endorsed Trump. Overnight, algorithm-driven view counts on Musk’s own X posts jumped 138 percent and retweets exploded 237 percent, far above what any other major account experienced.

And it wasn’t just Musk’s own posts that got the boost; other pro-MAGA, pro-white supremacy, pro-GOP right-wing accounts across X were also systematically amplified. A separate peer-reviewed field experiment published this year in Nature randomly assigned active US users to either an algorithmic or chronological X feed for seven weeks. The result — what could only be called successful brainwashing of those being fed posts by the X algorithm — was astonishing.

The scientists noted that those on the algorithmic feed shifted “towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump, and views on the war in Ukraine.”

And once people are initially convinced of a worldview, changing their mind is a huge and usually unsuccessful undertaking, which is why rightwing billionaires were so eager to fund Charlie Kirk and other programs to indoctrinate schoolkids. Switching back to a chronological feed didn’t undo the damage.

This was on top of the roughly $277 million Musk personally spent electing Trump and Republicans, $239 million of it through his America PAC, making him by a wide margin the largest individual donor of the 2024 cycle.

Then there’s Mark Zuckerberg. After spending a decade telling Congress that Meta was politically neutral, Zuckerberg watched Trump win, metaphorically dropped to his knees, and immediately killed the fact-checking systems on Facebook and Instagram that kept identifying and calling out Trump’s and Republicans’ lies and misrepresentations.

Like a loyal puppy (or a terrified rabbit), Zuck called Trump’s reelection “a cultural tipping point,” wrote a $1 million check to Trump’s inaugural slush fund, replaced his head of global policy with longtime Bush-era Republican Joel Kaplan, and then announced he was moving Meta’s trust-and-safety operation from California to Texas. Meta’s institutional pivot toward Trump and MAGA wasn’t even subtle.

YouTube — also largely owned and run by right-wing billionaires — isn’t innocent either. A UC Davis audit using 100,000 sock-puppet accounts found that right-leaning users get systematically funneled into channels pushing rightwing extremism, conspiracy theories, and hard-right “otherwise problematic content,” while left-leaning users see nothing comparable.

A separate Brookings analysis found that YouTube’s algorithm tugs every user, regardless of where they start, “in a moderately conservative direction.”

I’ve been around digital media since the very beginning. My business partner Nigel Peacock and I were running forums on CompuServe back in the early 1980s, when “going online” meant a 300-baud modem screeching into your phone line and a connection bill that could put a small business under in a month.

The platforms were primitive, slow, and gloriously pluralistic; gatekeepers were a handful of sysops who worked with Nigel and me (CompuServe paid us) trying to keep the message boards clean and useful. Things were civil, the feed was chronological, and there was no anonymity; even political arguments were reasonable.

None of us back then imagined that one day a few billionaires would be able to flip a switch in Beijing, San Francisco, or Austin and successfully shift the political mood of an entire continent overnight. But that’s exactly where we are today, and it appears to have been the tipping point that brought us Trump and all the horrors that accompanied him.

The closest historical parallel is the era of William Randolph Hearst and the Yellow Press at the turn of the 20th century. Hearst’s chain of newspapers reached more readers than any information outlet in human history up to that point, and when he decided it would be in his interest for America to have a war with Spain in 1898, he largely manufactured one with wild, sensationalist coverage of an explosion in the boiler room of the USS Maine in Havana harbor, casting it as an attack against America.

He’s said to have cabled his illustrator in Cuba, “You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war.” And, sure enough, within just a few months, America was at war.

The difference between Hearst and the men running today’s platforms isn’t moral; it’s mechanical. Hearst had to print on physical paper and ship it on physical trains. Musk, Zuckerberg, and the executives at TikTok and Google/YouTube can rewrite the political information environment in which hundreds of millions of people are marinating in real time, with no editor, no copy desk, and — unless things change — exactly zero public accountability.

So what do we do about these men effortlessly swinging our elections invisibly and without spending a penny of their own money? Three things are at the top of the list that Democrats in Congress and Democratic candidates need to make priorities.

First, Congress needs to require algorithmic transparency, as I suggested in The Hidden History of Big Brother in America. Senators Markey and Blumenthal have introduced excellent bills demanding that platforms disclose how their recommendation systems weight political content and forcing them to submit to fully independent audits. Given the political power these platforms and their billionaire owners command and how they’ll fight to hang onto it, none of these types of bills will pass without sustained public pressure.

Second, we need to repeal or substantially reform Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act so that algorithm-driven platforms are treated legally like the publishers they are, rather than like the telephone wires they used to travel over.

Third, the Justice Department’s antitrust division needs to be unleashed against the handful of companies that now control the political conversation in America. Standard Oil was broken up in 1911. AT&T was broken up in 1984. There is nothing about Meta, X, or Google that makes them more sacred that these behemoths that preceded them.

Call your senators today through the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and tell them you want algorithmic transparency legislation and Section 230 reform. Make sure your voter registration is current at vote.org, check on your state-level legislators at openstates.org, and start telling everyone you know that science has now proven that the 2024 election wasn’t a free and fair contest of ideas.

It was — based on this new research — a rigged information environment run by a handful of billionaires that put a corrupt, predatory fellow billionaire in the White House and helped install billionaire-friendly Republican lickspittles in Congress and state houses across the country.

We can fix this mess. But only if we stop scrolling and start demanding change.

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2 26 MANY yt ON CENSORSHIP ~ KARA?

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DUCK 5 26

- [rawstory.com

Researchers expose algorithm skew that boosted Trump in 2024

2 days ago

](https://www.rawstory.com/trump-2676859361/)

- [truthout.org

TikTok Algorithm Favored Conservative Content in 2024 POTUS Race, Study Suggests

23 hours ago

](https://truthout.org/articles/tiktok-algorithm-favored-conservative-content-in-2024-potus-race-study-suggests/)

A NEW study examining the algorithms of the social media site TikTok appears to suggest that content users received on the platform skewed more politically conservative during the 2024 presidential election, regardless of a user’s personal preferences.

Researchers Talal Rahwan and Yasir Zaki at New York University’s Abu Dhabi campus created over 300 “dummy” botaccounts tomimic real-life users during the 2024 race. The bots “lived” in Democratic-leaning New York, Republican-leaning Texas, and the “purple” state of Georgia.

After creating the accounts, the researchers trained some to follow and react positively to Democratic messaging, while others were trained to support Republican content. Afterward, the researchers monitored the accounts’ “For You” pages for 27 weeks during the campaign, analyzing over 280,000 videos that were suggested by TikTok.

For the Republican bots, the outcome was predictable: the algorithm resulted in an 11.5 percent higher chance that they’d see more Republican-leaning content than Democratic-leaning posts.

But for the Democratic bots, it was different. Those accounts were 7.5 percent more likely to see Republican posts than Democratic ones.

News

Human Rights

TikTok Restricts Gaza Journalist Bisan Owda’s Account Mere Days After US Deal

Owda’s account had 1.4 million followers, she said.

By Sharon Zhang , TruthoutJanuary 29, 2026

“Our findings show partisan imbalances in political information exposure on a platform dominated by algorithmic recommendations, with implications for platform governance and democratic discourse,” the researchers wrote in their study, which was published in *Nature*this week.

“The question arises whether the partisan content recommended on TikTok is skewed towards one party over the other,” the authors added.

TikTok responded to the study’s findings, claiming that its conclusions were largely incorrect. In a statement, the company stated:

This artificial experiment with fake accounts does not reflect how people actually use TikTok. In reality, people discover and watch a wide variety of content on our platform which they continuously shape and can control through more than a dozen tools the authors seem unaware of.

But the study’s authors defended their conclusions.

“Our finding isn’t just about reinforcement; Democratic accounts were shown significantly more anti-Democratic content than Republican accounts were shown anti-Republican content,” Rahwan said, speaking to *The Guardian* about the study’s findings.

“The algorithm wasn’t just giving people what they want; it was giving one side more of what the other side says about them,” Rahwan added.

How social media sites design their algorithms — and whether they are skewed toward one political party over another, accidentally or purposefully — could have real repercussions for elections and the political direction of the country. Indeed, according to data collected from Pew Research, 57 percent of Americans used digital devices “often” to get their news in 2024, higher than any other media, including television (33 percent) and the radio (11 percent).

“In an environment where margins are thin, systematic differences in the kind of political information recommended to tens of millions of young voters are worth taking seriously,” Zaki said.

TikTok Algorithm Favored Conservative Content in 2024 POTUS Race, Study Suggests | Truthout

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Nature

https://www.nature.com › articles › d41586-026-01314-0

TikTok's algorithm systematically skewed to the right during the 2024 ...

2 days agoAn audit of TikTok's recommendation algorithm using hundreds of automated 'bot' accounts during the 2024 US presidential election finds that the 'For You' feed of the platform steered ...

## Videos for **TIKTOK 2024 ELECTION STUDY

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Scott Galloway on TikTok, Musk, and the Radicalization Pipeline | Best of Lincoln Square

959 views Premiered 3 hours ago #politics #lincolnsquare #democracy

:{:{Scott Galloway lays out the real fix for social media: end legal cover for algorithmic amplification, force competition, and age-gate the platforms that harm kids. Then he explains why TikTok (and Elon’s Twitter) supercharge polarization and radicalization. Published Sept 25, 2023. Watch the original video: [ • Society's Negative Impact On Young People ...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYMBB_WaQeI}:

Remove Section 230 for algorithmic amplificatioN

Break up big tech (competition as “oxygen” Age-gate social media for minor Why TikTok is uniquely dangerouS Influence at scale: “CCP owning everything” analog The attention economy (and why it’s overpowering TikTok’s growth + why numbers may be understate Radicalization pipeline + Musk’s Twitter}:

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MMA

TikTok threw my account down a pro-eating disorder rabbit hole

01/13/26

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mma

TikTok Shop is selling supplements made by Plandemic filmmaker

For $29 on TikTok, you can buy a supplement to “bulletproof your immune system” and “surround it with piranhas” from a company that pushes medical misinformation

Written by Abbie Richards

Research contributions from Alex Kaplan

:{:{Published 09/25/25}:

On TikTok Shop, users can now purchase a supplement that will purportedly “bulletproof your immune system.” The product was “founded” by a group that includes Mikki Willis, who has falsely claimed that measles is a “bioweapon” and said he has been “working with” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Willis is also known for creating the viral film Plandemic, which pushed conspiracy theories about COVID-19.

TikTok Shop’s policies prohibit the sale of “medicinal supplements,” including “unlicensed medicines, herbal or homeopathic products, and those making health claims.” But that isn’t stopping the creators of Fierce Immunity from selling their supplement on the platform and suggesting that people who take it “don’t get sick.”

Fierce Immunity is a supplement claiming to “supercharge your immune system”

Fierce Immunity is billed as “a synergistic blend of bioactive compounds, precision-engineered to supercharge your immune system” and “a powerful blend of Vitamin D, Zinc Ascorbate, Quercetin, Hesperidin, and L-Arginine designed to fortify your immune system, reduce inflammation, and support rapid recovery.”

The supplement was created by a group that includes medical misinformers, and it was reportedly formulated with an “AI technology,” known as Swarm Intelligence. Fierce Immunity is also the first item listed in parent company Rebel Lion’s “Measles Protocol.” As part of the protocol, Rebel Lion claims Fierce Immunity works as “both prevention and response in times of viral threat.”

Health care experts have said that while some people can benefit from a vitamin D supplement, most people do not need vitamin D supplements because they get sufficient vitamin D from their diet and lifestyle. And while zinc plays a role in immune health, supplements are usually necessary only for people with zinc deficiency. In fact, some experts say excessive zinc levels can actually be “dangerous to your health.”

In small print, Fierce Immunity's website admits, “Fierce Immunity is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. … You should not use the information contained herein for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, or prescribing any medication.”

Rebel Lion is selling and promoting Fierce Immunity on TikTok

Rebel Lion is selling Fierce Immunity on TikTok Shop, even though the platform prohibits the sale of “unlicensed medicines, herbal or homeopathic products, and those making health claims.” In fact, the company is selling the product on the platform at half of its usual price of $58 a bottle.

On its TikTok account, Rebel Lion has posted videos of people making some bold claims about Fierce Immunity, such as saying it will “bulletproof your immune system” and “lock it down, supercharge it, and surround it with piranhas,” “It shields my immunity. I don’t get sick,” and “Two years ago I began taking Fierce Immunity … and in that two years, I haven’t been sick, not even a sniffle.” In another video, a man is repeatedly hitting a tire in a gym with a voiceover saying, “After six weeks of constant gut issues, I tried Fierce Immunity and in just two days, my discomfort vanished.”

In Rebel Lion webinars on YouTube, the commentary about Fierce Immunity gets even wilder. In a webinar dedicated to the “Real Story Behind the Measles Outbreak,” Rebel Lion co-founder Chris Roy said that “nobody that I know that’s taking Fierce Immunity is getting sick.” Roy also claimed that his friend’s sister “had breast cancer — stage four — and started taking Fierce Immunity and within about a month they said her tumors are shrinking.”

Fierce Immunity is being sold by a company led by medical misinformers

According to Rebel Lion's website, Fierce Immunity was “founded by Mikki Willis, Chris Roy, and JP Sears.” Willis and Sears both have histories of spreading medical misinformation.

Willis is the creator of the viral film Plandemic, which Wired reported was a “widely debunked pseudo-documentary” that “suggested Covid-19 was released to profit those in positions of authority and that vaccines were ineffectual.” During Rebel Lion's “The Real Story Behind the Measles Outbreak” webinar, he falsely claimed that measles is a “bioweapon” that has “been manipulated and targeted towards a community that is a threat because of their natural way of living.” In February, Willis also claimed that he had “been working with RFK Jr.” and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard “for over a decade.”

Willis is still sowing doubt and mistrust around the safety of COVID-19 vaccines. During the Rebel Lion webinar, Willis encouraged viewers to share an upcoming video with their friends and family who still trust vaccines and linked his father’s heart issues to vaccines:

MIKKI WILLIS: I was getting calls from these people that were severely injured. They were the first ones to line up for the COVID-19 vaccines. And they were manipulated and coerced into doing that for whatever reason. We’ve been following them on their journey of healing for the past four years. They went from perfectly healthy to confined to a wheelchair, having to have breathing apparatuses just so they can breathe, to having seizures every 30 minutes, some of them severely injured from being perfectly healthy.

And so we’ve witnessed that firsthand. And that movie, when it comes out, share it like crazy because I have been saying, that’s the movie that ends the debate. If you have family members, friends, whoever it is that are still in denial just because maybe they got vaccinated and they’re OK, which, thank God, so many people are. My father and mother-in-law both, I don’t know, two or three vaccines — they’re fine. My father, three vaccines, three heart attacks — I just put him in hospice care.

In the description of the “ Real Story Behind the Measles Outbreak” webinar, Rebel Lion describes the video as an “urgent discussion … unpacking the latest measles outbreak in Texas and exposing what mainstream media refuses to report,” including questions like “Is this a mutated bioweapon?” and “Are vaccinated individuals more vulnerable?”

Journalists have described Sears as a “conservative, anti-vaccine comic” and “the clown prince of wellness.” In his comedy sketches, Sears has implied that vaccines cause autism, that COVID-19 boosters are intended to depopulate the world, and that mRNA vaccines are ineffective.

Roy, who owns the “Rebel Lion” trademark, doesn’t seem to have a significant history as a public persona online. Instead, he seems to bring the marketing expertise to the Rebel Lion project.

In May, Rebel Lion released a film that featured Dr. Ben Edwards and Dr. Richard Bartlett, who have downplayed the threat of measles, and Pierre Kory, whose certification was revoked by the American Board of Internal Medicine for his promotion of ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19.

Edwards reportedly treated measles patients in Texas, including children, with cod liver oil while reportedly having an active measles infection himself.

Bartlett has suggested that the measles vaccine could cause measles and that reporting on the rise in measles is a “misinformation, disinformation campaign to character-assassinate RFK and the Make America Healthy Again movement.” During the “Real Story Behind the Measles Outbreak” webinar, Willis asked Bartlett: “Should we stop all measles vaccines and let children get natural immunity?” Bartlett didn’t seem to answer the answer directly, but he said: “Parents deserve to know all the information. … We’re supposed to as doctors give informed consent. As far as vaccines, it’s again an individual decision. Traditional vaccines made with a live virus or a live weakened virus make sense to me. But there’s a risk. They’re live measles viruses. Live measles viruses cause measles.” He added that “every risk of measles can happen with the MR vaccine. And you’re not gonna hear that on CNN.”

During the May film, Kory argued that “measles is essentially just a rash. It was one of the most common childhood illnesses. It’s not lethal by any stretch of the imagination. Over 90% of kids with measles will suffer no complications. And the few that do, those complications are easily treatable.”

The Centers for Disease Control has been clear: Measles “isn't just a little rash.” In fact, the CDC says that 1 in 5 people who get measles will be hospitalized, and 1 in 20 children with measles will get pneumonia, which is “the most common cause of death from measles in young children.” A 2024 study also estimated that measles vaccines averted over 60 million deaths between 2000 and 2023.

Medical misinformers often sow doubt around vaccines and then profit from anxious consumers

Fierce Immunity offers something of a window into a larger industry in which grifters profit off fear and medical misinformation, seeding distrust in lifesaving vaccines while simultaneously selling bogus solutions.

Immediately after stoking fear about COVID-19 vaccines in the Rebel Lion webinar, Willis said, “This is why we created Fierce Immunity.” Roy added that when measles started breaking out, “that was the beginning of the conversation — was we were getting so many people asking us what they should do, what they should take, how should they build their immune system. Because we know … it all starts with the immune system.”

This sort of approach is also seen elsewhere in the medical misinformation space. For instance, a 2024 study from the University of Washington documented how wellness influencers leveraged anti-vaccine messaging for profit, using it to sell products including heavy metal detox sprays and supplements, homeschooling resources, and “off-grid” supplies. And during the pandemic, right-wing media figures and anti-vaccine activists peddled ivermectin as a miracle drug, even though it is ineffective at treating COVID-19.

Rebel Lion’s “Measles Protocol” also includes Budesonide, which the American Academy of Pediatrics has said is “not a recommended nor effective treatment for measles,” and an “antimicrobial oral rinse that reduces viral and bacterial load in the mouth.”

TikTok Shop is selling black market Ozempic, performance enhancement drugs, and cosmetic filler

10/22/24 2:04 PM EDT

### TikTok Shop is selling black market vapes to children … again

06/27/25 10:02 AM EDT

### Unregulated GLP-1 patches are exploding on TikTok Shop

09/09/25

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https://www.msn.com › en-us › news › politics › trump-and-gop-got-financial-help-from-another-donor-linked-to-tiktok › ar-AA1rQHrr

Trump and GOP Got Financial Help From Another Donor Linked to TikTok - MSN

The wife of ByteDance board member William Ford has contributed $1.4 million to Donald Trump and other GOP campaign groups in recent months. MOLLY B ? NOT ANYMORE?

===

Trump’s TikTok deal could face hitch over billionaires’ stakes in China parent ByteDance: sources

NY Post

Charles Gasparino

:{:{Tue, September 16, 2025}:

President Trump’s much touted TikTok deal could be facing a last-minute hitch – and it has to do with billionaires, taxes and China hawks in Congress, On The Money has learned.

Billionaire Jeff Yass – a major Trump backer in the 2024 election who heads the giant investment firm Susquehanna partners – is among those who could face the wrath of Congress or a major US tax levy if they are forced to sell their current stakes in TikTok’s Beijing-based owner, ByteDance, in order to buy into a new, US-controlled TikTok, according to insiders.

So are Bill Ford of General Atlantic Partners and private equity powerhouse KKR. All were big investors in ByteDance and they have been planning to “roll” their shares into the new US-controlled company to avoid hefty capital gains taxes.

China hawks in Congress have said in recent days that they will carefully review the “framework” for a US-led TikTok that President Trump announced earlier this week. AFP via Getty Images

Susquehanna is said to hold a 15% stake in ByteDance and General Atlantic is seen holding an equally large position. KKR’s stake is around 1.7%.

The question is whether a roll-over comports with the current law demanding that the US majority controls TikTok. At least on paper, the Chinese shares could end up as most of the equity in the new company when you throw in the 19.9% stake promised to the mainland that will be held by ByteDance.

The White House, for its part, believes the deal comports with the law. “There is no way the law prevents US investors from controlling the new company using their Chinese shares,” one White House insider told me. “They are US investors, Under the law that does not constitute further Chinese ownership that has to stop at 19.9%.”

Others involved in the deal aren’t so sure. Congressional concerns are mounting that the deal still violates legislation designed to ban TikTok if it’s not totally divorced from China.

Billionaire Trump backer Jeff Yass of Susquehanna Partners is among those who could face the wrath of Congress or a major US tax levy if they are forced to sell their current stakes in TikTok’s Beijing-based owner, ByteDance. yassprize.org

So are Bill Ford of General Atlantic Partners (above) and private equity powerhouse KKR. Bloomberg via Getty Images

“If these guys who hold ByteDance stock want in, they are probably going to have to sell,” one prospective equity investor told On The Money. “If this thing looks like it’s going to be majority owned or even close to it by the Chinese, Congress is going to go nuts.”

“I just don’t see how they sell a company that is controlled using mostly ByteDance stock as equity,” the equity investor added.

A rep for General Atlantic had no comment. Reps for Susquehanna and KKR had no immediate comment.

China hawks in Congress have said in recent days that they will carefully review the “framework” for a US-led TikTok that President Trump announced earlier this week. Many want TikTok shut down because in addition to spying, they believe it serves up filth to users in the US who are mostly young adults and children.

China President Xi Jinping has agreed to allow US tech giant Oracle control and rewrite the app’s all-important algorithm, the secret sauce that curates videos based on user preferences. POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Yass, Ford and the people at KKR could, of course, keep their ByteDance shares and make a new investment in the US company said to be worth approximately $50 billion to appease Congress.

Another possible solution is that they don’t sell all their shares and roll some into the new company, which would mean the ByteDance shares could comprise as much as 49% of the equity, which might satisfy China hawks and their concerns over ownership.

Or they could roll over their Chinese shares and let President Trump argue the deal passes legal muster.

As reported by On The Money this week, China President Xi Jinping has agreed to allow US tech giant Oracle control and rewrite the app’s all-important algorithm, the secret sauce that curates videos based on user preferences, but which lawmakers claim is used by the Chinese to spy on US users. Oracle is also a likely top investor in the new company.

That algorithm issue was considered a major hurdle in getting a deal – until the possible ByteDance share issue emerged on Tuesday.

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an 9 25

President Donald Trump's so-called American oligarchs—the 1 percent CEO class who voted for him for tax cuts and deregulation—are complaining about getting nothing of the sort and, instead, being on the receiving end of "highly personalized government control," according to The New Republic.

In off-the-record conversations facilitated by The Yale School of Management's Jerry Sonnenfeld, chief executive officers say this isn't what they signed up for when they voted for Trump.

"They claim Trump’s “state-driven capitalism”—which I think is more accurately termed fascist corporatism—offends their sense of patriotism, what they really seem to resent is having routinely to pay Trump tribute, either by enriching him personally or by helping him try to plug the $3 trillion revenue hole he created with his idiot Big Beautiful Bill," writes TNR's Timothy Noah.

These CEOs, who have also privately expressed alarm over the erosion of democracy, want their money back, but it's looking like there are no refunds just yet—only tariffs.

About thosetariffs, seventy-one percent of CEOs say they are killing their businesses, according to a Wall Street Journal poll, and three quarters of them agreed that tariffs are illegal. That same seventy-one percent also agreed that Trump has decimated the independence of the Federal Reserve.

IFrame Content

"This is government by shakedown, and they are the mark. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch," Noah quips.

But what really burns CEOs most, according to an article Sonnefeld co-wrote with Yale colleague Stephen Henriques in Fortune, is Trump's dipping into the coffers of companies like Intel and Nvidia.

"The Trump administration’s drift toward a quasi-socialist statism, seizing ownership from private shareholders, dictating staffing, and selectively blocking moves into strategic markets based upon politics and kickbacks," they said.

Between Trump's hawking of H-1B Visas at a hefty $100,000 per and hismulti-million dollar gold cardoffering a fast-track to U.S. permanent residency for wealthy foreigners and corporations, "it's only gotten worse" for the CEOs, Noah says.

And then there are the government-built factories, that are allegedly being paid for by the $500 billion investment the administration required Japan to make in July, or what Noah deems as "Trump's factory scheme."

"That’s all well and good, but if Trump were sincerely interested in creating manufacturing jobs he wouldn’t be blocking at every turn the even larger sum allocated under President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to create green technologies," Noah notes.

Trump's "turnstile on the TikTok sale," in which the alleged buyers could be a host of Trump supporters Larry Ellison, Jeff Yass, William Ford, and or Rupert Murdoch'sfamily, in which the Trump administration expects to collect a fee that The Wall Street Journal says will be in the billions, and the World Liberty Financial deal with the United Arab Emirates in which the" money goes not to the Treasury but to Trump himself, making this the biggest bribery scandal since Teapot Dome," writes Noah, are two more catalysts to CEOs' ire.

The Commerce Department considering imposing an annual tax of up to five percent of a patent’s assessed value on top of the fees already charged for a patent, which can run up to $10,000, is not what Trump promised, either.

"This is different from a Trump proposal to reserve for the United States government some of the proceeds from university patents," Noah explains.

Lastly, the Nippon-U.S. Steel merger, approved by Trump on the condition that the government acquired, free of charge, a “golden share” allowing it to veto certain actions by the new company that affect workers, is yet another match to the oligarchs' fire.

"They struck a bad bargain by allowing Trump to replace the rule of law and the interaction of multiple branches of government with crude and not-always-legal Trump shakedown," Noah says.

"It may take Jerry Sonnenfeld’s CEOs some time to fathom precisely how foolish they were to get behind Trump, but I predict that before this is over, they’ll be asking America why on earth we ever put their guy in the White House."

---

IFrame Content

Buzz Machine founder and media critic Jeff Jarvis said the right no longer has the justification to call media “liberal media” anymore now that Trump has exercised complete control of the industry.

“We can, once and for all, end the trope of ‘liberal media,” Jarvis told CNN. “There are liberals in media, but the corporations are now either controlled by the right wing or frightened of it.”

Jarvis, who is also an associate professor at City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism, described “a frightening usurpation of media by Trump and his allies” with the takeover of Viacom, CBS and Paramount by Trump allies Larry and David Ellison.

“We see what they’ve already done with CBS. … The producer of “60 Minutes” quit. The word is they’re going to hire so-called ‘heterodox’ writer Bari Weiss for a major role at CBS. They hired a conservative as ombudsman. So, the path of what they’re doing is already clear,” said Jarvis.

Jarvis said dissenting voices would normally find other places to broadcast, but that’s not so easy either now thanks to massive billionaire purchases of whole online communities.

IFrame Content

“We still have blogs, but they aren’t what they used to be, right? We had TikTok, but that could be taken over. We have YouTube, but that’s also owned by a big corporation that will come under pressure shortly. So, it’s really troubling to see where any dissent can be heard in this country anymore.”

CNN reports the TikTok deal Trump announced Friday involves investments from several US-based firms, including the Ellisons and Andreesen Horowitz, a prominent pro-Trump VC firm.

“That troubles me greatly … because TikTok was a potential alternative to old mass media. So, it’s a tremendous consolidation, but it’s not just a business consolidation — it’s a political consolidation of media now at the higher level,” said Jarvis. “… the Trumpist MAGA is taking over a dying institution.

Jarvis added that the internet doomed mass media with its failed revenue mechanics.

“[The] myth, as I always teach my students, is that all readers see all ads, so we charge all advertisers for all readers, that we control their attention. That was never really true, but advertisers had nowhere else to go,” said Jarvis. “Now advertising has fallen off as a support. Instead, we have much of media going to paywalls and subscriptions, but there’s only so many things people are going to subscribe to, and what that does is put reliable, credible, authoritative information behind paywalls for the few who choose to pay for it.”

“Big old media has sacrificed its own influence,” he said.

---

---}:

AN 9 25 NEP BABY

'What could possible go wrong?' Outrage as Trump announces the Murdochs could own TikTok

---

MMA

September 17, 2025, edition of MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes

CHRIS HAYES (HOST): So given that context, I want you to look around the U.S. right now and see what's been happening here, right in front of our eyes. In July, the Trump FCC — that's the entity that Brendan Carr controls — approved the sale of Paramount, with it CBS, to Skydance Media, which is controlled by the family of pro-Trump tech billionaire named Larry Ellison. It was his son, actually, who's buying it. Now that approval only came after Paramount paid Trump $60 million to settle the president's obvious frivolous, ludicrous lawsuit against CBS News and 60 Minutes for editing interviews, and after the Ellisons agreed to eliminate DEI programs, and after they agreed to install an executive formerly from a conservative think tank to essentially act as a sort of ideological minder at CBS News for political bias. So they did all those things, then they got the approval for this very, very large merger. After that, CBS canceled Stephen Colbert's top-rated late-night show, which was notorious for its criticism of the sitting president.

Last week, after Larry Ellison officially leapfrogged another pro-Trump billionaire, Elon Musk, to become the world's richest man, the new Paramount conglomerate made another media bid, this time for Warner Brothers Discovery, which just so happens to own CNN. So there's a possibility that they could purchase that and roll that up as well. Then yesterday we got this news about TikTok, perhaps you've seen it. Do you remember the Chinese-owned app that was banned as a security risk because of a bipartisan vote in both houses of Congress and signed into law by Joe Biden? And then Donald Trump just literally ignored the law while he searched for a U.S. buyer. Well, yesterday there was news of a framework of a deal. Interesting. Let's see what the deal is — gives Americans an 80% stake in TikTok. Which Americans? Well, you'll never guess. Yes, Larry Ellison is one of them, along with far-right venture capitalist, Trump donor, DOGE consultant, MAGA-backer Marc Andreessen.

As Talking Points Memo noted, if all those deals all go through that would mean the Murdoch family controlling Fox News, the Journal, New York Post, its other properties. Twitter, TikTok, CBS, CNN and more owned by Elon Musk and the Ellison family. The Washington Post owned by Jeff Bezos. The Trump administration is threatening to bring the government down on free speech and use it against dissent. It is also facilitating the sale of some of our biggest private media outlets to Trump allies, and is a very obvious attempt to consolidate power over free expression.

### MSNBC's Chris Hayes highlights Fox News’ laughable attempt to distract from reports of Donald Trump’s involvement with Jeffrey Epstein

07/23/25 9:56 PM EDT

### On MSNBC, Angelo Carusone discusses how Trump's actions against Rupert Murdoch and the WSJ are “a way to try to put a cap on this broken sewer pipe”

07/18/25 10:06 PM EDT

### MSNBC's Chris Hayes interviews U.S. veteran and citizen who was detained for three days after ICE raid on farm

07/16/25 10:16

---

AN 9 25

The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1920 — 105 years ago — and generations that came along after that, from the Silent Generation to Millennials, grew up assuming that women's suffrage was settled law. Even many critics of feminism agreed that the 19th Amendment was a good idea.

But The Guardian's Arwa Mahdawi, in her September 13 column, describes a growing trend: more and more MAGA Republicans and white fundamentalist Christian nationalists openly questioning the 19th Amendment.

"Should women in the U.S. have the right to vote?," Mahdawi writes. "You'd be forgiven for assuming this particular issue was sorted out quite a long time ago. But, because we live in hell, it seems the question is once again up for debate…. First up is Braeden Sorbo, a 24-year-old conservative influencer."

Sorbo told YouTuber Richard Harris (who hosts the "Truth & Liberty" show), "I know more young women today who say they wish they didn't ever get the right to vote than I’ve ever talked to in my life."

"In a normal world," Mahdawi warns, "Sorbo would be a fringe figure shouting into the ether who we could all happily ignore. But thanks in part to digital media, we don't have that luxury any more. Sorbo has 1.9 million followers on TikTok…. More importantly, however, Sorbo's views can no longer be dismissed as 'fringe'…. Last month, for example, the U.S. defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, shared a video on X in which several pastors say women should no longer be allowed to vote as individuals…. Predictably, Elon Musk also has some views on this matter."

Mahdawi adds, "While the tech billionaire — soon to be trillionaire? — has never explicitly argued women shouldn't vote, he has amplified tweets that undermine the idea of universal suffrage."

According to Mahdawi, "The idea that women shouldn’t vote is increasingly being co-signed and amplified by some of the most powerful people in America."

An anti-feminist YouTuber who openly says that women should not have the right to vote is Hannah Pearl Davis, whose YouTube channel has over 2 million subscribers.

Mahdawi's column and Sorbo's recent comments are drawing a lot of reactions on X, formerly Twitter.

Writer John Ashton posted, "The Handmaid’s Tale is the bible of MAGA."

Former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson wrote, "This is so disgusting [and] especially horrifying because it’s the younger generation promoting this crap. I said we were moving towards the [Handmaid's Tale] last November. I hope I’m wrong."

X user Peter A. Patriot commented, "Republican women are admitting they don't think they should have the right to vote. It's sad."

---

AN 7 25

TikTok propelled our account into a pro-eating disorder void

07/16/25

---

Ahead of US Election, TikTok and Facebook fail to block ...}:

Global Witness

https://globalwitness.org › campaigns › digital-threats](https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/digital-threats/before-us-election-tiktok-and-facebook-fail-to-block-harmful-disinformation-youtube-succeeds/)

Oct 17, 2024 — Just weeks before the US presidential election, Facebook and TikTok approved ads containing harmful election disinformation.

Ahead of US Election, TikTok and Facebook fail to block disinformation | Global Witness

Just weeks before the US presidential election, Facebook and TikTok approved ads containing harmful election disinformation. This is despite a similar Global Witness investigation published two years earlier that found failures in their moderation systems.

A new Global Witness investigation examined if YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok can detect and remove harmful election disinformation.

Our new investigation found that Facebook and TikTok had improved their moderation systems. But, major issues remain.

TikTok did the worst. It approved 50% of ads containing false information about the election. This despite its policy explicitly _banning all political ads_.

Facebook did much better. It approved just one of the eight ads submitted, in an improvement on its previous performance.

YouTube did the best. Although it approved 50% of the ads submitted, it told Global Witness that it wouldn’t publish any of the ads without more identification (like a passport or driver’s license). However, there may still be room for improvement: YouTube rejected all but one of the ads because they referenced the election, rather than because they referenced the election and contained disinformation.

Ads Testing Scorecard US election 2024

Social media has become the public sphere through which voters gather information, discuss politics and follow election campaigns. It is also the primary means for political campaigns to access new audiences and ‘get out the vote’. Disinformation spreading through social media platforms has been a serious issue in _previous US elections_, and the same is true for this year. As one of the most influential nations in the world, as well as one of the greatest emitters of greenhouse gas, the outcome of the US election will have a major impact in the global fight against climate breakdown.

YouTube and Facebook are by far the most popular social media platforms among US adults – with 83% and 68% of adults reporting use of them, respectively. TikTok’s user base is smaller (only 33% of US adults), but it is the key platform through which to mobilise the youth vote. Both the Harris and Trump campaigns have invested in ads on online platforms.

With election day in the US just three weeks away, all three platforms must ensure their political ad policy enforcement is watertight.

*How did we test if we could get election disinformation onto social media platforms?...

---

MMA

TikTok’s search engine algorithm promotes anti-abortion propaganda}:

06/17/25

---

afp

Los Angeles fires spark 'smart city' conspiracy theories

:{:{Published on January 21, 2025}:

{By Daniel Patrick GALGANO, AFP USA}:

As a string of wildfires hit Los Angeles County, social media users spread claims that authorities purposefully set the blazes to encourage the development of so-called "smart cities." While America's second-largest city does have long-term plans to implement digital technologies to improve services, experts say the claims have no merit and that razing neighborhoods would not accomplish these goals.

"And then I find this document and it all begins to connect the dots. You have a fire, things burn down, you rebuild it and you make it a smart city," says a January 9, 2025 X post with thousands of interactions.

"And you have the government, the insurance agents and the electric companies all into it together."

Image

Screenshot from X taken January 16, 2025

The same claim has circulated elsewhere on X, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, Bluesky, Rumble and Gettr.

The posts are the latest describing conspiracy theories linking natural disasters to smart city plans that frequently crop up in the United States and Canada.

Several wildfires near Los Angeles have claimed more than two dozen lives and billions of dollars in property damage. The largest of the two, which have enveloped neighborhoods in the Palisades and the nearby city of Pasadena, were spurred on by destructive high winds as firefighters attempted to limit their spread.

The posts claim officials and investors set the fires to make room for a "smart city," an urban planning concept that uses a wide range of technology to monitor traffic patterns, electricity and utility consumption and criminal activity to improve public services and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Other users conflate smart cities with "15-minute cities," a different philosophy that involves rezoning cities to place most day-to-day amenities, such as shops, parks, medical services and schools, within walking distance of residential areas.

SmartLA 2028

In December 2020, city officials announced an infrastructure investment plan called SmartLA 2028, which proposes using technology to monitor electricity usage, integrating city services onto a mobile app and installing sensors that can alert emergency services to potential crimes and housefires (archived here).

Los Angeles is due to host the Summer Olympics and Paralympics in 2028, spurring hopes that the city will be able to ease its notoriously dense traffic, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve emergency services.

The plan does not call for razing entire neighborhoods or rebuilding portions of the city from scratch. Instead it focuses on efforts including installing devices to monitor traffic patterns and gathering data on air quality, crime, road conditions and other things to help improve local services.

"Technology enables the City of Los Angeles to efficiently and ethically improve the quality of life for our residents, businesses, and visitors," Ted Ross, chief information officer for the City of Los Angeles, says in a explaining the strategy (archived here). vid]

The SmartLA 2028 plan also only applies to the City of Los Angeles and does not outline a scheme for the rest of the county, which includes other fire-affected cities such as Pasadena.

AFP reached out to Ross for further information, but a response was not forthcoming.

Disaster recovery is expensive

Susan Winter, the associate dean of research at the University of Maryland (archived here), said causing destruction is not a "rational way to approach urban planning."

The cost to the government to rebuild areas devastated by fires could quickly surpass the economic benefits of adding smart technology to those regions, she noted.

Winter added that city planners have worked to address some public concerns about smart technology infringing on residents' privacy by anonymizing gathered data and restricting where information is stored to reduce the risk of a breach.

"There's nothing in that city of Los Angeles plan that looks at all shady or nefarious to me," she said on January 13.

Several home and fire insurance companies have scaled down or entirely withdrawn their operations in California amid concerns over the frequency of climate change-fueled disasters in the region, reportedly leaving thousands of Los Angeles residents without private home insurance ahead of the fires. The State of California created an insurance carrier of last resort for homeowners unable to secure private insurance that offers more limited coverage options.

The carrier reportedly could face losses of as much as $24 billion due to the Los Angeles fires, while total property damage could surpass $250 billion.

Image

Homes smolder near the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California on January 9, 2025 (AFP / JOSH EDELSON)

Hussam Mahmoud, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Colorado State University (archived here), said US cities have been investing in systems designed to spot wildfires early to prevent them from spreading too widely.

"I highly doubt that anyone would say, 'let's wipe the area by doing this,'" he said on January 14.

Investigators are still attempting to uncover what caused the fires. Lawsuits have placed some blame for the Eaton fire on Southern California Edison for failing to de-energize its equipment. However, there is no evidence government agencies deliberately sparked the infernos.

AFP has debunked other claims about the Los Angeles fires.

cbs

U.S.

Wildfire conspiracy theories are going viral again. Why?

Laura Doan,

Erielle Delzer

January 16, 2025 CBS News

While investigators workto find out what caused multiple wildfires in the Los Angeles area, some conspiracies about the fires' origins have spread on social media platforms.

Posts about baseless theories — ranging from celebrity involvement to secret government weapons — have racked up millions of views.

Despite fact-checking efforts, researchers say conspiracies of this kind regularly emerge after large wildfires.

"I think that the more emotionally overwhelming it is, the more likely we are to just see high volumes of conspiracy theories to cope and make people feel like they have control," said misinformation researcher Abbie Richards.

Directed energy weapons conspiracy resurfaces

Misleading videos have fueled false claims that directed energy weapons, often referred to as DEWs, ignited the flames. The conspiracy theory suggests that governments or secret organizations use lasers or microwave systems to ignite fires.

Experts have repeatedly debunked these claims, attributing irregular burn patterns to natural factors like wind, terrain and vegetation.

While the U.S. has developed and tested DEWs for military applications — such as disabling enemy drones or missiles — there is no credible evidence of DEWs being employed in civilian settings, including for igniting wildfires.

The DEW theory also surfaced during the California wildfires of 2018, with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene claiming in a now-deleted social media post the fires could be caused by lasersfrom space. And online users spread the conspiracy during other disasters including the Canadian and Maui fires in 2023 and the Texas Smokehouse Creek wildfire in 2024.

"Most people will see this sort of stuff and completely reject it because it doesn't match with how they already view the world. But there are people who view the world through a conspiratorial lens," said Joseph Uscinski, co-author of "American Conspiracy Theories."

Claims that weather is manmade

Claims have circulated that the government could have geoengineered rain to stop the Los Angeles wildfires.

Theories that the government has some control over the weather have surfaced after several natural disasters, including hurricanes Helene and Milton. And meteorologists and agencies including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have debunked these claims.

People blame the government or company executives because it's easier than facing structural problems, like drought conditions," Geoff Dancy, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, told CBS News.

"That is more attractive to people that are desperate for order amid catastrophe," Dancy said.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a December assessment on cloud seeding at least nine states are using the technology, which is "primarily funded at the state level or below" and there is little federal intervention.

For cloud seeding to be effective, the atmosphere around greater Los Angeles would have required more moisture in the clouds for water vapor to be condensed, Katja Friedrich, a cloud physics expert and professor at Colorado University at Boulder, told PolitiFact.

"The L.A. area is currently so dry that there is not enough water that you could condense," Friedrich said.

Land grab conspiracy

Another unfounded claim shared on social media suggests the Southern California wildfires were started to clear land so officials could make way for what are called "smart cities," aligned with United Nations' goals.

The U.N.'s agenda to cut global emissions includes making cities more sustainable. And the Los Angeles Area's SmartLA 2028 initiative suggests renovating the city's transportation systems, among other technological changes, to make the city greener — but the plan does not involve mass demolition or rebuilding.

This conspiracy also gained traction after the wildfires in Maui, when a video of Hawaii's governor was clipped, taken out of context and shared to bolster the false claim the state was aiming to create a "smart city" on scorched land. And similar theories were debunked after wildfires in Canada and Spain's Canary Islands.

Celebrity crime cover-up conspiracy

Some posts that reached millions of people on TikTok falsely claim the wildfires were sparked to destroy evidence in the sex trafficking case against Sean "Diddy" Combs — falsely claiming his mansion was consumed in flames.

In reality, Combs' mansion remains intact and outside the evacuation zone as of Jan. 16.

His home was raided in March by federal agents who seized evidence on the property, and People reported the home was listed for sale in September.

In an aerial view, the home of Sean "Diddy" Combs is seen during a raid by federal law enforcement agents on March 25, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. MEGA/GC Images/Getty Images

False claims about celebrity homes also spread after the Maui wildfire, with some users sharing baseless claims that Oprah Winfrey helped start those fires.

Addressing the spread of conspiracies

By coincidence, on the day the wildfires started, Facebook announced it was ending its third party fact checking program and loosening its automated systems that police policy violations, instead relying more on users to report issues before they take action. The platform is adopting a crowdsourced "community notes" system, similar to Elon Musk's X.

Dancy said conspiracy theorists are "benefitting from the information revolution" we live in. "It's an attention economy, and conspiracy theories get attention," Dancy said.

He advocates for regulating social media algorithms that prioritize sensational content.

Richards, who wrote a thesis about climate conspiracy theories circulating on TikTok, agreed.

The Storm Is Coming: Climate Change and Conspiracy Theories on TikTok Written by Abbie Richards 1048585 MSc. Thesis Environmental Policy Group Supervisor: Dr. Mattijs Smits December 2022

590388

DL file:///C:/Users/patmc/OneDrive/Documents/BOOK/storm_is_coming_climate_change_and_conspiracy_the-groen_kennisnet_590388.pdf

"You're fighting against algorithms that are designed for profit and not for creating a well-informed and healthy society," she said.

Figure 1 illustrates the percentage of users on popular social media

platforms who regularly get news on the platform (Pew Research Center, 2022). TikTok’s

dramatic increase in users seeking news is strikingly in opposition with other, more established

platforms 23 TO 33%! ALL OTHERS SOC MED FLAT OR DOWN

Figure 1 illustrates the percentage of users on popular social media

platforms who regularly get news on the platform (Pew Research Center, 2022). TikTok’s

dramatic increase in users seeking news is strikingly in opposition with other, more established

platforms.

We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty! -Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition and to Friends of the Earth for their support. Many thanks to the kind researchers at the Algorithmic Transparency Institute who allowed me to use their tool Junkipedia. Special thanks to Dr. Rhianna Rogers for her mentorship. To EcoTok, thank you for teaching me about the power of community.

Abstract

:{ :{Conspiracy theories are sense-making tools that frequently arise during periods of high anxiety and uncertainty. It is a reasonable assumption that they may proliferate in response to the increasing devastation caused by anthropogenic climate change. While previous research into climate change conspiracy theories has explored the relationship between conspiracy theories and climate change denialism, little is known about their broader relationship with climate change as an experience of the material and social worlds.}:

To examine this interaction, this thesis provides a qualitative analysis of 96 socio-ecological conspiracy theories on the social media platform TikTok. Collected via a user-centric, exploratory research methodology, these videos were found to contain :{:{six dominant themes: anti-oil, weather manipulation, fear of a “green agenda,” supply control, science rejection, and apocalypse.}:

Further analysis found that conspiracy narratives related to climate change in either cause, significance, effect, or response. These conspiracy theories were found to provide a means of interpreting climate change outside of a climate science framework. }:

This conspiratorial framework of interpretation seemingly allowed users to experience climate change without attributing it to anthropogenic causes such as the dependence on fossil fuels. Using theoretical elements from political ecology as well as system justification theory from social psychology, these major themes were largely found to dismiss the need for urgent systemic climate action. While the consequences of climate change were recognized, users frequently attributed them to scapegoated groups or higher powers rather than to systems in which they are complicit.}:

... By applying system justification theory to the conspiracy themes

identified, I examined the conspiracy narratives’ relationship to support for climate action. I

:{:{found that these narratives provided users with a framework for experiencing and processing climate change outside of a climate science framework.}:

Furthermore, most of these conspiracy}:

narratives implicitly rejected the need for climate action and frequently offered alternative

solutions to climate change such as scapegoating or spiritual solutionism.

Using a political ecology framework to interpret this phenomenon within a socio-ecological

context, I identified the implementation of conspiracy frameworks as means of interpreting

:{:{climate change outside of the scope of climate science.}:

These frameworks allow for the lived}:

experience of anthropogenic climate change to coexist while still justifying a societal

dependence on fossil fuels. In this sense, these frameworks serve as extensions of traditional

climate denialism.

As climate change continues to impact society to increasingly devastating degrees, causing

feelings of existential threat, conspiracy frameworks of interpretation may become a means of

sense-making. These frameworks may provide mEANING AND CERTAINTY IN THE FACE OF

existential threat while simultaneously relieving believers’ feelings of complicity and

responsibility. Furthermore, the tendency of the conspiracy narratives in the data set to blame

environmental problems on an out-group is extremely concerning, both for the implications for

support of climate action as well as for potential harm to vulnerable groups. Conspiratorial

scapegoating during moments of societal crisis has historically been a motivating factor for

violence committed by individuals as well as by state governments...

...

6.3.3 Spiritual Solutionism

One interesting theme which tied together seemingly unrelated conspiracy theories was

spiritual solutionism. Regardless of whether the narratives feature the Earth shifting into a new

universe, an Anunnaki alien princess warning of climate catastrophes (Figure 24), or language

about “awakenings” and “spiritual warfare,” their relationships to climate action are similar.

While these narratives may present climate change as real (though often not anthropogenic),

the solution they offer is one of internal contemplation and the spiritual unification of humanity.

While this sounds lovely, it alone does not address any causes of climate change. Presenting

spirituality as the solution to the climate crisis may address some of the anxiety of the climate

crisis, but it may also discourage participation in solutions.

Spiritual solutionism seemingly allows for believers to experience anthropogenic climate

change but attribute it to the actions of some higher power. This framework of interpretation

functions as a reinforcement to the fossil fuel status quo. If the effects of climate change are

attributed to an act of God, intergalactic energetic forces, or a shift into a higher dimension,

then they must also be interpreted as beyond humanity’s control. Not only do these conspiracy

theories appear to negate the role of fossil fuels in climate change, but they comprehensively

reject the possibility for mitigative action through legislation. No international environmental

policy, no matter how vast, could change the planet’s fate as determined by God (or aliens or

galactic rotations or lapses into parallel universes PIX OF UFO PRINCESS BABE

4.3 Anti-oil conspiracy theories

I defined anti-oil conspiracy theories as any conspiracy theories which positioned the fossil

fuel industry as actors in a malicious and secretive plot. Some of the most popular videos within

the data set (three videos with a cumulative engagement of over 37 million views) were free-

energy-suppression narratives (conspiracy theories that posit that technologically feasible,

:{:{pollution-free, zero-cost energy sources are being withheld from the public).}:

These three videos}:

promoted the narrative that oil companies murdered an individual who invented a car engine

powered by water. Two of the videos iterate the popular conspiracy theory that Stanley Meyer

was killed for his invention of a “water fuel cell.” The myth of a miracle water-powered car is

a long-standing hoax known to reappear whenever gas prices rise (Moseman, 2022). Shortly

before his death, Meyer was found guilty of fraud in an Ohio court case brought by his

investors. His patents are expired and now exist within the public domain (Nguyen, 2021).

The third video adapted the same conspiracy theory to apply to the death of Aaron Salter Jr., a

security guard at Tops Supermarket in Buffalo, NY, who was killed in a racially motivated

...

the water sources. This freaking idiot, the CEO of Nestlé is saying water is not a human

right. Excuse me, mate, if you don’t get access to it, you freaking die. That’s what he

wants. Sorry, I gotcha! Water is not a human right should be privatized. U.S. corp. ends

private property rights, all water to be controlled by government. All over the world

because of this global network."

These narratives paint an image of a society under the complete control of the state. The effects

of climate change on access to resources, as well as climate policy that aims to mitigate these

effects (Agenda 21), are framed as tyrannical power grabs. Again, we see climate change

overlooked while its consequences are highlighted.

4.7 Science rejection

The fifth major theme I identified within the climate change conspiracy theory discourse was

science rejection. These are conspiracy narratives that dispute the foundational scientific

understandings upon which climate science is built. These conspiracy theories may not directly

relate to climate or weather; however, if true, they would render the majority of climate science

baseless. For instance, advocates of the flat Earth conspiracy theory believe that the planet is

disk-shaped with a dome-like atmosphere, rather than spherical. This belief conflicts with

fundamental scientific understandings of physics and Earth systems. These bodies of science

are the bedrock on which climate science is based; rejecting them simultaneously rejects

:{:{climate science.}:

Rejection of foundational principles of science is similarly present in}:

conspiracy narratives that argue that the Earth is hollow or that it is orbiting two suns.

One notable video with over 4 million engagements combined the flat Earth ice wall theory

with the melting ice caps, an effect of anthropogenic climate change. User @dontghostme,

states that the ice wall that surrounds the disk-shaped Earth is melting at the fastest rate in

thousands of years...

The user seemingly accepts the effects of climate change as real but incorporates them into a

conspiratorial belief system. In this case, themes of weather manipulation and science rejection

are employed to process climate change through a conspiratorial lens. Interestingly, the cause

of the melting ice caps is excluded from the discussion.

4.8 Apocalypse

Of the 96 videos in this data set, 14.9% contained themes of apocalypse. These are conspiracy

narratives that claim that the destruction of the world by means of some higher force or power

is approaching or already happening. These narratives were typically either explicitly related

to a religious rapture or related to a more nebulous spiritual catastrophe.

While religious content and conspiracy theory content are separate and distinct realms of

content, they also contain significant overlap. Because the scope of this study focused on

Figure 16: User connects melting ice caps, geoengineering, and the flat Earth ice wall conspiracy.

Source: @dontghostme on TikTok, 2022.

English-language conspiratorial content, there was a strong overlap with Christian content. As

there is an established relationship between the extent of a religious worldview and the

endorsement of conspiracy theories (Jasinskaja-Lahti & Jetten, 2019), it was unsurprising that

religious content also appeared within climate change conspiracy theory content on TikTok.

This caption from one video in the data set about gasoline dilution demonstrates the cross-

contamination between Christian content and conspiracy rhetoric:

Yeshua bring us together! #pastoralan

✝ #butgodministries

🤷 #god #yeshua

#holyspirit #christiantiktok #trending #viral #fyp #nwo #illuminati

Additionally, certain key terms commonly associated with conspiracy theories can also be used

in religious content (e.g., Satanic, spiritual warfare, awaken, end times). While this content

may not be best understood within the framework of conspiracy theories, the major narratives

within the data set are still worth briefly exploring.

Several of the videos framed the effects of climate change within a religious worldview,

generally as evidence of an imminent rapture. Extreme weather, heat waves, floods, droughts,

famines, or water shortages are therefore interpreted not as the consequences of anthropogenic

climate change, but instead as God’s will. For instance, the Euphrates River drying up was

cited in several of the videos as evidence of both Christ and Muhammad’s returns. Notably,

these catastrophic events are implied to be morally good and necessary to those who expect to

be saved during a religious rapture. Climate change is thus a force to be accelerated, not

mitigated.

One video with almost 2 million total engagements says:

A mass shooting, a food shortage, inflation, pandemic, monkeypox, tornados, wildfires,

wars. It seems to me like we’re in the end times. And I’m telling you to keep the faith,

because it’s only gonna get worse. It’s only gonna get worse. Stay prayed up, because

it’s only going to get worse. Jesus is testing our faith right now because it’s only going

to get worse. We have to have faith in him. The devil is throwing everything he can right

now to Christians. There is spiritual warfare.

Narratives of apocalypse were not limited to videos concerned with religious rapture. God is

not the only force capable of bringing about the end of the world. Themes of cataclysmic

intergalactic cycles or interdimensional shifting were also present in the data set. The New

Earth conspiracy theory was particularly popular, as it was identified in six videos with over

:{:{7.8 million engagements.}:

The New Earth conspiracy narrative claims that the vibrational}:

frequency of the Earth is shifting as the planet is entering another dimension. According to its

proponents, all “negative energy” will remain on the “Old Earth,” while all “positive energy”

transcends along with the planet into a higher dimension. Rid of all its negativity, this “New

Earth” will be a shining utopia. The tragedies of famine, war, inequality, natural disasters, and

illnesses are left to plague those remaining in the lower dimension. Effects of climate change,

ranging from higher temperatures to social unrest, are depicted as evidence of an imminent

shift. Individuals are encouraged to raise their own vibrational frequency so that they can

ascend alongside the planet into a new dimension. While this is not technically a religious

rapture, it functions similarly. Rather than an omniscient god dictating good and evil and

ushering the worthy into the Promised Land, positive and negative are instead governed by

some universal force of frequencies.

One New Earth video with over 690,000 engagements responds via “Stitch” to a video showing

people lying down, with towels over their heads, in New York during a heat wave.

Figure 17: People in New York lie down indoors to escape heat wave. This clip is

then stitched and incorporated into a New Earth conspiracy theory.

Original video: This is what's going on in New York. This shit is crazy.

Stitch:

See that, bro? I told you in my recent videos that the sun is emitting a different

frequency. You can see people saying it's two suns. People got actual footage of this.

People saying it's a shift behind it. All these things that are vibrating hot, that are

vibrating at a higher state of consciousness. We told ya how they wouldn't be able to

take that heat. Y'all know who can take that beat, bro. Thought it was a game. This heat

is for the ones that’s in tune with nature. That's the reflection of nature. I’m telling ya,

bro, y’all ought to be seeing way more—way, way, way more. It was more of them laid

out too, bro, in the rest of the video. Sun getting hot for sure. It's a good time to be

outside us. Y’all just stay wary though. Love y’all. Peace.

This narrative accepts the reality of the lived experience of climate change—in this case,

extreme heat waves. However, the heat waves are attributed to the sun’s increasing vibrational

frequency and subsequent higher temperatures. The creator claims that these high temperatures

are suitable only for spiritually enlightened individuals who are also “vibrating at a higher state

of consciousness.” He says, “This heat is for the ones that’s in tune with nature.” It is implied

that the harmful effects of climate change can be avoided through internal contemplation, and

those who are negatively affected are culpable and somehow deserving of this fate.

4.9 A note on inter-relatedness and connectivity

While this qualitative analysis found several prominent narratives within the data set, many of

the videos incorporated a multitude of climate change conspiracy narratives. The beliefs

expressed in these videos did not exist as isolated ideas, but as interconnected relational

concepts. For instance, this video (Figure 18) from labeled “Meat Police” details a conspiracy

theory that Bill Gates is releasing genetically modified ticks which will make more people

allergic to red meat and thus further the environmental movement...

---

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com › fact-check › klaus-schwab-did-not-say-la-wildfires-were-manmade-2025-01-21}:

Fact Check: Klaus Schwab did not say LA wildfires were manmade

Jan 21, 2025 A "smart city, opens new tab" is an urban development model that uses technology to improve the lives of those living in cities. A "15-minute city" is an urban planning model that envisions an

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How AI, TikTok, and Instagram Are Shaping the U.S. Election | Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Growing up in Taiwan, Herbert Chang '18 saw firsthand how technology and politics could be tightly intertwined.

"Because of its contentious history with China, Taiwan receives a ton of misinformation, but also boasts a high freedom-of-speech index. It's a particularly interesting space," he says, "to study how technology and democratic values come together."

Now, as an assistant professor in the Quantitative Social Science Program, Chang studies the role of technology and social networks in politics and human relationships, with a special interest in the impact of artificial intelligence.

This fall, working with a PhD student and five undergraduates as part of his lab and new course, AI and Machine Learning for Social Science, Chang led two groundbreaking studies that examine the role of AI and social networks in political engagement online. The resulting papers are under review by prestigious journals.

"This is the first U.S. election that coincides with the release of sophisticated generative AI," Chang says. This technology is being used to create images and memes, which are then uploaded to social networks like Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. "This is really important to understand—especially as an analysis unbiased by the results of the elections," he says.

In the first study, the team investigated how AI-generated content influences political discussions on Instagram. With LLM-based tools, they collected more than 500,000 Instagram images and found that AI-generated content alone does not increase engagement among users—but when AI-generated content is combined with a meme, it's more likely to go viral. In other words, when an AI-generated image is overlaid with text or given some kind of cultural context, it is much more effective at stirring up discussion.

"Generative AI and the meme format produces a synergistic effect," Chang says.

"Our paper definitely challenges assumptions that AI will dominate online discourse," says Mingyue Zha '27, who took part in the research with fellow students Maya Magee '25, Sean Noh '28, Ben Shaman '26, Tracy Weener '26, and Guarini PhD candidate Chiyu Wei. "However, it also highlights the potential of meme content that is AI-generated, which does synergize and increase social media engagement."

One implication is that thanks to platforms like Instagram, where mass exposure isn't limited to politicians and legacy media, political discourse is shifting away from traditional media. "There's more opportunity for 'ground up' discussion by organizations who aren't MSNBC or Fox News," Chang says.

Another (and perhaps more sinister) implication is that AI is actually "mediating our content and information quite significantly, especially in this political context," Chang says.

Thanks to AI-powered meme-generating tools like MidJourney, users can simply type in general prompts about what kind of meme they'd like to create, and the system automatically generates one for them. But users don't have much ability to tweak the resulting meme, meaning the AI technology is ultimately responsible for it—and, therefore, for shaping the increased chatter around it.

The researchers found that about 15% of memes were generated by AI. Additionally, when considering synthetic memes versus normal memes over time, the biggest difference occurs during Donald Trump's conviction.

The second ongoing study offers a large-scale, systematic analysis of the influence of TikTok and Instagram on political discourse. The team collected more than 800,000 Instagram posts and 1 million TikTok posts curated from election-related key words, and has begun analyzing divergences across the two platforms.

Understanding their differences is important because while Instagram and TikTok are the two largest visual social media platforms, they operate in different ways. Instagram content is driven by social networks, meaning a user will be exposed to content by their online "friends" or followed accounts. TikTok, meanwhile, is algorithm driven, so users are exposed to content based on machine learning—technology chooses what they see based on a variety of datasets and past online behaviors.

"Pragmatically, this means that if you're a politician or you're trying to start a social movement, your strategies on the two platforms would be different," Chang says. "On Instagram, you might want to leverage the social network and work with big players to gain solidarity across different audiences. But that might not be effective on TikTok, where you'd want to invest more broadly in individual micro-influencers."

The team is observing that Instagram is used more for sharing breaking news from established media accounts, whereas TikTok has more in-depth commentary from individuals.

"My students are incredibly talented and come from diverse backgrounds—from pre-med to computer science to QSS," Chang says. "They are also perfect collaborators. As frequent users of these platforms, they have incredible insight into how these platforms work and strategies for generating visibility."

"We all worked on different parts of the project based on our experiences and interest, so it was super rewarding to see how everything came together to create new insights that show how this election is taking place over social media," Noh says. "It's a constant learning process, and it's been so cool to be studying something so important and relevant while it's actually happening."

This year's presidential election feels especially significant to Zha, who recently obtained her U.S. citizenship after living in the country for the past 10 years.

"Not only is this the first U.S. election where I'm able to vote, it's also one of the most pivotal elections of our lifetimes, especially since many issues on the ballot will have huge ramifications on the future of my generation," she says.

"One of the most rewarding aspects of being part of this research has been gaining a deeper understanding of how people discuss and engage with electoral issues, as well as how social media platforms influence and mediate this discourse."

Zha also found inspiration in fellow students. "We're able to support each other's work and challenge each other, achieving far more as a team than we could alone," she says. "Herbert's mentorship and encouragement have been instrumental in making this collaborative environment possible."

Chang will continue live-tracking the U.S. presidential election using a dataset curated for his course this fall. "I want students to know that their projects at Dartmouth are directly relevant to the world right now," he says.

At the end of the day, the irony that he wouldn't be able to conduct this research without machine learning, and that there also wouldn't be any research to conduct without AI, isn't lost on Chang.

"AI can be used to generate fake content or misinformation, but it can also be used as a form of civic engagement, and to help identify malicious trends," he says. "It's a technological arms race I'm excited to continue navigating with my students."

---

MMA

Trump promotes video in defense of economic and tariff policies that seems to echo 4chan claim that he is purposely crashing the market

The video, which contains claims and language seemingly from a 4chan post that gained traction on the far right, suggested that Trump “is purposely crashing the market” to bring down prices

Written by Alex Kaplan, Payton Armstrong & Craig Harrington

Published 04/04/25

On Truth Social, President Donald Trump attempted to defend his tariff policy — which economic experts agree will raise prices for consumers and increase the risk of a recession — by amplifying a TikTok video arguing that he “is purposely crashing the market.” The video echoes claims from a post on 4chan that gained traction on the far right.

On April 4, as international financial markets continued roiling in response to the launch of his global trade war on April 2, Trump amplified a video on his social media platform Truth Social from a right-wing account that contended that “Trump is crashing the stock market by 20% this month, but he’s doing it on purpose” as part of a grand strategy to lower interest rates, weaken the dollar, and bring down prices.

The TikTok video — which was uploaded on March 15, a few days after a post on 4chan’s far-right “/pol/” message board — claimed that Trump's current tariff and economic policies were part of a “secret game” to “make you rich” and “lower the cost of everything” by “trying to crash the stock market.” The 4chan post gained traction throughout the far right on multiple platforms, and the TikTok video has since earned at least 2.3 million views.

IFrame Content

The video amplified by Trump — the thumbnail of which shows language similar to the start of the 4chan post — echoes both claims and language of the 4chan post, including that Trump is trying to “push cash into Treasuries,” forcing the Federal Reserve to “slash interest rates” and “finance trillions of debt inexpensively.” Like the 4chan post, the video also claims tariffs would cause companies to “build here to dodge them” and farmers will “sell more of their products here in the U.S. to bring grocery prices way down.” It then invokes a claim that “94% of all stocks are owned only by 8% of Americans,” and that Trump is “taking from the rich short-term and handing it to the middle class through lower prices” — language very nearly matching that of the 4chan post.

The video also contains the false claim that billionaire investor Warren Buffet said that “Trump is making the best economic moves he’s seen in over 50 years.”

In reality, economic experts are “ringing alarm bells as they digest the impact of the wide-ranging tariffs, which they forecast will accelerate inflation and dampen U.S. economic growth,” and raise the risk of launching the American economy into a recession.

Additionally, even if the claims in the video were to be taken at face value, not all of the things the video claims Trump is doing would necessarily indicate a healthy American economy, including a weaker U.S. dollar, lower Federal Reserve interest rates, and lower mortgage rates.

### Right-wing media tell Americans to embrace the tariff pain, wait for a “golden age”

04/04/25 3:56 PM EDT

### Fox embraces “the largest peacetime tax increase” in American history as Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs loom

04/01/25 4:43 PM EDT

### MSNBC's Steve Rattner: Trump has made America the “loser” in his global trade war

04/04/25

---

===

mma 1 25

President-elect Donald Trump has corruptly flipped on his previous position that TikTok should be banned in the United States unless the social media platform disentangles from Chinese government control. His stark reversal — which one ally suggested came about because the app was “great for his campaign” — stands in contrast to the public statements of his top foreign policy, homeland security, defense, and intelligence appointees, who are on the record describing a TikTok ban as a crucial matter of national security and in some cases denouncing Democrats for using the platform.

Then-President Trump issued an August 2020 executive order requiring TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell, spin off, or shut down the app’s U.S. operations, citing “credible evidence” the company “might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.” President Joe Biden ultimately rescinded the order, but following further reporting of Chinese government influence over TikTok, in April 2024 Congress passed and Biden signed bipartisan legislation requiring ByteDance’s divestment. ByteDance refused, instead preparing to shut down TikTok in the U.S. by the law’s deadline of this Sunday.

But Trump subsequently rejected the position he had once championed and is now poised to take action “to keep TikTok from going dark.” After a March 2024 meeting with hedge fund manager Jeff Yass, a GOP megadonor who reportedly held a major financial stake in ByteDance, Trump abruptly reversed his support for TikTok’s divestment, saying that “young people will go crazy without it.” The platform also reportedly altered its algorithm to benefit Trump’s presidential campaign, which used TikTok to great effect; indeed, in a January 15 interview, incoming national security adviser Michael Waltz said Trump would sign an executive order to “create the space” for a “deal” in part because TikTok “was great for [Trump's] campaign and getting his message out."

This abrupt reversal exposes as craven hypocrites not only Waltz, but also Trump’s nominees for secretary of state, Marco Rubio; defense, Pete Hegseth; and homeland security, Kristi Noem. The four are among the right’s harshest critics of TikTok and foremost proponents of banning it. They describe the platform as a Chinese “Trojan Horse” that “the communists” are using to “compromiz[e] national security” and “propagandize to 150 million Americans,” allowing them to “poison the minds of young Americans” and get kids to “trans themselves” as part of China’s “long-term goal to destroy the United States.”

Moreover, Noem was the first governor to ban state employees from using the platform on state-owned devices, while Rubio introduced legislation banning it nationally if it was not sold.

Either they were all lying about the pressing national security threat of a ByteDance-controlled TikTok back then, or they are willingly leaving the United States exposed because they don’t want to stand up to the incoming president.

### Michael Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser: TikTok is “an arm of the communists” that threatens “the safety of all Americans”

Waltz: We can’t let the Chinese Communist Party use TikTok to “propagandize to 150 million Americans ... . We would have never stood for this with the Soviet Union.” Waltz, then a member of Congress, said of TikTok in a March 2023 Fox Business appearance, “We cannot have, on the one hand, our greatest adversary ... have access to 150 million Americans, be able to propagandize to 150 million Americans, and to be able to collect [data] on us. We would have never stood for this with the Soviet Union. We shouldn't be today.” Fox Business, *Mornings with Maria*, [3/23/23]

Waltz: The Biden campaign “should be ashamed of themselves” for joining TikTok and “legitimiz[ing] this app and the harm it’s doing to kids for its own political gain.” When Biden’s campaign joined TikTok in February 2024, Waltz told Fox the campaign “should be ashamed of themselves” because “the Chinese Communist Party are using this as a data-collection bonanza” and could use it as a “superhighway” to “adjust the algorithms should they so choose.” He added that a presidential campaign should not “legitimize this app and the harm it’s doing to kids for its own political gain.” He added that he’s “called for a full-on ban” of the app, calling it “long overdue” because “we should not allow our greatest adversary to access 150 million Americans and their data.” Fox News, *Your World*, [2/23/24]

Waltz on X: TikTok is “an arm of the communists” and must be removed from Chinese government control “for the safety of all Americans,” and it’s “craven” for Democrats not to ban it.Waltz, in dozens of posts to X over five years, has repeatedly criticized TikTok and called for a ban on the platform, warning that it’s “an arm of the communists,”“Chinese spyware and a national security threat,” and “a Chinese Communist Trojan Horse.” In August 2020, he posted, “For the safety of all Americans, including the millions of children using this app, we cannot allow TikTok in the US under ByteDance’s ownership.” He accused members of Congress, “almost all Democrats,” who use the app of being “complicit in allowing China to hurt our national security” and posted that “it would be craven for Biden & Democrats not to ban TikTok because it helps their campaigns.”

### Marco Rubio, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state: TikTok a “Trojan Horse” and “danger to America”

Rubio: We should ban TikTok to keep a “wholly-owned subsidiary of the Communist Party of China” from using it as “a danger to America.”In a 2022 Fox interview to discuss a bill he introduced to ban TikTok if it were not sold, then-Sen. Rubio said TikTok can’t be allowed to continue as “wholly owned subsidiary of the Communist Party of China,” in part because “the Chinese tried to interfere in our midterm elections” using the platform. He further called its ownership “a privacy danger to America, to our national security,” adding that “we shouldn't have the Communist Party of China having access to a treasure trove of American data that they can use to try to influence and divide us at the same time as they collect valuable information now and for the future.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [12/14/22]

Rubio: A ByteDance-owned TikTok is “a Trojan horse living inside our country.”He explained during a March 2024 Fox appearance that TikTok’s parent company is “under the complete control” of “a foreign government that’s hostile to the United States” and could “decide to weaponize that against us to convince soldiers not to go fight, to convince their families that it's not worth going to fight, to get involved in our elections, to spread things that make us fight against each other and further divide this country or keep us distracted, or to convince American teenagers to kill themselves because the world's about to end.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [3/11/24]

Rubio: We can’t let the Chinese Communist Party use TikTok to “poison the minds of young Americans … so that their society crumbles.” Rubio called for ByteDance to sell TikTok during a March 2024 Fox appearance, explaining that “ByteDance is a Chinese company” and under that country’s laws, “if the Chinese Communist Party goes to ByteDance and says, we want you to change the TikTok algorithm so that Americans will not be willing to defend Taiwan or surrender to China on this and that, or poison the minds of young Americans over a long period of time so that their society crumbles, if they tell them that they have to do that, ByteDance will have to do that, they will do that, and you will not be able to perceive it.” [Fox News, Hannity, 3/19/24]

### Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense: TikTok is “poisoning the minds” of American kids

Hegseth: “Someone’s got to step up and say” TikTok “is compromising national security” and “poisoning the minds” of kids and “ban this.”Hegseth, then the host of Fox & Friends’ weekend edition, said of TikTok in March 2023, “This is time for leadership. I don't care how many kids use it, I don’t care how many influencers are out there, someone’s got to step up and say, not one is it compromising national security — which it is; who knows where that data is going and how it will be used in the future — but it’s poisoning the minds of our next generation.” He added: “Think how much time you spend cultivating the mind and soul and heart of your child and then you hand over a phone and then on that phone is an app controlled by communists who are pumping things to poison their mind. Wake up!” He further called for “courageous leadership” in Congress, “especially Democrats,” to “ban this.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 3/24/23]

Hegseth: China uses TikTok to “poison” American kids and get them to “trans themselves,” and it’s “like giving the Soviets a portal into our kids in the ‘80s.”Hegseth, then the host of Fox & Friends’ weekend edition, alleged in a February 2024 segment that China was trying to “poison” American children by using TikTok to get them to “dance and trans themselves and be distracted” while Chinese children are taught science and math. He went on to say that “the fact that we allow this is one of many, but actually near the top of the list, of the most foolish things we are doing in our society,” adding that TikTok is “like giving the Soviets a portal into our kids in the ‘80s. It’s insane!” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [2/1/24]

### Kristi Noem, Trump’s nominee for secretary of homeland security: “If you are using TikTok, you are helping China destroy America"

Noem: China uses TikTok on kids “to manipulate their thoughts and their minds and how they feel about the United States of America.”Noem, who as governor made South Dakota the first state to ban TikTok on state-owned devices, said during a March 2023 Fox appearance that China is “using that platform to spy on our people, to communicate with them,” and “to change perceptions.” She went on to say that parents should tell children who use TikTok “to knock it off. Tell them they slept in their beds last night safe and secure because of sacrifices that were made for this country, and that, to respect that, they should not allow our enemies to come right into their homes and to manipulate their thoughts and their minds and how they feel about the United States of America.” Fox News, *Sunday Morning Futures*, [3/12/23]

Noem: TikTok is part of China’s “long-term goal to destroy the United States.” During another March 2023 interview, Noem said that the Chinese Communist Party uses TikTok “to influence our children, to spy on us, gather personal data, and they’re doing it to destroy us.” She added that “China has a long-term goal to destroy the United States of America” and that “when I watch people talk about how much they enjoy TikTok, I'm concerned Americans aren't even willing to be inconvenienced anymore to protect their freedom.” She went on to say that she didn’t think Biden would sign the bill banning TikTok because “over and over again this president has proven that he won’t protect America.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [3/24/23]

Noem: “If you are using TikTok, you are helping China destroy America. You are facilitating it. So get off of TikTok.”During a November 2023 Fox interview, Noem agreed that TikTok is a “national security threat” and a “spy mechanism.” She concluded: “If you are using TikTok, you are helping China destroy America. You are facilitating it. So get off of TikTok. Take a little bit of pause on what you think is fun and let's start doing the hard work of saving freedom.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [11/29/23]

===

mma

[## TikTok’s algorithm appears to be boosting LA wildfire misinformation 01/14/25

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12 24

Spanish-language conservative media downplay Trump’s mass deportation plan

Conservative TikTok personality Luis Sin Filtro: “If you are informed and have not committed any crimes in this country, you won't be affected negatively"

Written by G. Capuano

Research contributions from Janos Balazs & Monica Rodriguez

Published 12/18/24 mma

Conservative Spanish-language media personalities have been downplaying President-elect Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportations, claiming that Democrats and the media are fearmongering about Trump’s deportation scheme, which economists suggest would increase inflation as well as food and housing costs. These media figures have claimed that Trump “will not deport working immigrants” and that he is considering “immigration reform for all of those in the United States that are doing it right.”

In truth, Trump has vowed to stage the “largest deportation operation in American History,” and Tom Homan — the Project 2025 contributor and former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acting director who Trump selected to carry out this campaign — has claimed, “No one’s off the table.”

Recently, during an interview with NBC News’ Kristen Welker, Trump doubled down on his campaign promise to end birthright citizenship, falsely suggesting he could enact his plan through executive action and that he would “change” the 14th Amendment.

Rather than focusing on these claims, conservative personalities on social media turned attention to Trump’s claims that he was willing to “work something out” for Dreamers, immigrants who were brought to the US as minors and remain undocumented. Ignoring his previous failed attempt to gut the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program — which has provided benefits like temporary relief from deportation and work authorization to more than 835,000 migrants who came to the U.S. as children — conservative personalities argued Trump has “dismantled the narrative” that he is “racist.”

Downplaying Trump's plans for mass deportations

Conservative Spanish-language personalities are claiming that the left is “sowing fear” about Trump’s plans for mass deportations and that Trump “will not deport working migrants.”

On Actualidad Radio’sCada Tarde, conservative personality Marian de la Fuente claimed, “There has been a lot of misinformation” about “family separation and kids and parents who will be deported.”She added, “This type of information, in the way the liberal networks are conveying it, should really be modified,” explaining that “they are obviously trying to sow fear.” Actualidad Radio, *Cada Tarde*, [11/12/24]

During a guest appearance onFox Noticias, Voz Media political analyst Alfonso Aguilar argued that Democrats “want to sow fear.”He said that they “say this is an effort to deport people indiscriminately, that the country will be militarized, that we will have patrols of soldiers through urban migrant communities, and that is totally false.” He also claimed, “The armed forces will be used, or the national guard, but in a supporting role.” Fox Deportes,*Fox Noticias*,[11/20/24]

On his Voz Media podcast, Aguilar claimed, “The left and many in the media are sowing fear” and that “they want to tell us the country is going to be militarized, that there will be mass indiscriminate deportations [and] that they will deport grandma.”He added, “That has become a Democratic talking point.” Aguilar made these claims in an episode where he interviewed Fox News contributor Sara Carter. YouTube[

In a segment criticizingThe View’sAna Navarro’s claims that Trump’s plan for mass deportations “means grandmothers,”Fox Noticiashost Rachel Campos-Duffy claimed that “liberals are losing their mind over Trump’s new border czar.”During the segment, Campos-Duffy mistranslated an Axios headline that said, “Immigrant advocates mobilize against mass deportation,” to claim, “According to the media, immigration advocates are mobilizing against the plan to impose law and order at our borders.” Fox Deportes, *Fox Noticias*, [11/13/24; Axios, 11/12/24]

On TikTok, Luis Sin Filtro, a conservative influencer with over 566,000 followers, argued that “it's obviously impossible” for the Trump administration to deport American citizens.He also claimed that Homan “has clearly and specifically said that threats to public safety will be the priority,” arguing, “It's most likely that if you find yourself in one of those raids, you have absolutely nothing to worry about. If you are informed and have not committed any crimes in this country, you won't be affected negatively. On the contrary, there is a very big chance for you to build your case in an immigration court and end up with a working permit.” [TikTok,11/12/24]

PelucasGB, a conservative personality with over 56,300 followers, shared a video arguing that “Trump will not deport working immigrants” and that “Trump’s rhetoric has always been against criminals.” He also claimed that Trump could “pass immigration reform for all of those in the United States that are doing it right,” and that Trump “will be the one to make your dream of having status in the United States come true.” TikTok,[11/26/24]

Ignoring Trump's hostility to DACA

Despite Trump’s previous attempts to gut DACA, Spanish-language social media figures are claiming his comments on Meet the Press that he would potentially “work something out” for Dreamers “dismantled the narrative” that he is “racist” and “the most anti-immigrant man ever.”

Luiyo2.0, a conservative personality with over 152,700 followers on TikTok, argued Trump’s comments onMeet the Press“completely dismantled the narrative against Donald Trump in which they claim he is racist.” He added, “If this is true and Trump can solve the DACA problem, he will undoubtedly become one of the best presidents in the United States of America.” TikTok, [12/9/24]

LuisSinFiltro shared a video claiming, “Trump said he plans to work with Democrats to legalize Dreamers, that is to give them permanent status, not just temporary protection like DACA.” He added, “Trump just dragged all those political activists and ‘pro-immigration,’ ‘non-for-profit’ organizations that said Donald Trump is the most anti-immigrant man in history.” TikTok, [12/9/24]

PelucasGB shared a video claiming that “while Democrats try to discredit Donald Trump by saying he wants to deport everyone,” he “said he wants Dreamers to be able to stay in the United States.” He went on to claim that Trump “could become the second Republican president in history to deliver a reform for everyone regardless of nationality.” TikTok, [12/9/24]

mma

### Leader of far-right sheriffs organization says he doesn't think Trump's plan for mass deportations “is even constitutional”

12/12/24 2:00 PM EST

### Fox News is playing along with Trump claiming he’ll work on a plan for Dreamers despite trying to dismantle DACA in his first term

:{:{12/12/24}:

### Fox News anchor calls birthright citizenship a “loophole”

12/09/24

---

MANOSPHERE

TikTok is Body-Shaming the U.S. Economy Ahead of the 2024 Election | Opinion - Newsweek

MAke no mistake about it: 2024 will be America's first "TikTok election."

And in case you're wondering—that's a very bad thing.

TikTok is body-shaming the U.S. economy, driving down consumer confidence with a skewed narrative that could have far-reaching political impacts in 2024 and beyond. Like the young, fit woman with a healthy BMI who ends up watching too many videos of rail-thin super models only to eventually begin to see herself as overweight, TikTok is enabling "vibes" of economic gloom and doom to take hold, even when the data says otherwise. And it's having a real impact on the way many Americans view President Joe Biden's job performance.

It's this TikTok economic body-shaming that explains how Biden, despite chalking up an enviable spate of economic achievements, including record low unemployment, real wage growth, and GDP expansion—feats all accomplished despite an environment of rising interests rates—is trailing former President Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner, in poll after poll.

Although Biden inherited a rocky post-COVID economy that was teetering on the brink of a recession, Biden has been able to guide it to terra firma; but as Sam Sutton posited in a recent piece for POLITICO, "a so-called soft landing might not mean a lick to voters."

But what is it about the dynamics of this economy that has voters blaming an administration that has done just about everything it was supposed to and then some?

In a word: vibes, fueled in large part by a data-be-damned public rage machine otherwise known as TikTok.

Next year's presidential elections will have a lot less to do with the mainstream media's fixation on red states versus blue states, or MAGA versus democracy, and a lot more to do with the socialized pop punditry from TikTokers, who almost no one over 40 years old has ever heard of.

Take Woods Owned, whose curated posts of everyday Americans railing against inflation regularly get millions of views, or Blair Allison, a TikToker whose recent dash cam soliloquy on how no one can afford life's basic necessities has garnered nearly 2 million views. TikTok is a near endless repository of clips like these served up on a daily basis to millions of Americans using an algorithm designed by its Chinese founder.

What the platform does exceedingly well is to bottle individual frustrations and then normalize them, socializing TikTok creators' suffering and misfortune across the expanse of its entire digital landscape. Like the droplets used in Chinese water torture, after enough exposure to videos of people lamenting the state of the Biden economy, almost everyone is bound to feel just a little bit worse about their own situation, even if they are doing quite a bit better in reality.

Recent studies by the Pew Research Center found that news consumption across social media sites is either stagnant or declining—except on TikTok, where more and more Americans are turning to get their political news. Roughly a third of U.S. adults under the age of 30 now rely on the platform to keep abreast of current events. It's upending traditional constituencies, and has put young voters who have historically veered to the left in their voting habits now up for grabs.

That a new platform like TikTok would eventually emerge and disrupt the current vectors of political media is nothing new. Every couple of election cycles, a new media phenomenon takes hold that ends up playing an influential role on the body politic. From Franklin D. Roosevelt's pioneering radio "fireside chats," to John F. Kennedy's iconic television debate performance in 1960, to Barack Obama's use of social media for communication and fundraising, new disruptive technologies have consistently played a pivotal role in ushering in a new era of American politics. Now, as we stand on the precipice of another critical electoral cycle, it's becoming increasingly clear that the 2024 election will become known as the nation's first "TikTok election."

But unlike these previous waves of technology, TikTok wields much more relative power because, rather than being an instrument of the news media, the major political parties, or even the candidates themselves, this new tool is firmly in the hands of voters—the vox populi. A glass half-full view might herald this innovation as a modern riff on the early American colonial experiments with direct democracy. But a more likely outcome is a free-for-all, where data and facts are trampled by the stampede of socialized emotions, fueled by an algorithm that sits on servers halfway across the world.

In either case, if you want to understand the 2024 elections and why Biden is lagging in the polls, start spending some more time on TikTok.

Arick Wierson is a six-time Emmy Award-winning television producer and served as a senior media and political adviser to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He advises corporate clients on communications strategies in the United States, Africa, and Latin America.}:

Bradley Honan is the president and CEO of Honan Strategy Group a polling and political consulting group. He is co-president of the American Association of Political Consultants' New York City chapter.}:

*The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.

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FORTUNE MAG

Donald Trump goes from being TikTok’s worst enemy to its biggest hope

BYDavid Meyer

November 13, 2024 $

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mma 10 24

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## Right-wing accounts earned over 2 million views on social media with posts claiming Harris is intoxicated, including a slowed-down clip of her speaking at a September 20 rally

- One video posted on TikTok showed Harris speaking at an event and asked, “What is wrong with this lady? Is she drunk????” The video has earned nearly 600,000 views, and other users responded to the video with comments including “definitely drunk” and “Omg drunk again.” TikTok, [9/19/24, 9/19/24, accessed 9/30/24]

- Another video posted on TikTok claimed, “This woman has showed up drunk again to another interview,” before playing a clip of Harris giving an interview. Text on the video also claimed that the host had to rush her off air. The video, which is labeled “Part 1,” has earned over 526,000 views, with “Part 2” and “Part 3” earning over 110,000 and nearly 230,000 views, respectively. “Part 4” earned over 16,000 views, and “Part 5” and “Part 6” earned over 75,000 and 21,000 views, respectively. TikTok, [9/15/24, accessed 9/30/24]

- An X user shared a TikTok video, which has been labeled “manipulated media,” claiming that Harris was “hammered” during the September 20 rally. According to X, the post has over 179,000 views. In the video, the TikTok user claims that “when this woman is sober, she needs notes to get through an interview,” adding, “She is absolutely sloshed.” USA Today, Agence France-Presse, and Reuters have all rated the video as “altered.” Twitter/X, [9/22/24, accessed 9/30/24; USA Today, 9/24/24; Agence France-Presse, 9/23/24; Reuters, 9/24/24]

- On X, a user shared the same apparently slowed-down clip of Harris’ September 20 rally, claiming, “Okay… That’s not a new accent but she sure does sound drunk!” The post, which was viewed over 260,000 times on X, was also shared by another X user, who claimed, “She's hammered..absolutely intoxicated.” Twitter/X, [9/21/24, accessed 10/1/24, 10/1/24]

- :{:{Another X user has apparently earned over 550,000 views on a post that shared a TikTok video of Harris’ September 20 rally, which a community note says was “digitally altered by slowing down the speed and lowering the pitch.” Another X user reposted the video and wrote, “I thought jokes saying she was drunk were just jokes. It's scary as all hell that it's entirely possible she's HAMMERED here.” Other users posted the same TikTok video, saying Harris has “the drunk accent,” and claiming, “She's is terrified to answer to all of her failures.” Twitter/X, [9/22/24, 9/21/24, 9/21/24, accessed 9/30/24]}:

- An X user shared a clip of Harris speaking at a campaign event with Oprah Winfrey, with the user claiming, “SHE IS FRIGGIN DRUNK OFF HER ASS!!” Twitter/X, [9/20/24]

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Conspiracy theories about Hurricane Helene are going viral on TikTok

Written by Olivia Little

Published 10/02/24 mma

Hurricane Helene devastated southeastern states, killing at least 180 people with hundreds still missing. The “biblical devastation” to some of these areas, particularly in North Carolina, has prompted some TikTok users to spread unfounded conspiracy theories about the catastrophe that are reaching millions of users.

The most prominent conspiracy theory circulating on TikTok about Hurricane Helene claims that the storm was not a natural occurrence but engineered in order to devastate North Carolina and create access to the land for lithium mining.

“Can I say what I find suspicious as shit?” said one user in a video with over 1.8 million views, “That one of the areas affected by Hurricane Helene is the world’s largest lithium deposit and the DOD just entered into an agreement with this company right here to mine lithium for electric cars starting in 2025. Now that area is completely devastated.”

Video

Another video with over 119,000 views stated that the hurricane was a “weather modified storm to displace the residents of western N. Carolina so a land grab can take place.”

twt

One user explicitly encouraged viewers to look up the conspiracy theory, saying, “Just look up flooding and lithium and discover the rabbit hole you go down.” The video has over 204,900 views.

Video

The absurd lithium claim is also spreading off of TikTok, includingamong prominent right-wing conspiracy theorists like Stew Peters.

Another variety of conspiracy theory is also emerging, with one user claiming that “cloud seeding gone wrong” caused the hurricane. The video has over 514,700 views.

According to the Desert Research Institute, cloud seeding is a “weather modification technique that improves a cloud’s ability to produce rain or snow.”

Another video featuring a clearly AI-generated image of former President Donald Trump wading through flood waters is even circulating, with overlaid text reading “this is our president right here.” The video has over 2.8 million views. The image originally circulated on Meta and was debunked by PolitiFact.

djt slog in life jkt our prez]

Conspiracy theories tend to spike after natural disasters, and Helene is no exception. TikTok’s algorithm seems to be helping spread them, fueling panic and uncertainty among users.

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TikTok is serving users blatant misinformation about Haitian immigrants

09/26/24 mma

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Hitler speeches that appear to be AI-generated are getting millions of views on TikTok

Despite TikTok’s policies banning the “praise” of individuals who cause mass violence, English-language versions of Nazi rants have racked up millions of views on TikTok

Written by Abbie Richards

Published 09/17/24

Audio clips of Hitler giving speeches in English, which appear to be AI-generated, have been proliferating on TikTok, earning millions of views. Some users have been promoting and praising the audios in an apparent violation of TikTok’s community guidelines.

While some of these audios — which are often poorly translated and set to slow, reverb instrumental beats — have been removed, Media Matters has identified accounts dedicated to uploading this content. At least one of these accounts is still live and posting regularly.

The platform’s community guidelines prohibit “promoting (including any praise, celebration, or sharing of manifestos) or providing material support to … individuals who cause serial or mass violence, or promote hateful ideologies.” The dissemination of excerpts of Hitler’s speeches seems to violate this policy.

Media Matters has identified numerous videos with these English-language Hitler speeches posted as far back as April 7, 2024. However, since early September, videos with these audios have been proliferating across the platform. TikTok has since removed some of the videos that Media Matters identified, but only after some had earned hundreds of thousands, or even over a million, views.

One video, which had earned roughly 120,000 likes and over 1 million views prior to removal, featured an excerpt from a speech Hitler gave on the 19th anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch (a failed coup d’etat by the Nazi Party in November 1923) and portrayed an image of Hitler standing with his back turned to the camera with the text: “Just listen.”

The excerpt of the speech — which appeared to be slightly different than a translation posted by the Jewish Virtual Library Project — is layered on top of a slow instrumental beat, and suggests that Hitler did not want to go on the offensive during World War II, that he tried to save women and children, and that he waited until he had no choice.

Video

CitationA September 1, 2024, video uploaded to TikTok

While some TikTok users expressed skepticism in the comments about this portrayal of Hitler, other comments embraced this fantasy. Some users wrote: “He was a hero,” “Winners write history,” “The great painter,” and “Maybe He Is NOT The Villain.” (“The painter” is presumably a reference to the Nazi leader’s failed art career.)

While Media Matters was viewing this video, TikTok’s search-prompting feature suggested the search “the painter english speech,” indicating that the platform was reducing friction for users to find more of Hitler’s speeches.

Another video using the same sound — which has since been taken down — featured a visuals of cliffs by water and the hashtags “true,” “nature,” “europe,” and “1161” (seemingly a right-wing dog whistle for Anti-Anti Fascist Action or AAFA).

The video had at least 22,700 likes and over 270,000 views prior to removal. Some users commented: “AH was a good and kind man,” “now i know why they didn’t translate this before,” and “this changed my views on him.”

Some TikTok users were quick to turn this audio into a meme that appeared to mock Hitler for feigning innocence. For instance, in one video with 2.4 million views, a user lip-synchs to the AI-generated Hitler speech with text on screen reading, “when i pooped in the urinal in 3rd grade.” In a video with over 520,000 views, a user donning full military gear lip syncs to the Hitler speech while the text on screen reads “When there beef in the GC and your involved.” This audio was used at least 251 times prior to its removal.

Video

CitationAn August 13, 2024, video uploaded to TikTok

Another supposed Hitler speech focused on cultural decline; Hitler spoke on that topic, but Media Matters could not verify the accuracy of the translation.

Users were quick to turn this audio into a meme as well. One such video, with 197,400 views, compares “the furniture my grandparents left me vs the furniture I’m leaving my grandkids” with the caption “Preservation is a must.”

Other users lip-synched to the AI-generated Hitler speech with text on screen reading “pov: gen alpha in 2035 when skibiti toilet comes out as bisexual and baby gronk overdoses on galaxy gas 2.0,” “POV: a guy just asked me if I wanted to see a Marvel/DC movie,” and “pov: you stuck talking to that mf that gets political after a line [of cocaine].”

A third seemingly AI-generated Hitler audio on TikTok featured an excerpt from a speech he gave in January of 1939, also overlaid on top of a slow instrumental beat. Prior to its removal, this audio was used at least 55 times, with some of the videos earning hundreds of thousands of views.

Video

CitationAn August 4, 2024, video uploaded to TikTok

A video using this audio with nearly 500,000 views and over 64,000 likes reads, “name a character no one can make you hate,” and then shows an outline of Hitler. While the sound had been removed, this video was still up at the time of writing.

Another video, with 394,000 views, featured what looked like an AI-generated image of a white, blond girl in a Union Jack T-shirt standing in the middle of a bus and crying while surrounded by laughing nonwhite people in hijabs and taqiyahs. The comment with the most likes read, “We need the painter.”

Another video, with over 650,000 views and 90,000 likes, used this audio along with pictures of two bowls of ice cream, one with chocolate and vanilla mixed and one with just vanilla, which seemed to insinuate disdain for racial integration.

Media Matters also identified several accounts dedicated to posting these Hitler audios.

One account with 20,500 followers and over 3.8 million cumulative views across 12 videos posts videos with these Hitler speeches, a silhouette of the German mass murderer, and the text “Growing up is realizing Who the villain Really was.”

One explicitly antisemitic video, blaming a “small rootless international clique” who are “at home both nowhere and everywhere who do not have anywhere a soil on which they have grown up” for “turning the people against each other,” has received over 1.6 million views. The excerpt seems to come from a speech Hitler gave at the Siemens-Schuckert plant in Berlin in 1933. At the time of writing, this account was still up.

Media Matters identified another account seemingly dedicated to posting these reconstructed Hitler speech audios that has been removed by TikTok. The most popular video on the account, with over 87,000 views, was an English-language excerpt from Hitler’s July 1940 speech “My Last Appeal to Great Britain.”

As AI becomes increasingly popular for content generation, novel forms of disinformation that promote hateful ideologies and misrepresent historical facts will follow. Social media platforms must be aware that this technology is being used to cause harm and take proactive measures to prevent it from proliferating on their platforms.

prevent it from proliferating on their platforms.

### TikTok has an AI conspiracy theory problem

:{:{02/08/24}:

### TikTok continues to allow videos of neo-Nazi to go viral

:{:{07/06/22}:

### TikTok is failing to contain violent beheading content on its platform

02/09/24

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Harris AI crowd size conspiracy theory runs rampant on TikTok

08/13/24 mma

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mma

Kamala Harris is facing a barrage of misogynistic and racist attacks on TikTok, it’s not just fancams and coconut memes

08/01/24

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Climate change conspiracy theory about cataclysmic changes in Earth’s magnetic field goes viral on TikTok]

(https://www.mediamatters.org/tiktok/climate-change-conspiracy-theory-about-cataclysmic-changes-earths-magnetic-field-goes-viral)

05/24/23

As Texas and the Caribbean recover from Hurricane Beryl, conspiracy theorists on TikTok say flooding from the Category 5 storm was actually caused by the movements of an ancient mythological sea serpent called a Leviathan.

Rapidly intensifying from a tropical depression on June 28 to a Category 5 hurricane by July 2, Beryl was the earliest recorded Category 5 storm in Atlantic history. A recent analysis found that the hurricane was “fueled by exceptionally warm ocean temperatures,” which are directly attributable to climate change.

Between April and July, Media Matters identified several TikTok videos that accrued millions of views suggesting that the movements of a giant sea monster were responsible for the destruction caused by Hurricane Beryl, earthquakes, and atmospheric disturbances. Other videos claimed that these events were signs of a Leviathan that would ultimately bring the apocalypse. Right-wing Christian media figures and conspiracy theorists have similarly attributed past natural disasters to cosmic or religious events that are beyond human control to discredit or dismiss how human-caused climate change is fueling extreme weather events.

## TikTok videos with millions of views claim that a Leviathan is causing natural disasters like Hurricane Beryl

- The idea of a large primordial sea creature that represents chaos stretches back to pre-biblical Mesopotamian mythology. Interpretations of what the beast may look like vary, but the Old Testament describes it as a “curving serpent” that can only be slain by God, who would do so only at the end of time. The New Testament likens the creature to the devil and describes a seven-headed monster that has been interpreted as the Leviathan as well. Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed [7/16/24; Google Books, Creation and Chaos in the Primeval Era and the Eschaton: A Religio-Historical Study of Genesis 1 and Revelation 12, 10/10/06]

- In one TikTok video with over 2.3 million views, a creator said that he believed “the dragon has been awakened” based on Hurricane Beryl and attributed earthquakes in Venezuela to a Leviathan.The video featured a Fox News clip in which an anchor and weather correspondent seemingly compared Hurricane Beryl to a dragon. The creator also referred to an earlier, seemingly deleted video captioned “there is no hurricane in the caribbean sea. Levi is woke and and moving and a tsunami will soon flood these islands,” and another video in which he claimed, “There is a second Leviathan moving its head … where they’re having earthquakes around the mouth area.” The account has posted at least 15 videos about the Leviathan since late June, several of which also suggest a giant sea serpent is behind recent earthquakes. TikTok, [7/7/24, 6/28/24, 6/30/24]

- The viral Fox News clip, which was featured in Leviathan videos with over 2.5 million combined views from at least three different TikTok accounts, appears to have been misleadingly edited to suggest that Hurricane Beryl was caused by a “dragon.” The videos showed the clip of Fox weather correspondent Robert Ray amid the devastation Beryl left in Jamaica, saying, “The dragon has been released,” and anchor Neil Cavuto replying that there are “more dragons to come.” (In the full clip, Ray says, “The dragon that is hurricane season 2024 has been unleashed.”)
- One of the TikTok videos then asked, “Could this anomaly have been something more — the start of Hurricane Beryl? Could they be dropping hints?” along with an image of an inflatable dragon wrapped around the Empire State Building that HBO used to promote the show House of the Dragon. The video also points out that “coincidentally, it is the year of the dragon,” referring to the Chinese zodiac. TikTok, [7/5/24, 7/6/24, 7/7/24; Newsweek, 6/17/24; Fox News, Your World with Neil Cavuto, 7/3/24]

- A video with 367,700 views claimed that the Leviathan took the form of clouds shaped like a dragon during Hurricane Beryl.“The people who have eyes can clearly see that this is a dragon,” the video creator said, referring to images of clouds, cyclones, and the aurora borealis. “Remember we told you that the Leviathan and Beryl give you the same numbers in the same ciphers in gematria. There are no coincidences, guys.” Finally, he claimed that “spiritual beings” are “cleaning this planet of the spiritual wickedness that we cannot see.” TikTok, [7/4/24]

## Conspiracy theorists have claimed satellite imagery and meteorological data are evidence of a Leviathan, and some have even doctored videos of Joe Rogan to fit this narrative

- Media Matters identified at least 14 TikTok videos that were posted between April and June with 9.2 million views that claimed a Leviathan was visible on Google Earth.Many videos claim that the shape created by an island system and an undersea trench in the Scotia Sea is actually the outline of a giant sea serpent’s head. Geological Society of America, *Geology Journal*, [4/1/14]

- A viral April TikTok video with millions of views said “on Google Earth, you can find him 100%” and speculated that a viral modeling error that created an unusual “blob” on a popular meteorological app was also connected to the Leviathan.The video features images of the Scotia Sea, which the creator claims include the “head of the serpent.” It also focuses on a large wave anomaly that was captured by the meteorological app Ventusky, claiming that it showed the Leviathan “breathing” and “maybe that’s what’s causing the waves.” There have been a number of other conspiracy theories about the anomaly, which Ventusky later said was caused by a model error that has been resolved, telling Newsweek that these videos were “manipulative.” TikTok, [4/30/24, 4/13/24; Newsweek, 5/13/24]

- Another video with 253,000 views claimed that “Leviathan is on the move,” showing screenshots of the Scotia Sea on Google Earth. A caption accompanying the video warned: “LEVIATHAN HAS MOVED... IS HE BREAKING OUT OF THE ICE?” TikTok, [6/24/24]

- Conspiracy theorists also created misleading videos of The Joe Rogan Experience to make it look like the host believes the serpent is real, and even apparently used AI to imitate his voice.
- One October 2023 TikTok video, titled “Joe Rogan leviathan footage,” misleadingly edited a clip from the show to add fake footage of a large sea monster to make it look like Rogan is commenting on the size of the serpent. (In reality, he was talking about footage of a giant squid that was captured by a camera off of an oil rig.)
- Another TikTok video appears to use the same AI voice claiming that “Leviathan is actually real.” (The account says that it uses the AI Rogan voice in its bio but not in the video description or anywhere in the video.) A YouTube video titled “Nasa knows where leviathan is” and using seemingly AI-generated images and audio of Rogan’s voice was also published in March; AI deepfakes of Rogan have previously gone viral on both YouTube and TikTok, though some have been removed for violating community guidelines. TikTok, [10/29/23, 12/28/23 , accessed 7/18/24; YouTube, 12/19/19,; The Verge, 5/3/23; Mashable, 2/15/23]

- What people are seeing on Google Earth are actually geological formations caused by two tectonic plates that make up the Scotia Sea — not a biblical sea monster.The unique shape on Google Earth can be explained by science: The Scotia Sea, which is located in the northern region of the Antarctic Ocean and south of the Atlantic, is made up of two small tectonic plates, and their movements over millions of years have caused the ridges visible on the map. Scientists have discovered that both plates are moving, though only by a few millimeters per year. The dots that some TikTokers claim are “nostrils” or other features of the serpent are actually a chain of uninhabited volcanic islands called the South Sandwich Islands. Springer Link, *Bulletin of Volcanology*, [12/11/20; Oxford Academic, Geophysical Journal International, 12/1/03; Discover, 11/30/23]

## Other TikTok influencers suggest the Leviathan signals the end of the world

- A TikTok creator with over 2 million subscribers claimed in June that “the Leviathan over the last month or so is coming to the surface, as it will in the end of days for its final fight.” She also said in the video that “the ocean [is] getting regressively hot” because “the Leviathan is loose.” TikTok, [6/19/24]

- In a video with 2.8 million views, Christian hip hop artist Nikhil Keswani (who goes by “BigNik”) used AI-generated storytelling to accompany his claims about “this gigantic sea creature that the Bible warned us about.”Keswani used seemingly AI-generated videos of large sea serpents to describe the Leviathan, and added other AI imagery throughout the video. He also cited imagery of the Scotia Sea to argue that “this gigantic sea creature that the Bible warned us about was just spotted on Google Earth,” adding, “The Bible spoke about these events long ago and this is God’s final warning before immense judgment is poured out on the entire world.” TikTok, [6/28/24]

- Claims that natural disasters allegedly signal the “End Times” are often amplified by right-wing Christian influencers and conspiracy theorists to reject climate science.Media Matters has previously reported how right-wing Christian media figures and TikTok influencers dismiss the reality of climate change by instead citing biblical prophecy, the End Times, or “demonic attack” to explain extreme weather events. Prominent right-wing and Christian media figures have also downplayed climate links to extreme weather events by arguing God controls the weather, while some have cited their faith as a reason to reject taking action on climate change. Media Matters, [12/11/23]

- Climate misinformation about the End Times encourages inaction.In 2023, for example, Joe Rogan’s podcast fueled conspiracy theories that falsely attributed climate change impacts to cyclical changes in Earth’s magnetic field. These narratives shift blame away from our reliance on fossil fuels onto processes completely beyond our understanding — if climate change is caused by forces we can’t control, as the logic goes, then taking action to curb greenhouse gas emissions is pointless. Media Matters, [5/24/23]

### TikTok has an AI conspiracy theory problem

02/08/24

### Fake Harris audio spreads like wildfire on TikTok after Biden’s announcement

07/22/24

Incoherent audio wrongly attributed to Vice President Kamala Harris is going viral among right-wing accounts on TikTok following President Joe Biden’s exit from the presidential race.

“Today is today and yesterday was today yesterday,” says a slurring, digitally altered Harris. “Tomorrow will be today tomorrow, so live today so the future today will be as the past today as it is tomorrow.”

This audio originates from a manipulated video of Harris’ 2023 speech at Howard University. Over 2,300 individual TikTok posts have used this sound, meaning it plays in the background of each video.

After Biden’s announcement, many users wrongly attributed the audio to Harris and used it to attack her.

“After hearing this speech from Kamala Harris, I’m definitely voting,” says the overlaid text of one user’s video. The video’s caption also reads, “Don’t vote for her just because shes a woman” with the hashtags “#trump2024” and “#trumptrain.” The video has already racked up over 350,000 views.

Video

Another video posted by a pro-Trump account after Biden’s announcement read, “When I lose all HOPE, I remember a quote by Kamala Harris.” It has over 4.1 million views.

TikTok’s inability to identify and stop the spread of viral and malicious misinformation about a presidential candidate sets a bad precedent for the future of its election integrity efforts.

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Machine gun conversion devices are seemingly being sold on TikTok Shop | Media Matters for America

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DEW space lasers

https://www.mediamatters.org/tiktok/conspiracy-theories-about-record-breaking-texas-wildfire-spread-online-after-biden-visited

bonus deny climate

recall tx drought some yrs back was prayer

oregon was antifa

mma 3 24

Conspiracy theorists and right-wing influencers are attributing unprecedented wildfires in Texas to a government attack using so-called directed energy weapons (DEWs), while others say the fires were an act of “retaliation” from the federal government motivated by an ongoing stand-off over migration at the state’s southern border. Dozens of videos and posts falsely insist that the claim is backed up by remarks President Joe Biden made during his February 29 visit to Brownsville, Texas.

While discussing how “up-to-date standards and building codes” could help reduce property damage from wildfires, Biden said, “If you fly over these areas that are burnt to the ground, and you see in the midst of 20 homes that are just totally destroyed, one home is sitting because it has the right roof on it.”

Claims that Biden was somehow suggesting that certain roofs are immune to the impacts of DEWs while other structures were intentionally targeted in the fires are proliferating on X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok, along with related conspiracy theories suggesting the fires were payback for the state defying federal border policy.

In 2024, climate change is already fueling extreme weather all around the country — including the Texas fires}:

- Texas is currently experiencing the largest wildfire in state history. The Smokehouse Creek Fire has burned over 1 million acres and was 74% contained as of March 7. It is one of at least three wildfires currently burning the state’s Panhandle region, destroying homes and agricultural land as farmers struggle to evacuate livestock. At least 7,000 cattle and two people have died. CNN, [3/1/24; The New York Times, 3/7/24; CBS, 3/7/24; Newsweek, 3/7/24]

- The exact cause of the fire is currently under investigation, but Xcel Energy has acknowledged “that its facilities appear to have been involved in an ignition of the Smokehouse Creek fire.” According to The Texas Tribune, “A lawsuit filed last week by homeowners accused the power company of neglecting to maintain power lines.” The Texas Tribune, [3/7/24]

- The Smokehouse Creek Fire was supercharged by hot, dry, windy conditions linked to climate change. CNN wrote: “Its severity was due to a perfect storm of environmental factors: highly flammable grasses and strong winds combined with record-high temperatures and dry conditions — the kind of extreme weather often exacerbated by climate change.” CNN, [3/1/24]

- This February was likely the hottest on record, featuring “the highest global average temperature ever recorded for that month, thanks to climate change.”The unusually warm month followed a “lost winter” in the Midwest and extreme rainfall and flooding on the West Coast. Reuters, [2/29/24; Axios, 3/4/24; NPR, 2/6/24]

A conspiracy theory about blue objects being immune to so-called government weapons has been brewing since the Lahaina fires}:

- For years, conspiracy theorists maintained that wildfires have been set intentionally by the government using “directed energy weapons,” which are supposedly in space. The idea resurfaced on social media in 2023 after wildfires in Lahaina, Hawaii, killed over 100 people. Vice, [8/15/23; The New York Times, 2/13/24]
- Directed energy weapons are real, but there is no evidence that they’re being used to start wildfires. It has been widely acknowledged that DEWs such as lasers and high-powered microwaves are being researched and invested in by militaries around the world. However, those technologies aren’t being used at scale, and experts say they could not have been used without being noticed. The Dispatch, [2/20/24; AFP, 3/1/24]
- In photos and videos of the devastation in Hawaii, some blue objects appeared to be less burned than their surroundings, leading conspiracy theorists to believe the color has special properties. In particular, some pointed to a blue car, blue umbrellas, and even one of Oprah Winfrey’s homes (which turned out to be an hour’s drive from where the fires occurred) and concluded that blue objects cannot be damaged by DEWs. There is no evidence to support this. Media Matters, [8/23/23; TikTok, 8/16/23; Newsweek, 8/14/23]
- There was nothing notably unusual about the damage in Lahaina, and wildfire patterns are often unpredictable.“It’s actually very common that wildfires will burn out structures and vehicles but leave surrounding trees, utility poles, and other vegetation unscathed,” Michael Gollner, an associate professor of mechanical engineering who leads a fire research lab at the University of California, Berkeley, told AP News. The Associated Press, [8/14/23]
- Some roof designs are more wildfire resistant than others, but not because they’re blue. According to Fire Safe Marin, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing fire hazards in California, some roofing materials are more fire-resistant than others, and debris left to accumulate in gutters or roof tiles with certain shapes that allow animals to build nests can provide more fuel for a fire. Fire Safe Marin, accessed [3/4/24]

X and TikTok users claim Biden’s roof comment is evidence of foul play}:

Social media users are speculating that Biden was referring to homes with blue roofs when he said “one home is sitting because it has the right roof on it,” apparently confirming their suspicions about the fires being set intentionally by government weapons.

- On TikTok, Media Matters identified dozens of videos with hundreds of thousands of views theorizing that Biden was referring to a blue roof.The videos suggest that Biden “slipped up” or “said the quiet part out loud” by mentioning houses with “the right kind of roof,” alleging that he meant a blue roof. One video read, “Is this motherfucker admitting it was a direct attack on fellow Texans?" Another user complained that her previous video pushing the conspiracy theory had been taken down for promoting misinformation against TikTok’s community guidelines. “He let the truth actually slip and they’re trying to sponge it from the internet,” she claimed. TikTok, [3/2/24, 3/2/24; TikTok Community Guidelines, accessed 3/4/24]
Video file

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- Conspiracy theory account Wall Street Apes wrote: “Fact Checkers Say The Blue Roof Connection It’s A ‘Conspiracy Theory.’ The Rest Of Us Say It’s DEWs, Direct Energy Weapons.” On X, the account wrote: “We Saw The Untouched Blue Roof In The Maui Fire, We Saw The Same Thing In The Chili Fire, Joe Biden Confirmed Houses Will Burn In The Texas Fire UNLESS ‘They had the right roof on it’ Here’s the United States Military & FEMA having a ‘Blue Roof Program’… Coincidence? Fact Checkers Say The Blue Roof Connection It’s A ‘Conspiracy Theory.’ The Rest Of Us Say It’s DEWs, Direct Energy Weapons.” Twitter/X, [3/2/24]
- One TikTok video, which had at least 480,000 views but has seemingly been deleted, suggested Biden accidentally revealed the use of a DEW. “So did Joe Biden make a booboo in his speech in Texas today,” the user said. “The old man’s rambling like always, he’s talking about the fires in Texas at the border, but then he says the only houses that are left standing have the right roofs on them. … I don’t know man, it’s weird. Remember Oprah’s house, it was left standing, it had a blue roof. A lot of things that were blue didn’t really get touched by fire, isn’t that kind of odd?” TikTok, [2/29/24]:
- Conspiracy theory account Concerned Citizen wrote that Biden was “literally admitting if you have the correct roof on your home then DEW won’t burn your house to the ground.” On X, the account wrote: “‘One Home sitting there because they had the right roof on it.’ The President saying the quiet part out loud again. Is this the President literally admitting if you have the correct roof on your home then DEW won’t burn your house to the ground? It’s a blue roof by the way. Thank me later.” Twitter/X, [3/1/24]
- Right-wing influencer Liz Churchill: “Freudian Slip Joe Biden possibly speaking of EMP Weapons.”Twitter/X, [2/29/24]
- Another TikTok video, which had at least 358,000 views before it was deleted, featured text that said, “Remember the blue roofs during the Lahaina fires? Biden just seemed to confirm our suspicions.” TikTok, [2/29/24]
- A co-host of the QAnon podcast BrainStorm, who goes by “Joe Rambo,” claimed that Biden was declassifying secret information and shared a post suggesting the president “admit DEWs don’t affect your home if the roof is painted blue.” Twitter/X, [2/29/24]
- Crypto influencer and right-wing conspiracy theorist Tara Bull shared a clip of Biden’s speech along with a TikTok video promoting Lahaina fire conspiracy theories about the color blue, writing: “What did Biden just say about the fire not burning homes that have ‘the right roof’?” Twitter/X, [2/29/24]
- Right-wing MAGA account “I Meme Therefore I Am” wrote: “Did Biden just confirm that they use Directed Energy Weapons and that's why houses with blue roofs don't catch on fire?” Twitter/X, [2/29/24]
- Shannon Townsend, co-host of the QAnon program MG Show, alluded to the conspiracy theory, sharing the clip of Biden’s February 29 remarks and writing: “The house with the blue roof? That what Biden is talking about here?” Twitter/X, [2/29/24]
- Another conspiracy theorist account shared Biden’s remarks and wrote “Blue Roof ‘Conspiracy Theory’ Confirmed.” The post continued: “Pedo Joe Telling You That Viewing The Wild Fire Damage From Above Shows How a Whole Line of Houses Can be Completely Destroyed But One Is Left Standing Because It Had The ‘RIGHT ROOF’ On It. Telling Us What We Already Know Joey, Blue Roofs Are The Fail Safe.” Twitter/X, [2/29/24]
- QAnon account Shadow of Ezra also boosted the conspiracy theory: “Biden suggested that having the right type of roof could offer protection from wildfires. People are speculating that he may have implied a specific roof color. What do you think he really means?” Twitter/X, [2/29/24]
- QAnon account Jack Straw: “#BREAKING: Joe Biden accidentally confirms direct energy weapons are the cause of wildfires by saying you should have the right roof.” Twitter/X, [2/29/24]

Other online content creators speculate that the wildfires are “retaliation” for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s dispute with the administration’s border policies}:

Abbott has been highly critical of the Biden administration’s approach to handling migration at the southern border. In January, Abbott deployed Texas state police to block U.S. Border Patrol from entering Shelby Park at Eagle Pass, which has been turned into a holding center. Texas has also continued to erect razor wire between Shelby Park and the Rio Grande River after a Supreme Court ruling found that federal agents had the right to remove the wire.

On social media, some conspiracy theorists and right-wing influencers alleged that the government started the fires deliberately to punish Texas for not complying with the Supreme Court ruling, or suggested that migrants were somehow involved in starting the Smokehouse Creek Fire.

- One TikTok user claimed the fire is “suspicious” because Texas “wasn’t going for all this BS,” in a video with over 1 million views. Other users commented that the fires were “man made,” claiming that “TEXAS is OBVIOUSLY under attack by the government” as “Biden’s retaliation for [what] Texas did to the border.” TikTok, [2/28/24]

[twt]

- :{OneTikTok video with at least 660,000 views suggested the fires happened because “TX gave a big FU to the feds” and “now they’re hit with a big ol wildfire that’s nearing a nuclear weapons facility.” The user also implied that the Texas fires and Lahaina fires were connected, adding, “Some of y’all might not get that, but the right ones will.” :{TikTok:(style="background-color:#ff8000ff"):}:, [2/28/24]}:
- On X, another conspiracy theory account claimed the fire was an act of sabotage “because of Biden’s open borders.” The user wrote: “TEXAS: RUMORED Sabotage hits near nuclear weapons facility in Texas as fires rage towards the nuclear plant from Amarillo Texas, just north of the Pantex Nuclear Weapons Facility plant! Foreign agents struck again because of Biden’s open borders AND THE INFLUX OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS/TERRORISTS.” Twitter/X, [2/28/24]
- In a now-deleted tweet, right-wing media figure Rogan O’Handley, known online as “DC_Draino,” wrote: “Texas now has its 2nd largest wildfire in state history. Over 500,000 acres burned. How much you want to bet this was caused by our open border crisis?” Twitter/X, [2/28/24]
- Conspiracy theory account US Civil Defense News: “Foreign agents struck again because of Biden’s open borders!” The full post read, “Update: Sabotage hits nuclear weapons facility in Texas as fires rage towards the nuclear plant!! Video footage from Amarillo Texas, just north of the Pantex Nuclear Weapons Facility plant! Foreign agents struck again because of Biden’s open borders!!” Twitter/, [2/28/24]

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TikTok is failing to contain violent beheading content on its platform | Media Matters for America

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‘Looksmaxxing’ is the disturbing TikTok trend turning young men into incels - Alternet.org

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Study finds over 33 million Instagram, TikTok posts promoting harmful content to kids - Alternet.org

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TikTok Shop is selling black market vapes to children | Media Matters for America

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Weight loss betting companies are targeting TikTok and Meta users | Media Matters for America

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Former Fox host Tucker Carlson is platforming disgraced climate denier Willie Soon, an aerospace engineer known for accepting over $1 million from fossil fuel companies for writing publications he referred to as “deliverables.”

Carlson invited Soon, a former researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, on his exclusive program on X (formerly Twitter) for an interview on January 9. The two amplified long-debunked hypotheses about what is causing climate change, and clips from the interview have already been viewed over 1 million times on TikTok, likely by a young audience that might not be familiar with Soon’s controversies, which came to light back in 2015.

The spread of these videos highlights TikTok’s ongoing climate misinformation problem, even as it has begun implementing a new policy banning content that “undermines well-established scientific consensus, such as denying the existence of climate change or the factors that contribute to it.”

Though experts dismissed Soon’s false claims, clips of his interview with Carlson have gained traction on TikTok, a social media platform popular with young users

Clips of Carlson’s interview with Soon have been viewed over 1 million times on TikTok. Media Matters identified six videos that have collectively accrued more than 1.1 million views. According to a January 2023 report from Morning Consult, over 60% of Gen Z adults use TikTok at least once daily. TikTok, [1/10/24, 1/10/24, 1/10/24;1/10/24; 1/10/24, 1/10/24;Morning Consult, 1/2023]

Climate scientists continue to highlight and debunk Soon’s disinformation.“Soon's science is based on faulty assumptions & his conclusions are invalid & that's likely why FF [fossil fuel] companies pay him," wrote Gavin Schmidt, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Twitter/X, [9/10/23, 1/10/24,1/10/24]

The interview is part of a larger trend of major right-wing media outlets relying more on long-debunked climate deniers

:{:{Discredited climate deniers like Judith Curry, Patrick Moore, Anthony Watts, and Gregory Wrightstone, who have been vocal for decades, received renewed attention in 2023 from right-wing media figures. After years of relative obscurity, these figures found a reliable home on shows like Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt Tonight, and also appeared on Fox News programs such as Jesse Watters Primetime and The Ingraham Angle. On social media, they’ve increased engagement on X. Media Matters,:(style="background-color:#e0e000ff"):}: [11/28/12, 2/17/14, 12/22/23; DeSmog, 5/15/22; StateImpact Pennsylvania, 3/27/19]}:

Willie Soon has been exposed for unethically promoting flawed science

In 2015, a joint investigation by Greenpeace and the Climate Investigations Center found that Soon had accepted over $1.2 million in funding from fossil fuel companies for his research. Soon’s work was funded “almost entirely” by the fossil fuels industry, including Exxon Mobil, Southern Company, the American Petroleum Institute, and the Charles G. Koch Foundation. The Guardian, [2/21/15]

Soon described his papers as “deliverables” to his corporate funders. Emails revealed that one of the country’s largest utility holding companies, Southern Company, paid Soon to publish research examining the sun’s role in driving climate change. At the time, Southern relied heavily on coal. Scientists have long recognized that solar activity cannot be responsible for the rapid warming that the planet has experienced in recent decades. The New York Times, [2/21/15; Inside Climate News, 2/21/15; NASA, accessed 1/11/24]

The investigation also found that Soon failed to disclose his relationship with Southern Company in some of his research papers, violating ethical guidelines upheld by scientific journals. Despite accepting more than $400,000 from the company, Soon insisted he had no conflicts of interest, raising the alarm for academics and scientists. His papers, which have been published in top scientific journals, push a “range of climate-denial perspectives.” Inside Climate News, [2/21/15]

Soon has for years been a go-to source for media and lawmakers keen on protecting fossil fuel interests

Soon and his work have been used by the GOP in their efforts to block climate action.Climate denier and former Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe has cited Soon in press releases and on the Senate floor. In 2013, Soon testified in support of an effort to repeal Kansas’ renewable energy standard in front of state legislators, claiming that climate change isn’t a problem. DeSmog, accessed [1/11/24; Energy and Policy Institute, 8/28/15; U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works, 5/14/08, 7/29/03]

Soon has worked with right-wing think tanks that influence climate policy. Soon has spoken at conferences hosted by the Heritage Foundation, the Texas Public Policy Institute, and the Heartland Institute. In 2014, he was awarded the “Courage in Defense of Science Award” by the climate denier organization now called CO2 Coalition. DeSmog, accessed [1/11/24, 1/12/24; Heartland Institute, accessed 1/12/24]

Since Soon’s interview with Carlson, several well-known conspiracy theorists praised his ideas.Jimmy Corsetti, a YouTuber who has pushed the idea that a polar shift is responsible for climate change impact, and The Vigilant Fox, a figure known for spreading anti-vaccine misinformation, and many more, praised him on social media. Twitter/X, [1/9/24, 1/9/24; Media Matters, 5/24/23; Forbes, 11/26/22]

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misogynistic “manosphere” influencers including Andrew Tate, Sneako, and Jon Zherka are promoting violence against women and finding virality on TikTok via fan accounts posting their content. Some of these figures, including Sneako and Zherka, have over 100 fan accounts dedicated to sharing their toxic content, making it difficult for the platform to moderate and track the hateful rhetoric that these figures push.

While manosphere influencers themselves are not posting their content to TikTok, their large fan bases are flooding the platform with these influencers’ misogynistic and toxic content. This method — using swaths of devotees to overrun a platform with a particular figure’s content — is not new and has been used by fans of white nationalist and conspiracy theorist figures on TikTok to promote fringe and extremist content. TikTok has not successfully counteracted the massive fan account uploads that violate its Community Guidelines.

These influencers are part of the manosphere, an online community of right-wing websites, bloggers, and personalities cultivating a worldview based on conservative and regressive gender politics repackaged for the internet age.

Figures in this group often push extremism and antisemitism while blaming women for myriad societal woes and treating them as an inferior sex. Rhetoric from these influencers can sometimes be overtly cruel and promote hitting, degrading, and shaming women.

Manosphere personalities use other topics that interest young men — like weightlifting, video games, and boxing — to draw in viewers before diving into extremist content and misogyny, creating a dangerous pipeline for their fans.

TikTok is a uniquely dangerous place for these influencers to infiltrate, as the platform is extremely popular with kids and teens — one survey found that phone users aged 11-17 spend a median time of one hour and 52 minutes per day on the app. Additionally, TikTok’s For You Page algorithm feeds toxic content to users even if they are not seeking it out, which could lead to accidental radicalization; an issue that already plagues men who fall prey to the extreme online communities.

Misogynistic content has previously been singled out as an “enforcement gap” on TikTok, meaning the platform has struggled to moderate content that has promoted sexism. According to TikTok’s Community Guidelines, it does “not allow sexual exploitation or gender-based violence, including non-consensual sexual acts, image-based sexual abuse, sextortion, physical abuse, and sexual harassment."

examples of manosphere influencers promoting violence on TikTok}:

Here are several examples of the kind of violent manosphere content that is currently on TikTok and violating the platform’s Community Guidelines.

In one video, right-wing streamer Sneako (real name Nico Kenn De Balinthazy) is seen hitting a woman in the face. “Yeah, she’s been acting up all night,” he says in response to an onlooker asking if he hit her.

:{:{Video}:

CitationTikTok video uploaded by user @n3on_kicktv

Sneako is a manosphere influencer and associate of pro-Hitler rapper Ye (formerly Kanye West) and has been described as “a cheap imitation” of misogynist, media personality, and alleged human trafficker Andrew Tate. Sneako is banned on TikTok and YouTube and has promoted the abuse of women.

Additionally, Sneako has refused to condemn Adolf Hitler and attacked Jewish people online, saying that “the Nazis had drip” and that the swastika is “aesthetically pleasing.” He is also an associate of white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and spoke at one of Fuentes’ antisemitic rallies.

And in various TikTok videos, self-proclaimed woman-hater and manosphere influencer Jon Zherka is seen promoting violence against women. Zherka has previously described Hitler as a “good guy,” praised Fuentes, flirted with underage girls online, and shared content promoting violent attacks and abuse against women.

During one video, Zherka claimed that it is acceptable to beat a woman if he is fighting a couple over public displays of affection.

“If you’re a straight dude doing all that fucking nasty shit, making out with your girl at the park, I try and fight both of them, at the same time,” Zherka said. “I go, you know, it’s a two verse one, so I guess I can hit a woman."

“We need some Saudi energy,” Zherka continued. “We need to start cutting tongues for this kind of shit."

Video file

:{:{Video}:

CitationTikTok video uploaded by user @jonzherkaa

In another TikTok pulled from the misogynistic Fresh & Fitpodcast, Zherka said that if he had a daughter he would “beat the shit out of her and disown her” if she made an OnlyFans account, after making bizarre comments about dating and having a child with his own daughter.
Video file

:{:{Video}:

CitationTikTok video uploaded by user @redpillvault

Zherka said, “We have to discipline children, we have to beat the shit out of children” in a different TikTok video.
Video file

:{:{Video}:

CitationTikTok video uploaded by user @ZherkaOnTop

## Tracking virality and views of manosphere influencers on TikTok
Several of these misogynistic figures have millions of views under hashtags associated with them.

For example, there are 6.4 billion views under the “sneako” hashtag on the platform, and 2 billion under the hashtag “sneakoclips.”

The “jonzherka” hashtag has 227.8 million views.
Tate, who is perhaps the most well-known influencer in the manosphere space, is banned on TikTok but has many hashtags associated with him on the platform, through which users can encounter his content. The alleged human trafficker was banned for promoting sexist and violent content.

Many of the Tate-associated hashtags have millions of views.

TikTok videos that include manosphere-aligned hashtags only represent a fraction of all the toxic content on the app that features these influencers, as these videos don’t always include manosphere hashtags or captions.
## Manosphere fan accounts run amok on TikTok
When Tate was first banned from TikTok, several fan accounts began to reshare his misogynistic content across the platform. TikTok has never been successful in cracking down on fan accounts that post Tate content, and it continues to be an issue on the platform.

Now several other manosphere influencers have similar fan account networks.

These accounts regularly repost content from manosphere influencers and share links that are associated with these personalities. It is unclear if these networks of fan accounts are connected or acting independently.

According to a Media Matters analysis, there are over 175 fan accounts dedicated to Sneako on TikTok.

Similarly, there are over 100 fan accounts dedicated to Zherka and 55 accounts dedicated to Tate.

There are likely fewer accounts and hashtags dedicated to Tate despite his fame because TikTok has previously pledged to crack down on the influencer’s content on the platform.

Other manosphere programs, including the misogynistic Fresh & Fit podcast and Whatever’s Dating Talk podcast, also have multiple fan accounts on TikTok.
## Influence on young users
Tate has had a big impact on young boys and men since his rise to fame in 2022. Reporting shows how easily toxic rhetoric from manosphere influencers like Tate can infiltrate the minds of young audiences, even among users as young as 11 years old.

The videos of these manosphere influencers meeting their fans are a reminder of just how young some of these viewers and devotees are.

IFrame Content
In one clip, young Sneako fans are repeating his toxic rhetoric back to him, saying, “Fuck the women,” and, “All gays can die.” He seems to half-jokingly ask the camera, “What have I done?”
IFrame Content
Misogynistic and extremist rhetoric from these influencers does not live in a vacuum online; it can lead to real-world violence and harassment.
## What can TikTok do?
To protect its young users, TikTok must be proactive, making sure that influencers who promote violence against women are not finding success or a home on its platform.

Some bad actors are getting better at dodging moderation and are using terms that may not be picked up by the platform's “automated moderation technology,” an AI tool used by TikTok to determine if content violates the Community Guidelines. Human content moderators should take precedence when uploaded content concerns the manosphere or any influencer in this space, and should be reviewed more than once to ensure that violent and misogynistic content is not slipping through the cracks, and on to millions of young users’ screens.

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much in news of late? mma 12 23

Tucker Carlson is helping Alex Jones evade his TikTok ban | Media Matters for America

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## White evangelical Protestants, particularly those who watch right-wing media, have a higher rate of climate denial than the overall American public

- Concern over climate change has declined among evangelicals, despite the scientific consensus that climate change is real and worsening natural disasters.According to a recent study by the Public Religion Research Institute, “while the proportion of all Americans who consider climate change a crisis has risen 16% since 2014, among white evangelicals it has dropped 38%.” PRRI, [10/4/23; Religion News Services, 10/4/23]
- In public polling, right-wing Christians who express little concern about climate change and reject government action to curtail it cite a host of reasons, including the notion that God controls the climate and the belief that natural disasters are a sign of the End Times.Notably, the 2023 PRRI poll found that “agreement with the severity of natural disasters as evidence of the end of times is greater among Americans who most trust Fox News (52%) or far-right news outlets (43%).” Pew Research Center, [11/17/22; PRRI, 10/4/23]
- Republican politicians, prominent figures on the religious right, and key right-wing media funders have for years invoked religion to deny climate change and reject action to curtail it.Farris Wilks, an evangelical fracking billionaire and early funder of PragerU and The Daily Wire — both of which also have histories of pushing climate denial — has attributed climate change to God’s will, saying in 2013, “If [God] wants the polar caps to remain in place, then he will leave them there.” In a 2019 appearance on a right-wing Christian radio program, former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) dismissed the need to mitigate climate change by citing “God’s word” that the world would not flood. The Guardian, [9/5/23, 9/6/23; Right Wing Watch, 10/15/19; Baptist News, 9/27/19; Vox, 2/23/18; Time magazine, 5/31/17]

## Right-wing Christian media figures and TikTok influencers have dismissed climate change and instead cited biblical prophecy, the End Times, or “demonic attack” as explanations for extreme weather events
- FlashPoint, a Christian nationalist program that has interviewed high-profile Republicans including former President Donald Trump, tied record heat waves in the summer to biblical prophecy.Regular contributor and self-proclaimed prophet Hank Kunneman claimed that “when God tells you ahead of time what it’s going to specifically be and he lists out that it’s going to be in the hundreds and it is in the hundreds, and those specific numbers that he listed coincide with certain redemptive promises in the book of Psalms. … God’s anger is rising and it's coming with justice. Now, it isn't just weather and here's why. There is a connection between the prophetic and weather.” Victory Channel, *FlashPoint*, [7/25/23; Media Matters, 7/18/23]

- Kunneman also connected the wildfires in Maui to biblical prophecy, suggesting the fires were the result of “demonic entities” and that God will show “it’s not climate.”Kunneman claimed that the week before the fires, “the spirit of the Lord … began to prophesy about Hawaii, and he began to prophesy about North America and the fire. … And he said that ‘the demonic entities have stretched their hands.’” Victory Channel, *FlashPoint*, [8/22/23]

- TikTok influencers have also seized on wildfires as a sign of the End Times and return of Jesus Christ.An account with over 350,000 followers posted a video that suggested fires in Hawaii, Texas, Oregon, and Washington “have to do with the End of Times.” Another account with nearly 30,000 followers posted a video of wildfires in Canada with text that the fires were a “sign of His coming.” TikTok, [8/22/23, 8/23/23]

- Other TikTok users have claimed that rain, floods, or drought are also signs of the End of Times.A video of extreme weather in Mexico with nearly 5 million views asserted, “Terrifying roars from the sky convince people the apocalypse is coming,” with the caption claiming, “He’s at the doors!!! #Jesus.” An account with more than 28,000 followers posted a video of flooding in Israel with the hashtags “#bibleprophecy #prophecy #endtimes #endtimesprophecy #lastdays.” An account with over 100,000 followers cited biblical prophecy that the Euphrates River would dry up, stating, “The rapture may be closer than you think,” with the hashtags “#bible #prophecy #rapture #israel.” Another account with 31,000 followers posted a video of flooding in France with the hashtags “#bibleprophecyishappening #christiantiktok #jesusiscoming #GOD.” TikTok, [8/15/23, 4/13/23, 10/17/23, 11/3/23]

- Charisma News, a right-wing Christian outlet that is the top corporate sponsor of the Christian nationalist “ReAwaken America” tour, has repeatedly pointed to End Times biblical prophecy in coverage of recent extreme weather events.A Charisma News article titled “Growing ‘El Niño’ Expected to Cause End Times-Level Disasters,” asserted that “weather pattern changes” are “linked with the decline of morality in the end times of the Earth.” Another article suggested that “current bizarre weather events point to Biblical Prophecy,” citing “biblical” floods in Pakistan and the Euphrates River drying up. Charisma News, [5/25/23, 9/1/22; Rolling Stone, 2/28/23]

- In an opinion piece for the Christian Post titled “Who’s behind the weather,” the Rev. Mark Creech suggested that a warming climate is a sign of the “last days,” not climate change.Creech quoted a book, God’s Answer for America, that claimed natural disasters “are not ‘global warming’ (or ‘climate change’), but they are part of God’s ‘global warnings’ as signs for these last days.” Creech agreed, writing that the book presented “a more likely cause” of extreme weather. The Christian Post, [1/24/23]

- On the program Elijah Streams, which has interviewed members of the Trump family, self-proclaimed prophet Charlie Shamp attributed the Maui wildfires to “demonic attack” by a fire-breathing dragon upset over the legality of abortion.Twitter/X, [9/7/23]

- Televangelist Jim Bakker declared that discussions of climate change dismiss that God is unleashing “judgment” that will “come in the last days.” Bakker claimed, “Global warming is the world’s excuse that God wasn’t in the storm. I’m going to prove to you God’s in the storm, God’s in the rain, God’s in the wind, it’s God’s storm, it’s God’s wind, it’s God’s lightning.” Right Wing Watch, [9/16/19]

## Prominent right-wing media and Christian media figures have downplayed links between climate change and extreme weather events by arguing God controls the weather

- Right-wing influencer Benny Johnson claimed that Hurricane Ian was caused by “acts of God, not an act of global warming or climate change, as much as the perverse, seething scum wish to make it that.” *The Benny Show,* [9/30/22]
- While covering Hurricane Ian, former Fox prime-time host Tucker Carlson told his audience that the left “think they are God, they think they’re in charge of the weather.” Carlson stated that all natural disasters are “products of nature — God’s in charge, we’re not God.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [9/29/22]

- Right-wing Christian pundit Eric Metaxas hosted conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi to discuss “the hoax of global warming and climate change,” where Metaxas declared that “God has his hand on all of this, that to me is the key. And this is the hysteria of the, you know, the anti-fossil fuel left is simply a political narrative.” Salem Media Group, *The Eric Metaxas Radio Show*, [8/14/22]

- Family Research Council, an extreme right-wing evangelical activist group, published an article titled “A Biblical Perspective on Climate Change,” which asserted that “Christians should not forget that God is the one who calms the storms and is Lord over the elements.”The article also suggested that, “God is in control of everything that happens in the world, and nothing occurs without His knowledge and permission.” Family Research Council Action, [9/9/21]

- On Fox News, host Pete Hegseth suggested that climate activists are “wanting to play God” by attempting to mitigate climate change.Hegseth said: “This goes back to people wanting to play God. Climate has happened for thousands and thousands of years.” Fox News, *America’s Newsroom*, [1/27/23]

## Right-wing media and far-right Christian media have cited their faith to reject action on climate

- On Fox, Rachel Campos-Duffy asserted that it is not necessary to curtail climate change because of religion.Discussing climate activists, Campos-Duffy said: “For them, where we live right now, this place, Earth is it. So everything’s on the line here for them. They think, as you said, they can perfect this Earth. Those of us who have faith don’t believe that, and we believe how we act here determines where we go after. And so we got to behave.” She added that “if you don’t have a faith, whether it’s Hindu, Islam, Christianity, you’re going to create one. And it could be climate, or it could be yourself.” The Daily Beast, [1/4/23]

- Right-wing pastor Perry Stone, who has more than 750,000 subscribers on YouTube, said that the reason Christians don’t worry about climate change is because they know that all those problems will be taken care of “when Christ comes back to Earth.”Stone declared: “The travail of the earth will cease when the messiah returns, so those that criticize believers now for not being environmentally concerned or whatever, we know how the book ends, we know where this is going.” Twitter/X, [8/11/21]

- On Family Research Council’s Washington Watch podcast, FRC President Tony Perkins claimed that the warming climate is caused by sin and to combat it, people should “turn to the Lord Jesus Christ.”Twitter/X, [9/15/21]

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Deepfake Warren Buffett is selling bitcoin scams to TikTok users | Media Matters for America

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A TikTok trend that allegedly went viral received more coverage on cable news than many of Trump’s recent extreme claims | Media Matters for Americaunavi

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https://www.mediamatters.org/spanish-language-media/spanish-speakers-are-being-targeted-conspiracy-theories-about-climate-change

spanish-language TikTok creators have been pushing fringe conspiracy theories that argue against the existence of man-made climate change, proposing that climate change is a myth created by supposed elites to bring about the so-called Great Reset – a conspiracy theory that claims climate lockdowns will be used to strip individuals of their rights and possessions.

This comes as record heat waves are affecting the entire planet.

Misinformation about climate change on TikTok occurs despite the platform’s moderation policies, which prohibit “climate change misinformation that undermines well-established scientific consensus, such as content denying the existence of climate change or the factors that contribute to it.” Once again, non-English language content that violates platform policy is flying under the radar, spreading damaging misinformation in what is becoming a disturbing trend.

Media Matters found several Spanish-language posts on TikTok denying climate change, insisting it is a hoax made to impose oppressive or even lethal initiatives led by NGOs, like the UN's Agenda 21 and its much newer Agenda 2030, which sets a series of sustainable development goals for 2030. Agenda 2030 conspiracy theories, which are popular in Spanish, are often conflated with the Great Reset, which is also used to deny the need for action on climate change. Other theories include references to a secret weather control program known as HAARP and even flat earth theory. [vid]

other TikToks take clips from news programs where a supposed expert or study is used to sow doubt about the established facts of climate change. One clip had a guest who claimed, “There is no clear evidence that us, human beings, are capable of changing the earth’s climate,” but that what she has clearly seen is “President Biden asleep at the inauguration of the COP26.”Further, several of these news clips were sourced from Russian propaganda outlet RTand despite TikTok’s policy of labeling state affiliated news sources, the videos remained unlabeled – a common discrepancy between English and Spanish content on other major platforms as well.

Other common criticisms of climate science and action come in the form of testimonials or complaints from individuals who deny the existence of climate change without presenting evidence. Additionally, attacks on climate activist Greta Thunberg garner thousands of views and draw false equivalencies between her qualifications and scientists who deny climate change.

Conspiracy theories are increasingly crossing from the fever swamps of Spanish-language media like Telegram onto mainstream social media platforms and news networks like :{Americano Media.For instance, on the July 11 edition of Battleground Americano, host Jesús Márquez claimed that a so-called “New World Order” and the elites seek to manipulate all countries worldwide through international institutions, that they aim to “enslave the majority of the population,” and that “climate change is an excuse to drive changes that favor the elite.”}:

This makes it all the more likely that the growing Latino electorate will become the target of this type of misinformation in the coming election cycle.

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mary miller rep ill ban colleges

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https://www.mediamatters.org/tiktok/tiktoks-new-shopping-feature-selling-users-everything-weight-loss-pills-diy-lipo-injections

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https://www.mediamatters.org/tiktok/tiktok-driving-conspiracy-theories-about-canadas-wildfires

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BS ad AA activist insp by mom boxing gym youth

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https://www.mediamatters.org/tiktok/tiktok-enabling-telehealth-company-under-dea-investigation-alleged-overprescription

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https://www.mediamatters.org/one-america-news-network/getting-your-daily-news-tiktok-it-might-be-coming-one-america-news

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~ bipart bill biden? acitivists

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https://www.mediamatters.org/tiktok/new-year-new-scam-tiktoks-largest-weight-loss-advertiser-marketing-predatory-scams-young

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https://boingboing.net/2022/12/23/tik-tok-kept-financial-times-reporter-under-surveillance.html

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https://www.mediamatters.org/tiktok/misinformation-about-midterm-elections-already-flourishing-tiktok

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/meta-tiktok-stop-the-steal/

no lnk twt

Meta and TikTok busted for 'actively pushing' 'Stop the Steal 2.0' on eve of Brazil's presidential election

Brett Wilkins and Common Dreams October 30, 2022

As Brazilians prepare to vote in Sunday's decisive presidential runoff, a report published Saturday revealed that social media giants Meta—Facebook's parent company—and TikTok are driving traffic to content promoting a military coup to overthrow Brazil's democracy.

The report—entitled Stop the Steal 2.0: How Meta and TikTok Are Promoting a Coup—was published by the San Francisco-based activist group SumOfUs and asserts that "on the eve of the second vote in Brazil's most important election in decades, Meta and TikTok continue to put the integrity of the election on the line through their disastrous recommendation systems."

The publication comes ahead of Sunday's second-round contest between far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro—who has said he may not accept the outcome of the election if he loses–and former leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Aggregate polling showed the two candidates in a statistical dead heat on Friday.

According to the new report:

Meta claims that Brazil is a priority region and that the company is committed to enforcing policies and practices that uphold the integrity of the vote. But not only does SumOfUs' previous research show that the platforms are awash with conspiracy theories about the election, claims of electoral fraud, and calls for a military coup, this research report sets out how Facebook's recommender systems are actively pushing users towards this content.

:{:{}:

Far-right extremists, who are openly agitating for a military coup, are operating freely on Meta's platforms, and Meta is not only allowing them to spread their message and recruit new members, but the platform's algorithms are prioritizing anti-democratic groups, accounts, and posts. The report also looked at the role TikTok is playing in tackling the growing problem of election disinformation on its platform, and found its moderation lacking...

The findings confirm civil society organizations' worst fears, that platforms like Facebook and Instagram are enabling bad actors to organize and recruit new members, just as it did in the U.S. 2020 elections, which ended in violent insurrectionists storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6th.

"At this point, it is safe to say that Meta has become Bolsonaro's official disinformation machine," SumOfUs campaign director Flora Rebello Arduini said in a statement. "This is not Meta's first time wreaking havoc on democracy and Brazilians deserve better from this multi-billion dollar company."

"As this report shows," she added, "TikTok needs to up its game and not follow Meta's lead in fueling the disinformation crisis in Brazil."

On Saturday evening, SumOfUs activists projected an image of Meta co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg setting the Brazilian flag alight with the message "Meta is destroying Brazilian democracy" at Kings Cross tube station in London, just around the corner from Meta's U.K. headquarters.

The new report comes amid warnings and acts of right-wing political violence. While no motive has yet been announced, on Friday local São Paulo-area politician Reginaldo Camilo dos Santos, a prominent supporter of da Silva and the left-wing Workers' Party running for Congress, was assassinated in a drive-by shooting near his home in Jandira.

Agência Pública, an independent Brazilian investigative journalism outlet, reported earlier this month that from August 16 and the end of the first round on October 2, there wereat least 148 cases of electoral violence across the country.

A separate report published last week by the anti-corruption and human rights organization Global Witness revealed that YouTube approved 100% of Brazilian election misinformation ads submitted for approval, while Facebook accepted around half of such submissions.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/tiktok/groypers-are-using-tiktok-promote-white-nationalist-content-evading-platforms-ban

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influencers end-run on soc media filter/deplatform

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/opinion**/climate-change-facebook-glasgow.h**tml

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TikTok is facilitating the spread of misinformation surrounding the Russian invasion of Ukraine

02/25/22

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btb redditt

Robert, if you do want to get in the TikTok disinformation game, Abbie Richards (@tofology) is a go-to. She’s done some really excellent research into how easily TikTok begins suggesting white supremacist material to someone (spoiler: it’s pretty damn quick!) as well as debunking conspiracy theories. She’s one of my favorite follows.

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no lnx

Black flag: Understanding the Trumpists' latest threatening symbol

Chauncey DeVega and Salon October 12, 2021

It's an old truism that the "real bad men" (and bad women) "move in silence and violence." That's certainly true for the most dangerous and most effective of Donald Trump's allies, henchmen, henchwomen, and other followers. But for Donald Trump himself, and most of his political cult, that rule does not apply.

Trump and his followers were loud, exuberant and enthusiastic on Jan. 6. The lethal attack on the Capitol had been publicly announced weeks in advance, and should have come as no surprise. Trump's rallies and gatherings continue to celebrate violence and the prospect of revenge — and specifically of "getting even" with Trump's "enemies."

Steve Bannon, Trump's former campaign chairman and White House strategist, has now threatened to recruit Republican-fascist "shock troops" with the apparent goal of undermining the U.S. government, and by implication multiracial democracy, if and when Trump and the Republicans regain control of both Congress and the White House.

On a daily basis Fox News and other elements of the right-wing disinformation propaganda machine use stochastic terrorism and other techniques to radicalize their audience into committing acts of political violence. To this point, the Democratic Party and the political and news media class in general have remained in denial, and largely passive in response.

In one troubling new development, Trump supporters have begun flying all-black American flags, in an implicit threat to harm or kill their opponents — meaning nonwhite people,"socialist liberals," Muslims, vaccinated people and others deemed to be "enemies" of "real America." As media critic Eric Boehlert recently noted, the liberal opinion site Living Blue in Texas is sounding the alarm about the specific meaning of the black flag and the Republican-fascists support for terrorism and other political violence. That post, "Are Your Republican Neighbors Planning on Killing You?", merits lengthy quotation:

It didn't take long to find hundreds of videos where these Trumpers and so-called patriots were hanging black American flags. ...

Black American flags are the flags that mean "no quarter shall be given." They are the opposite of the white flag of surrender.

According to the people on TikTok and the Sun (British tabloid), the black American flag originated in the civil war and was flown by the Confederates.

It means that they will not surrender, will not take prisoners, and are willing to die for their cause. It means they will execute their enemies.

Who are their enemies? Pretty much any non-Conservative. You know, Democrats, Liberals, LGBTQ, BIPOC, and the vaccinated. ...

So, we're the enemy, and they're openly professing to want to execute us. … So, why are they doing this

Covid vaccinations, mostly. They believe that Joe Biden has declared a civil war on them by mandating that employers with over 100 employees and the military have vaccinations.

Yes, they say civil war, and they say it's already started. But, unfortunately, many of them also live in states where masks and vaccines are required by state governments, healthcare, and law enforcement.

An alarming number of military members have been making Tik Tokstalking about how they are being discharged because they refuse the vaccine. It's alarming because there is probably an equal number of guys on there talking about the civil war plans and actively using Tik Tok to recruit these military and ex-military members.

The biggest message they have been sending out is, "it's time" or "the time is now." ...

Although showing guns on Tik Tok is supposed to be against community guidelines, they show lots of videos of their guns, shooting them, wearing them, or sitting on their bed.

They primarily use Tik Tok as a recruiting tool and let others know their willingness to commit violence. Then they tell people to message them or where to find them on Telegram.

However you interpret these videos posted by Trump followers and other neofascists — which could be mainly performative — it is clearly true that the American right is increasingly willing to accept or condone violence as a means of expanding and protecting their social and political power. (Salon did not find licensed news photographs of these flags, and has made the editorial decision not to reproduce the images mentioned above, which are easy to find on social media.)

Public opinion polls and other research have repeatedly shown that millions of Republican voters and Trump followers would support the use of violence to remove Joe Biden from office because of the "Big Lie" and their belief that that he is not a legitimate president. Similarly, a large proportion of Republicans believe that the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 were "patriots" whose use of violence was justified.

And a new poll from the University of Virginia's Center for Politics even suggests that more than 50 percent of Trump supporters want "red states" to secede from the Union. Republican elected officials and other right-wing opinion leaders have continued to escalate their threats of political violence against Democrats and other targeted groups.

In a recent speech to the North Carolina Faith and Freedom Coalition's "Salt & Light" conference, Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., issued what sounded like a declaration of war:

:{:{}:

It is time for the American Christian church to come out of the shadows to say, "No longer are we going to allow our culture to be determined by people who hate the things that we believe in…. We are going to stand valiantly for God's incredible inherent truths that predate any version of government. Because, my friends, if we lose this country today, if we bend the knee to the Democrats today, our country will be lost forever, our children will never know what freedom is. It's our duty to stand up, Let us stand united as men and women of faith to fight for our country.

During an interview with MSNBC's Joy Reid, terrorism and national security expert Malcolm Nance said that Cawthorn's video "picks up on the themes that are not just coming from the Steve Bannon level and Donald Trump level, they are coming from the Republican street — and that Republican street is armed. They're angry. They have been fed an entire line which makes them believe that America is no longer America and that they no longer want the America that the rest of us, the 60 percent of the country, live in. And they`re willing to take up arms for it."

Nance also noted that Cawthorn's propaganda video is thematically similar to the type of propaganda used by Islamic terrorist groups such as ISIS and al-Qaida to radicalize and recruit members.

During an interview with Scientific American magazine, Dr. Bandy Lee, the principal editor of the 2017 bestseller "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump," explained how a mentally pathological leader can "infect" his followers and perhaps even an entire nation:

I have outlined two major emotional drives: narcissistic symbiosis and shared psychosis. Narcissistic symbiosis refers to the developmental wounds that make the leader-follower relationship magnetically attractive. The leader, hungry for adulation to compensate for an inner lack of self-worth, projects grandiose omnipotence — while the followers, rendered needy by societal stress or developmental injury, yearn for a parental figure. When such wounded individuals are given positions of power, they arouse similar pathology in the population that creates a "lock and key" relationship….

"Shared psychosis" — which is also called "folie à millions" ["madness for millions"] when occurring at the national level or "induced delusions" — refers to the infectiousness of severe symptoms that goes beyond ordinary group psychology. When a highly symptomatic individual is placed in an influential position, the person's symptoms can spread through the population through emotional bonds, heightening existing pathologies and inducing delusions, paranoia andpropensity for violence — even in previously healthy individuals. The treatment is removal of exposure.

Trump and his regime gave permission and encouragement to his followers and other supporters to engage in antisocial and other anti-human behavior on a national scale. Once such a process has begun, and those forces are unleashed, it is not easy to stop. Fascism is not a simple machine with an on-and-off switch. In practice, fascism is given life and takes corporeal form through its followers, with each one being a potential carrier of the pathology.

As Hussein Ibish warned in a recent article in the Atlantic, "The cancer of political violence is not an endemic American disease. At the moment, it is a Republican disease. No one but Republicans themselves can cure it. Until they do, the violence of the right is only going to keep swelling and crashing. From a Middle Eastern perspective, this is all appallingly familiar."

Fascism is a highly virulent social disease that usually destroys the host body – but not before spreading the disease to many other people. In fact, if the original host dies, he or she can be elevated to the status of martyr for "the cause," serving to inspire existing followers and lure in new ones.

Ultimately, Donald Trump, like other fascist and authoritarian leaders, is the symptom of a sick society. Trumpism is not actually the core disease. For America to counteract the deep underlying illness that has made Trumpism possible will require a long-term cultural and moral reckoning. Anything less, and the disease of American fascism will only go dormant until it is resurrected again — perhaps in a more dangerous and virulent form.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/tiktok/tiktoks-algorithm-leads-users-transphobic-videos-far-right-rabbit-holes

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https://www.mediamatters.org/tiktok/tiktok-influencers-are-pushing-dangerous-far-right-conspiracy-theories-their-young-audience

521

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aha/recall images bypass rational thot (but i spoze ppl are also TALKIN?)

aha: PPL get pulled into feedback loop, but arte part of it, a driver? ppl imitate the algo?!

aha both trumpism and evang invitation to grift, both rely on obed to strict ft; holier than thou, trumpier than thou; he will punish THOSE POC who are getting uppity demanding standing/dignity, access =PC; loyalty, belief, magical thinking. orgasmic apoc purge in which your passive and bigotry will lift you up/be rewarded; prophet/profit gives certainty in a chaotic and lonely world, a person talking to YOU on YOUtube or tiktok or parler? and when you take a pseudo-action by liking or retweet or endorse you weill then be fed another in an endless chain, but each just incrementally more wacko/extreme b/c you tolernace [heh] is increasing and you need higher levels to spurt brain chems (fear/hype); endorse seems brave and affirmative but minimal risk? i'm just sayin/agreeing with this person who has more status/authority/knowledge Q clearance?

edit bd

https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/leaving-qanon/

I don't believe Ashley Vanderbilt escaped QAnon. Yes, I know that's what she told CNN's Donie O'Sullivan, and that's what Donie O'Sullivan told the rest of us on Wednesday. But trust me when I say there's no way someone indoctrinated into believing up is down, left is right, and wrong is right snaps out of it in a matter of weeks. People like Vanderbilt are primed to believe anything, and will keep being primed to believe anything. O'Sullivan's reporting suggests the danger is fading. The danger is not, and O'Sullivan's reporting goes a way toward obscuring that reality.

Who is Ashley Vanderbilt? She's a married white 27-year-old mother of a young child living in South Carolina. She lost her job last April as a result of the covid pandemic. Though neither she nor O'Sullivan say what kind of Christian she is, the fact she does not say suggests she's with a nondenominational evangelical congregation, I'd guess a megachurch, which would put her squarely among Donald Trump's loyalest of loyal supporters, the people most likely to believe the former president was sent by God. As such, she's probably gotten very adept at envisioning her life not as one she has control over, but one she must suffer through as the price for entering the Kingdom of Heaven.

When she said, "I've always been someone that you just tell me what to do and I do it," I knew she and I come from similar religious backgrounds in which morality is obedience.

O'Sullivan said that after Joe Biden won the election, Vanderbilt "spent days on TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube becoming indoctrinated into the world of QAnon." (That's the conspiracy theory holding that the Democrats are in league with a global—read: Jewish—cabal of satanists who fornicate with children before eating them.) "By inauguration day," O'Sullivan said, Vanderbilt "was convinced that if then President-elect Joe Biden took office the United States would literally turn into a communist country. She was terrified that she would have to go into hiding with her daughter."

Vanderbilt said she was spending a lot of time by herself after losing her job. She was depressed. She was cranky. She too often snapped at her daughter. As a result, she said, she probably lost touch with reality. "I wasn't one hundred percent there like I should have been," she said. Folks, I'm here to tell you someone who believed that the "deep state" was having sex with children before eating them, that the former president would declare martial law, and that the military would round up his enemies before publicly executing them in cold blood is not someone who needs to lose her job, go into a depression or snap at her child to be not quite "one hundred percent there."

She was already there. How do I know? From experience. I've mentioned before I grew up on the margins of a closed protestant sect called the Christians Gathered Unto the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. (They are better known as the Plymouth Brethren.) Strict obedience to authority, which is to say, strict obedience to the father of the family, which is to say strict obedience to God, was morality.When Vanderbilt said, "I've always been someone that you just tell me what to do and I do it," I knew she and I come from similar backgrounds. We were taught Hell is really real, and God really will send you there if you do not do what He tells you to. We were taught a God who threatens eternal pain and suffering is a lovingGod. We were taught to believe up is down, left is right, wrong is right, but especially don't think just do as you're told.

So I know she was already there. She didn't need TikTok to fall down "the QAnon rabbit hole." If it wasn't TikTok, Facebook or whatever, it would have been something else, most likely ordinary word of mouth. QAnon does not demand of believers any more than Vanderbilt's white evangelical church does. She seems to have sensed the connection between them. O'Sullivan said, "while she was deep in the conspiracy theory, she said Trump was becoming an almost messianic figure for her who could do no wrong. She recalls once asking herself, 'Am I putting even Trump above God?'" She doesn't read, she said, and she doesn't pay attention to the legitimate press. All she needs to do is what she's told to do, which is follow the leader don't ask questions.

Which is why her explanation of how she "escaped" doesn't hold up. "Some QAnon adherents concocted a new conspiracy theory in the hours after inauguration," O'Sullivan said. "Biden's inauguration itself was a key part of the plan, the new theory held, and Trump would return as President in the coming few weeks. Then, certainly, all the deep-state arrests would happen. That was a step too far for Vanderbilt."Wut!

She was convinced Joe Biden's inauguration would transform the country into a Communist state. She believed she'd have to go into hiding with her daughter. She believed the Democrats and the Jews and "the Globalists" are cannibals. And she was disappointedwhen the military did not publicly execute Der Führer's enemies in cold blood. But wait whoa—a conspiracy theory adapting to reality? That's a step too far!?

Look, I don't understand why Vanderbilt thinks she escaped QAnon. I do know, using my intuition, that she does not understand why either. In not understanding why, she's vulnerable to the influence of a CNN journalist reporting a national story about a QAnon believer who escaped. Vanderbilt, in being someone who always did what was asked of her, continued being someone who did what was asked of her, in this case, giving O'Sullivan a story he was asking for, however tacitly. And in the process of telling that story, he obscured a terrible conclusion about Vanderbilt. That she felt fooled into believing there would be blood does not change the fact she wanted blood.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

QAnon election conspiracy theory about ballot fraud is going viral on TikTok

11/05/20 2:14 PM EST

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trump stuns observers by openly soliciting payment to US Treasury for his ‘approval’ of TikTok sale

David Badash / The New Civil Rights Movement

President Donald Trump says he is allowing Microsoft to purchase the U.S. assets of the popular Beijing-based TikTok social media video sharing app, in a sale Trump personally is forcing.…

mS bids to buy US part?

trump threatens to ban popular social media app TikTok ‘with an executive order’

Aysha Qamar / Daily KosAugust 3, 2020

News of a TikTok ban is sweeping the Internet. But why exactly is Tik Tok, a popular social media app, being banned? According to The New York Times, government officials fear…

opensecrets 720

tikTok deploys lobbyists tied to Trump, top Democrats as US considers ban

:{:{TikTok is one of the most popular and fastest-growing apps in the U.S. But unless its pricey lobbying campaign pays dividends, the video sharing app’s time in the limelight could be coming to an end. Both President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have said the U.S. is considering banning TikTok, which is run by the Chinese company ByteDance, amid concerns that users’ data could be shared with the Chinese Communist Party.}:

Sam Biddle, Paulo Victor Ribeiro, Tatiana Dias

The China-based social media company also has policies censoring various forms of political speech, leaked documents reveal.

the makers TIKTOK, the Chinese video-sharing app with hundreds of millions of users around the world, instructed moderators to suppress posts created by users deemed too ugly, poor, or disabled for the platform, according to internal documents obtained by The Intercept. These same documents show moderators were also told to censor political speech in TikTok livestreams, punishing those who harmed “national honor” or broadcast streams about “state organs such as police” with bans from the platform.

These previously unreported Chinese policy documents, along with conversations with multiple sources directly familiar with TikTok’s censorship activities, provide new details about the company’s efforts to enforce rigid constraints across its reported 800 million or so monthly users while it simultaneously attempts to bolster its image as a global paragon of self-expression and anything-goes creativity. They also show how TikTok controls content on its platform to achieve rapid growth in the mold of a Silicon Valley startup while simultaneously discouraging political dissent with the sort of heavy hand regularly seen in its home country of China.

On TikTok, livestreamed military movements and natural disasters, video that “defamed civil servants,” and other material that might threaten “national security” has been suppressed alongside videos showing rural poverty, slums, beer bellies, and crooked smiles. One document goes so far as to instruct moderators to scan uploads for cracked walls and “disreputable decorations” in users’ own homes — then to effectively punish these poorer TikTok users by artificially narrowing their audiences.

Today, The Intercept and The Intercept Brasil are publishing two internal TikTok moderation documents, recreated with only minor redactions, below. One lays out bans for ideologically undesirable content in livestreams, and another describes algorithmic punishments for unattractive and impoverished users.The documents appear to have been originally drafted in Chinese and later — at times awkwardly — translated into English for use in TikTok’s global offices. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Beijing-headquartered company that operates a suite of popular sites and social apps, a sort of Chinese analog to Facebook. ByteDance, founded in 2012, has come under scrutiny by the U.S. government over its ties to the Chinese Communist Party and numerous reports that the app’s censorship tactics mirror those of Beijing; Sens. Chuck Schumer and Josh Hawley have both worked to limit TikTok’s use by government personnel, arguing that it presents a risk to national security.

TikTok spokesperson Josh Gartner told The Intercept that “most of” the livestream guidelines reviewed by The Intercept “are either no longer in use, or in some cases appear to never have been in place,” but would not provide specifics. Regarding the policy of suppressing videos featuring unattractive, disabled, or poor users, Gartner stated that the rules “represented an early blunt attempt at preventing bullying, but are no longer in place, and were already out of use when The Intercept obtained them.”

Sources indicated that both sets of policies were in use through at least late 2019 and that the livestream policy document was created in 2019. Gartner would not explain why a document purportedly aimed at “preventing bullying” would make zero mention of bullying, nor why it offers an explicit justification of attracting users, not protecting them.

Excluding Undesirable Users From the “For You” Fire Hose

One moderation document outlining physical features, bodily and environmental, deemed too unattractive spells out a litany of flaws that could be grounds for invisibly barring a given clip from the “For You” section of the app, where TikTok videos are funneled to a vast audience based on secret criteria. Although what it takes to earn a spot on the “For You” section remains a mystery, the document reveals that it took very little to be excluded, all based on the argument that uploads by unattractive, poor, or otherwise undesirable users could “decrease the short-term new user retention rate,” as stated in the document. This is of particular importance, the document stresses, for videos in which the user “is basically the only focus of the video … if the character’s appearance or the shooting environment is not good, the video will be much less attractive, not worthing [sic] to be recommended to new users.”

... [docs]

https://theintercept.com/2020/02/06/tiktok-suicide-brazil/

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Social media platform TikTok is hosting multiple videos that spread misinformation and falsehoods about the coronavirus, despite a policy change concerning misinformation that the platform announced earlier this month. The videos have hundreds of thousands of views combined, and there even appears to be an auto search suggestion leading to some of these videos.

Also: Fox News cited a viral video about the coronavirus that was entirely unsourced. The video was originally posted to Twitter by an account known for spreading unverified information in breaking news environments.

Stay informed: BuzzFeed News has gathered a good list of coronavirus disinformation spreading on social media.

tiktok

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Though experts dismissed Soon’s false claims, clips of his interview with Carlson have gained traction on TikTok, a social media platform popular with young users

The interview is part of a larger trend of major right-wing media outlets relying more on long-debunked climate deniers

Willie Soon has been exposed for unethically promoting flawed science

Soon has for years been a go-to source for media and lawmakers keen on protecting fossil fuel interests

When she said, "I've always been someone that you just tell me what to do and I do it," I knew she and I come from similar religious backgrounds in which morality is obedience.

QAnon election conspiracy theory about ballot fraud is going viral on TikTok

trump threatens to ban popular social media app TikTok ‘with an executive order’

tikTok deploys lobbyists tied to Trump, top Democrats as US considers ban

Sam Biddle, Paulo Victor Ribeiro, Tatiana Dias

Excluding Undesirable Users From the “For You” Fire Hose