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And among those, doesn't "Tiktok is bad because it's antisemitic" stand out like a sore thumb? When they bought Tiktok, did they change it to stop it from being brainrot, or were they completely happy to keep the brainrot as long as it wasn't "antisemitic"?
As far as I'm aware Jewish criticism of TikTok has frequently featured anti-semitism as a theme, but I don't view it as particularly sinister for Jews to be worried about anti-semitism. I think every group is allowed to be worried about people hating them. In this regard as far as I can tell there is no particular difference between Jews and other groups that are often hated on social media. It's true that the Christian and Islamic responses focus more on TikTok and social media being psychologically harmful in a general sense, and personally I think those responses are better. I think the Christians and the Muslims have one up on the Jews in this particular case. (I think the specific Pakistani fatwa against TikTok has a misaimed criticism, and overall I think the Christian responses are the best and most nuanced - but then, I am a Christian, so I may well be biased.)
I should also clarify that I'm not saying that Jewish groups are necessarily right in terms of policy direction - for instance, recently in Australia, Jewish organisations have been strongly in support of new hate speech laws after Bondi, whereas other religious and secular groups have, in my opinion correctly, raised concerns that these laws are rushed and will not help.
But I suppose my position is that insofar as there is lots of anti-semitism on TikTok, I think it is understandable and non-conspiratorial that Jews dislike this and want something to be done about it. I think there is a meaningful difference between that and positing backroom deals or conspiracies among Jewish elites to acquire TikTok.
Even if it is so, it does show that your earlier "there's nothing special about Jews hating TikTok, Christians, Muslims, and Atheists hate it too" is wrong. The latter hate it for universal good reason, the former only for self-interested reasons.
I don't know if I agree that it's understandable either. Between them having a habit of framing any form of criticism as bigotry, and the sort of attacks that they're complaining about being seen as pretty mundane when they're done to other groups, I really don't see why they shouldn't just learn to deal with it like everyone else did.
Even if it was understandable, that doesn't make it non-conspiratorial. They didn't just so happen to offer to buy TikTok, and the Chinese didn't just so happen to accept the offer, this was all a result of pressure from the American government. Once the US forced the sale, they also weren't the ones that just so happened to offer the highest bid in an open auction. This is almost certainly a result of shady elites picking and choosing favorites.
I'd suggest that if you have both general and particular reasons to hate something, you are more likely to bring up the particular reasons, if only because the general reasons are more likely to be shared and brought up by others. At any rate, my original statement did not distinguish motives? Of the examples given, the Jewish source hates TikTok because it spreads anti-semitism, the Christian sources hate TikTok because it's addictive and psychologically harmful, and the Islamic source hates TikTok because it promotes immorality and obscenity. These are all different reasons.
I take it as obviously acceptable for a member of a given demographic to be concerned about hatred of that demographic. A Jew can care about anti-Jewish hate, a white person about anti-white hate, a gay person about anti-gay hate, a Hindu about anti-Hindu hate, and so on. Insofar as anti-semitism exists, which it undoubtedly does, it is at as a starting point reasonable for Jews to say, "we don't like this".
Now there is a separate question about what's reasonable in terms of policy response, and I just indicated with the Australian hate speech legislation, I do think Jewish groups at least here have supported unwise policy. I think I am able to say, "I think you are responding badly to a legitimate fear". I don't need to suggest a nefarious motive, or suggest that the thing they're afraid of isn't a problem.
On the specifics of this deal, I think the word 'they' is doing all the work for you there, and allows you to smuggle in scary implications. 'They' didn't offer to buy TikTok. 'They' didn't make an offer for Warner Bros. In neither case was an organisation that can credibly claim to represent Jews involved with the offer. What's the argument here? David Ellison owns too much media? Okay, sure. I'm happy to grant that. But you can't get from a specific person, David Ellison, to the spooky 'they', meaning Jews as a whole. Supposing that shady backroom deals are what resulted in Ellison winning some of these bids (which does not appear to be in evidence, though I grant that Ellison's connections with a famously corrupt and transactional president suggest the worst), even that shows only that a wealthy person has tried to acquire a lot of media.
Right, and my point is that of the 3, the "it spreads anti-semitism" reason is a clearly self-serving reason, while the others, even the Muslim one, is concerned with the general good.
Generally speaking, yes, but I was pointing out that I have issues with the particular concerns raised about "anti-semitism".
First, as I already said, other groups are expected to just deal with it to some extent. TikTok, and all the other social media, even mainstream media, also spread anti-Christian hatred, but Christians barely bother complaining about it anymore because no one takes it seriously. I don't see why concerns over antisemitism should be taken more seriously.
Secondly, many of the specific issues raised just plainly aren't instances of hatred. Not liking the state of Israel is not hatred. Neither is covering the creepy Orthodox communities in New Jersey, to take a more recent drama.
I agree this is at the core of the issue. Look, I get that methodological individualism is a thing, I can even respect it as an intellectual framework, but I'm a bit bothered that people subscribed to it treat it as the null hypothesis, and are free to reject an alternative hypothesis that doesn't meet an arbitrarily set burden of proof, while never having to prove anything themselves.
People don't need a formal organization representing a group, in order to act as a group. We have language, a whole lot of various communications technologies, and status hierarchies, to help us coordinate collective actions. Jewish people are probably better at it than the average group, and it's something I admire about them, but the "it's all just individual preferences, all the way down" denials drive me a bit crazy.
Only if you think that David Ellison was able to convince the US Senate to force the sale of TikTok further pick him as the purchaser all on his lonesome.
I think I can get to there when I consider how many people get deplatformed, demonetized, or outright debanked for crossing them, vs. how rarely it happens when someone crosses any other group. Or how the anti-DEI drama in universities just resulted in whites being discriminated against even harder, while the anti-semitism drama resulted in students being deported for perfectly legal speech. These things, especially in aggregate, don't just happen as a result of random individuals following their preferences.
I think it's intuitively true that Jewish people care about issues that exclusively or disproportionately affect Jewish people, like anti-semitism or the welfare of the state of Israel, and therefore that, all absent intentional coordination or conspiracy, engage in actions to discourage anti-semitism or support Israel. It's also true that there are some organisations explicitly dedicated to those causes, which explicitly wave a flag for Jews. The ADL fights anti-semitism. AIPAC fights for Israel.
And in the absence of any other evidence, "X is Jewish" strongly raises my probability that X cares about fighting anti-semitism, or that X supports Israel. This much is obvious.
I suppose the problem I have here is that there's a kind of motte-and-bailey. I think your position here is mostly reasonable. Jews tend to support Jewish causes; Jews are a relatively influential and wealthy demographic in the US, and relatively politically mobilised; therefore the US tends to relatively sympathetic to or supportive of Jewish causes. This does mean that not all causes are equal. Anti-semitism really does get treated much more harshly than other similar forms of hatred. This is also indeed frustrating when you have legitimate criticisms of Israel.
The bailey, on the other hand, is the SecureSignals position. Jews being concerned about anti-semitism and enthusiastic in fighting it by no means constitutes a reason to be anti-semitic! You don't have to skip from the motte of "Jews care a lot about Jewish issues and tend to advocate for them" to the bailey of "Jews are a malign parasitic group controlling the US for their own purposes, wake up sheeple".
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