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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 11, 2024

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ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt was heard on leaked call demanding something must be done about TikTok due to declining support for Israel among young people, hundreds of Jewish organizations throw their weight behind a Tik Tok ban, a week ago Time publishes in article by Anthony Goldbloom titled Why TikTok Needs to be Sold or Banned Before the 2024 Election which hardly mentions anything about some national security threat from CCP, and instead under the heading "Why it Matters" complains about the portion of pro-Palestinian hashtags on the platform and the spread of antisemitism...

TikTok says users decide whether to post and engage with content on #FreePalestine rather than #StandWithIsrael. But, content moderation decides what posts stay up, what gets taken down, and what accounts get banned from the platform. And it’s TikTok’s algorithm that decides what circulates and what doesn’t.

For anyone who doubts the causal link between TikTok and the rise in antisemitic incidents we’ve seen on U.S. campuses: a November 2023 study conducted by Generation Lab, which I helped to organize, showed that people who spend 30 minutes per day on TikTok are 17% more likely to agree with anti-semitic statements like "Jewish people chase money more than other people do."

They want control over the moderation and algo, as ADL has control over the moderation of Reddit and nearly every platform except X only since Musk's takeover.

And still, in a thread where @Ben___Garrison is lobbing accusations of foreign influence against the GOP by CCP and Russia he doesn't even breath a whisper about Zionist influence. It is obvious that Zionist influence is at play here, and the fact you can pontificate about the lack of Tiananmen Square videos while ignoring the planning and lobbying by Zionists to force a divestment on behalf of Israel and to combat antisemitism, despite their explicit plans laying out their objective and motivation, says it all really.

Edit: And news that is now just breaking, looks like Jewish Zionist Steven Mnuchin is angling to buy TikTok after the bill is passed.

From CNBC:

“I think the legislation should pass and I think it should be sold,” Mnuchin, who leads Liberty Strategic Capital, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday. “It’s a great business and I’m going to put together a group to buy TikTok.”

There is common ground between Liberty and ByteDance. Masa Son’s SoftBank Vision Fund invested in ByteDance in 2018, and is also a limited partner in Mnuchin’s Liberty Strategic.

The bill is now headed to the Senate, where its future is uncertain, though President Joe Biden has said that he will sign the legislation if reaches his desk.

"This should be owned by U.S. businesses. There’s no way that the Chinese would ever let a U.S. company own something like this in China,” Mnuchin said.

From the JPost article earlier this year about the Liberty Strategic Capital:

Mnuchin came to Israel on a business trip for the first time since the October 7 massacre with his business partner, former US ambassador David Friedman. The two men, who served under former US president Donald Trump, started the Liberty Strategic Investment Fund in 2021 and have an office in Tel Aviv.

The fund is worth $3 billion, of which it has invested 30% so far, Mnuchin said. He said he is in Israel to put more money into Israeli tech.

It should also be noted that David Friedman, Mnuchin's business partner who co-founded Liberty Strategic Capital which is angling to buy Tik Tok, is also a Jewish Zionist and former US ambassador to Israel.

And yet if the plan to force ByteDance to sell is a "Jewish Zionist" one:

  1. Why did noted right-wing Zionist, Bibi fan, ByteDance investor, settlement supporter and GOP donor Jeff Yass personally convince Donald Trump to completely reverse his position on TikTok, allegedly in advance of a major donation? Was he not informed of the Jewish Zionist position in advance? Would he really screw over his entire tribe just to make a quick buck? If he did defect in such a clear and destructive way, that would be a strong refutation of the Jewish group evolutionary strategy hypothesis advanced by eg. MacDonald and others.

  2. Where's the evidence that TikTok has remained unbowed by eg. the ADL's pressure? A large majority (more than 60%) of TikTok's parent, ByteDance, is owned by global institutional investors. Many of these investors, from Yass (who owns 15% of the company, almost as much as the cofounders), to Yuri Milner, to other large institutional investors like Blackrock, to venture capitalists like Sequioa that have major stakes, are owned, operated or led by prominent Jews, pretty much all of them Zionists, several actual Israelis. If TikTok's investors wanted to pressure TikTok into pro-Israeli positions, why wouldn't they be able to? In addition, TikTok's western moderation is all handled from the US and performed by Americans and their contractors. No policy in China, likely not even any Chinese executives, would need to be involved in such an effort. And indeed TikTok has already thoroughly supported and joined the global pro-woke content policy movement in the US and Western Europe. The only reason this wouldn't work is if the CCP exerted political pressure on TikTok to specifically avoid kowtowing to these prominent investors. But then...

  3. Why would China be opposed to censoring pro-Palestinian views? In addition to China's own troubles with Islamism, China has a long and productive relationship with Israel. Israelis and Jews are generally liked in China, indeed you yourself have accused Israel of repeatedly selling the Chinese 'top secret' American technology. China has resisted any full-throated condemnation of Israel beyond the boilerplate ICJ statement against colonialism, and certainly has resisted the idea of any sanctions or restrictions on trade with Israel. The pan-Islamist sentiment often promoted by Palestinian boosters is itself a threat to Chinese minorities living in Muslim lands like Malaysia and Indonesia, where ethnic Chinese (whom the CCP has previously tried to protect from native depradation) have been arrested for publicly opposing some anti-Israel policies. Radicalizing Muslims populations in an explicitly Islamic fervor for Palestine does not serve Chinese foreign policy goals, especially when Israel is increasingly neutral on the US-China question.

In summary, the argument that this censorship is about Israel-Palestine doesn't really make sense. It misunderstands ByteDance's own corporate structure, TikTok's management and political stance (if any) and China's relationship to Israel, which is largely friendly and no more hostile than that of, say, Macron's France. Israel itself has not protested TikTok's moderation with China, and therefore the support of some American Jewish groups for the ban is more about jumping on a general societal bandwagon and flailing around because they're supposed to be 'opposing antisemitism' and don't really know how.

Obviously, that one Jewish investor opposes it (as far as we know) due to his own bottom line. You are continuing the time-honored tradition of "You can't relate something to Jewish influence unless literally every single Jew is involved" even though that standard is never held in analysis of other group-organized activist behavior.

We have ADL, Jewish Federations of North America, media pieces like Goldbloom's and others advocating for the forced divestment because of antisemitism and not because of CCP security concerns. This includes various stories pointing out that the antisemitism and Israeli concerns are what has united what have been previously failed efforts. But you'll point to one Jew with a financial stake. And the sourcing of that entire story is extremely thin, there is no chance we have any idea what conversations are happening between closed doors with Jeff Yass and potential buyers. The entire basis for your claim is this fact: "According to Politico, Trump praised the investor at a Club for Growth retreat at The Breakers resort in Palm Beach, Florida." That's it.

Where's the evidence that TikTok has remained unbowed by eg. the ADL's pressure?

Did you not listen to the leaked audio of Greenblatt I linked from November? How is that not evidence when it is coming right from the horse's mouth?

We REALLY have a Tik-Tok problem, the Gen-Z problem that our community needs to put... our energy towards this like fast.

How is this not evidence?

Why would China be opposed to censoring pro-Palestinian views?

Tik-Tok is not censoring pro-Palestinian views. So the ADL wants to change management.

The story broke this morning that Steven Mnuchin is looking to lead a purchase of Tik Tok through his investment group, which has an office in Tel Aviv, and co-founded by the former ambassador to Israel.

It's amazing how this entire constellation of evidence, including a comically on-the-nose detail like Tik Tok being potentially purchased by an investment group with an office in Tel Aviv and co-founded by the former US ambassador to Israel, and you still deny what is happening, all because Yass gave $16 million to the Club for Growth action which is defending Tik Tok.

I'm gonna regret asking this, but when you keep pointing to Jew Conspiracy Theories because Jewish groups are generally against anti-Semitism, is it not possible that this is because... people generally don't like movements that are directed specifically against them? And have rational reasons to oppose them?

Your take is obviously that Jews really are a malignant coordinated network of bad actors acting against non-Jews and that we should Name the Jew whenever possible, and that Jews complaining about this are just Jews upset at being caught being Jews. But for people who don't see Jews as an existential threat, yes, pushing anti-Jewish propaganda does look like a threat to Jews, it should hardly be surprising that rich Jews and Jewish organizations oppose anti-semitism. Even excluding the Holocaust there is plenty of historical evidence of Jews having good reason to consider themselves actually under threat of violence. If there were a large movement of people trying to convince the world that Chinese people are evil bugmen we should view as an existential threat, I would expect Chinese organizations and rich Chinese to have an interest in opposing these groups.

None of this is to say I personally think TikTok should be banned because it allows anti-Semitic content. But you don't need sinister conspiracies of Jews trying to keep the goyim from Noticing to explain why they have a problem with it.

Obviously I accept Jewish neuroticism and paranoia over antisemitism as axiomatic, not something that is a "conspiracy," and I have never related that as a conspiracy. But that neuroticism and paranoia expresses as group-organized behavior in culture, academia, social media.

I have a problem with it, obviously, because it affects me and my nation. That group-organized behavior is used to direct public consensus in a way that is favorable towards Jews and unfavorable towards non-Jews, with stifling criticism of Israel being one example. Another example of course is the question of White identity politics, which has always most vehemently been opposed by organized Jewish behavior precisely because they are afraid of antisemitism.

Jewish groups are at the forefront of fighting any sort of political rhetoric that is oppositional to demographic change, associating "Racism" with antisemitism.

So they get identity politics, White people do not, and Jews use their power in various cultural institutions for their own benefit, often at the expense of White people.

I do not think it's a "Jew Conspiracy Theory" that Jews oppose antisemitism. But their behavior in using their influence to direct public perception and stifle, using increasingly authoritarian tactics, criticism of themselves is what I take issue with. Do you see the distinction?

So the Jewish lobby is trying to ban or force divestment of TikTok to further stifle criticism of their behavior, obviously I don't take issue with that because I think it's illogical for them to oppose antisemitism. I take issue with it because it's hostile to non-Jews by stifling the speech of non-Jews and not allowing them to express their own ethnic interests which is something Jews do vehemetly. I also think the criticisms being made on platforms like TikTok are valid and important for the public to hear.

You think it's understandable for Jews to signal-boost complaints about antisemitism (re: the behavior of non-Jews as it relates to Jews), can't you understand why I believe it's important for non-Jews to be able to express and signal-boost valid, true complaints about Jewish behavior (re: the behavior of Jews as it relates to non-Jews)? And why I would oppose the efforts by Jews to outlaw any expression of the latter in all arenas of the public square while demanding the former is held as sacred in all those spaces? I understand why they are doing it all too well, it doesn't mean I can't oppose it.

You think it's understandable for Jews to signal-boost complaints about antisemitism, can't you understand why I believe it's important for non-Jews to be able to express and signal-boost valid, true complaints about Jewish behavior?

Only if I agreed with you that "Jewish behavior" means the same thing as "Anti-white behavior," which I do not. Your argument is basically that antisemitism is rational because Jews are our enemies so we should be "antisemitic." Obviously I don't expect to change your mind on this, but this being the Motte, you should at least entertain the possibility that you are wrong, and that Jews oppose antisemitism because they genuinely would prefer not be targeted for harm as a race, and not because it's a cynical move to control the discourse in an anti-white race war.

Your argument is basically that antisemitism is rational because Jews are our enemies so we should be "antisemitic."

Your argument is that Jewish ethnocentrism is rational because of the hostility they face from other ethnic groups.

I am saying that ethnocentrism is rational from other groups as well, including White people, likewise because of the hostility they face from other ethnic groups, including Jews.

So you can say "Jewish ethnocentrism is rational because Jews have and continue to face hostility from non-Jews, including most notably White people."

I say "White ethnocentrism is likewise rational because Whites have and continue to face hostility from non-Whites, including the Jews."

And of course Whites aren't the only ones who face hostility from Jews, Arabs do as well. So what you are doing is saying that it's OK for Jews to express ethnocentrism to actively oppose hostility from other groups, but it's not OK for other ethnic groups to express ethnocentrism to actively oppose hostility from Jews.

You are just implicitly denying that there is any sort of hostility by Jews towards non-Jews at all, leaning heavily on the increasingly discredited canard that "Jews have only ever faced hostility from other groups because of the psychopathologies of all the other ethnic groups in the world, Jews dindu' nuffin."

Your argument is that Jewish ethnocentrism is rational because of the hostility they face from other ethnic groups.

No, not quite. I notice you do this a lot: you subtly add or change words to represent people as saying almost, but not quite, what they actually said.

I did not endorse Jewish "ethnocentrism." I believe ethnocentricism in general is bad. But whether or not you desire an ethnostate or ethnocentric affiliation groups, it's rational to recognize when you are being targeted for your ethnicity. (Yes, that applies to whites too, I just don't think most white ethnat arguments are genuine or accurate.)

So you can say "Jewish ethnocentrism is rational because Jews have and continue to face hostility from non-Jews, including most notably White people."

I guess I could say that, but I did not say that, and it does not accurately represent what I think.

So what you are doing is saying that it's OK for Jews to express ethnocentrism to actively oppose hostility from other groups, but it's not OK for other ethnic groups to express ethnocentrism to actively oppose hostility from Jews.

Once again: no.

You are just implicitly denying that there is any sort of hostility by Jews towards non-Jews at all, leaning heavily on the increasingly discredited canard that "Jews have only ever faced hostility from other groups because of the psychopathologies of all the other ethnic groups in the world, Jews dindu' nuffin."

Once again: no. You are straw-manning. Of course there exists hostility by Jews towards non-Jews, but scope and specificity matters. Y'all are very fond of quoting select verses from the Torah or Rabbi Meir Kahane as some sort of General Theory Of The Jew, even though hostility towards non-Jews and a campaign to enslave the goyim is not in any way widespread or mainstream among Jews. It would be like arguing that people like @SecureSignals prove that white people hate Jews. As for why Jews have faced hostility from other groups historically, I think we can actually read history with more nuance than that and find that the truth is somewhere between "psychopathology of all other ethnic groups Jews dindu nuffin" and "It's deserved because Jews really are That Bad and they had it coming."

I did not endorse Jewish "ethnocentrism."

Organizing with your co-ethnics to support your ethnic interests in the realm of economics, politics, and culture, and to oppose antagonism from other ethnic groups, is ethnocentrism. You are emblematic of the increasingly discredited status quo, by trying to claim that Jews organizing and applying immense economic and cultural pressure to steer narratives and platforms is just "opposing antisemitism, and who could be against that?" It is ethnocentrism.

You are straw-manning. Of course there exists hostility by Jews towards non-Jews, but scope and specificity matters. Y'all are very fond of quoting select verses from the Torah or Rabbi Meir Kahane as some sort of General Theory Of The Jew, even though hostility towards non-Jews and a campaign to enslave the goyim is not in any way widespread or mainstream among Jews.

Talk about straw-manning... We are in this thread talking about a stark gesture of hostility by Jews towards non-Jews in their lobbying for a hostile takeover of TikTok, in order to censor content that is critical of themselves and of Israel. Gen-Z doesn't have the right opinions, so TikTok must be reformed- this is incredibly hostile and it should be opposed and called out.

As for why Jews have faced hostility from other groups historically, I think we can actually read history with more nuance than that and find that the truth is somewhere between "psychopathology of all other ethnic groups Jews dindu nuffin" and "It's deserved because Jews really are That Bad and they had it coming."

Indeed, which is why it's reasonable to discern a hostility by Jews towards non-Jews in their ethnocentric, authoritarian measures censoring content on social media that is critical of them or of Israel. Whereas they constantly complain about the behavior of and affronts by non-Jews, and then they organize to censor complaints about their own behavior.

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