The TikTok War: Why US High School & College Kids Are Getting The Wrong Information about Hamas & Israel

[duluxe]

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1717404573214671068.html

The TikTok War: Why High School & College Kids Are Getting The Wrong Information about Hamas & Israel

I spent the weekend trying to reverse engineer the TikTok algorithm, as I am convinced this is the reason we're losing the information war with high school & college students.
One red flag was seeing San Francisco high school students who were aggressively anti-Israel and asking myself where they were getting news.

Their protests happened right after the fake @nytimes headline that accused Israel of the hospital bomb.

 

[duluxe]

The bigger red flag was seeing 51% of Americans ages 18-24 believe Hamas (terrorists who raped & murdered innocent women & children) believe Hamas was justified. Wtf.

My high school classmates who lived through 9/11 would have never believed this.

 

[nabeifuckpap]

Fuck Joe Biden Fuck Obama nabei cheebye don't want to ban tiktok

 

[duluxe]

Why do high school students in San Francisco hate Israel so much?

I'd assume very few of them have been to Israel, let alone have a fully formed view of a multi-generation conflict.


They're 16 years old and live in California. Let's be serious for a minute.
For Gen Z, TikTok Is the New Search Engine

TikTok is the #1 search engine for more than half of Gen Z.

TikTok is the primary news source for many younger demos & while we have justifiable concerns about The New York Times & mainstream media, this has become a TikTok war.
What I discovered through data and user testing is extremely concerning & I believe requires more attention, as this is an actual national security issue.
When I engaged with one post on TikTok supporting opposing views, my entire feed became aggressively anti-Israel. It was as if I was placed in an AB test variant and was told to see this war with Israel being the evil side.
As I looked at the tactics and data, I saw that much of TikTok is being controlled by anti-Israel bot farms, paid commenters/likers/sharers — much of which is paid for by Hamas supporting organizations.
I then looked at the data and saw that Israel is losing the TikTok war by a longshot.

As an example, the top hashtag is 3b views for Palestine versus 200m views for Israel.

If you look at other hashtags, it is clear that Israel has a distribution issue.

Because the TikTok narrative is now so anti-Israel, the engagement flywheel encourages creators to support that narrative because it’s getting the most attention and creating anti-Israel content helps them increase their following.
While we are spreading our perspectives on Twitter, we need to figure out a way to balance out the narrative on TikTok otherwise I worry we will fall too far behind with high school and college kids — and this is where they get their news.
I’m still researching — and if anybody with a data background wants to join, please let me know.

I have never been a "social media is bad" person, but high school/college students are literally our future & we're on the brink of a potential global war.

So maybe this matters.

 

[laksaboy]

Simple. They are liberals, sometimes called 'progressives'. In reality they are communists and Marxists, always fantasizing about 'liberating' the oppressed class from the oppressors.

Migrants, LGBTs, women, blackies... the 'oppressed class' shifts according to the narrative which the fake news merchants feed them. This time, it is the 'Palestinians'.

 

[bigozt]

US high sch kids live in Beverly Hills 90210 fetanyl-sy land. They see a TicTac vid that is "cool" & think that is true. The cooler the vid the more CON-vincing you are. Since most Gaza adults busy trying to become shahids, the kids carry out the social media war, aided by libtards in tech co's. Btw, since TicTac is Tiong, it is going to be anti Impeelah narrative.

 

[LordElrond]

That is because of the success of the American education systems, teaching them to think and seek truth. The exact opposite of the old farts here whom at 70 years old still consume MSM fake news like gospels.