TikTok says it’s not the algorithm, teens are just pro-Palestine — The company denied allegations that it has been promoting pro-Palestine content in an effort to sway American opinion::In a blog post, the company denied allegations that it has been promoting pro-Palestine content in an effort to sway American opinion.
I don’t think an algorithm is responsible for the fact that most sane people are generally against genocide. People being pro-Palestine in this specific situation is a humanitarian response and should not be causing any amount of concern because it is the morally correct position here.
HOWEVER, the fact that we just witnessed the fucking letter to america go viral on tiktok, wherein a soul crushing amount of people publicly stated they agree with a fucking jihadist manifesto, is cause for a massive amount of concern. Tiktok definitely needs to face consequences for letting that happen. We also can’t excuse the audience for that type of behaviour. Whether it came from a deliberate propaganda campaign, or a sketchy algorithm, or just mass stupidity, audience members need to be better. If you read the letter to america and you think bin laden was right, you’re a moron, and you’re contributing to the problem.
I think you should pay less attention to mainstream media which propped that issue up disproportionately. It wasn’t as big of a deal as many made it out to be.
But regardless of that, I don’t think one should be concerned about opinions of people and I certainly don’t think it is an issue at all if young people hate the US. It has done some of the most fucked up things in the world since the start of the last century to say the least. This may be expressed in stupid ways like sympathising for Bin Laden, but the broader sentiment of hate towards the US isn’t wrong.