Jan. 6: TikTok Boosts CCP Propaganda, Study Says

UK grooming gangs; Soros for Medal of Freedom; antisemitism at Hunter College

Jan 06, 2025

The Big Story

In March of 2024 we reported on the introduction of legislation that would force the social media app TikTok to sever ties with its Chinese Communist Party-connected parent company, ByteDance, or be banned from the United States. As we noted at the time, citing research from Rutgers University’s Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) and The Wall Street Journal, ample evidence suggested that TikTok’s algorithm promoted content to American users that supported the CCP’s geopolitical goals—including the demonization of Israel and of U.S. foreign policy more broadly. A version of that legislation was eventually signed into law by President Joe Biden and is set to take effect Jan. 19. This week, the Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments on whether to block the law from taking effect.

A new report by NCRI, initially provided to Jay Solomon of The Free Press, suggests that Congress was right to take a dim view of TikTok’s influence. Broadly, it confirms the NCRI’s previous findings that TikTok suppresses content that deals with topics unfavorable or inconvenient to the CCP’s party line. A preliminary version of the study was originally reported in August and faced severe pushback, according to Joel Finkelstein, director and chief science officer at NCRI, but this updated study has twice as much data and, Finkelstein says, is “the first peer-reviewed, data-driven study to establish that TikTok is actively manipulating perceptions of China and the Chinese Communist Party through algorithmic bias.”

The report comprises three studies, all of which find that TikTok conceals content critical of China and algorithmically amplifies pro-China narratives. In one study, for instance, researchers searched for terms such as Tiananmen, Tibet, Uyghur, and Xinjiang on TikTok and other social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube; classified the search results as being pro-CCP, anti-CCP, neutral, or irrelevant; and compared the search results between platforms. Generally speaking, the search results for the terms were far more favorable to China on TikTok than the other platforms.

When searching for Tiananmen, for example, 26.2% of the results on TikTok were favorable to the CCP, compared to 16% on Instagram and 7% on YouTube. Only 19.6% on TikTok were unfavorable to the CCP, compared to 56.7% on Instagram and 64.7% on YouTube. Most interestingly, 45.6% of the search results on TikTok were completely irrelevant to the topic, compared to 7.7% on Instagram and 3.3% on YouTube. This suggests that TikTok’s algorithm may favor propaganda by misdirection and obscuration—effectively concealing embarrassing information about China from users—rather than by explicit indoctrination into the pro-Chinese position. The full table can be seen here:

The report cites Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman’s Manufacturing Consent to remind readers of their findings that media systems in liberal democracies, even while ostensibly free, still function as instruments of elite-driven propaganda by propagating the establishment consensus-developed perspective of the elite class:

“TikTok, a platform owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, may function as a digital analogue of the ideological machinery described in Manufacturing Consent. By amplifying content that is favorable to the CCP and suppressing narratives critical of the CCP, TikTok can influence international discourse in ways that align with the CCP’s strategic interests.”

The Rest

→Over the past weekend, Elon Musk launched a global controversy when he began tweeting about the United Kingdom’s “grooming gangs” and called for an inquiry into the Labour Party’s alleged cover-up of the crisis, leading to a battle of words between Musk and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer. “There must be justice for the hundreds of thousands of little British girls who were mercilessly targeted for gang rape and often murder in horrific ways,” Musk wrote on X. He added that Starmer was “complicit in the rape of Britain,” to which Starmer responded by accusing Musk of spreading “lies and misinformation”—a less effective defense than it was eight years ago.

The U.K. government does seem suspiciously reluctant to comprehensively investigate the grooming and rape gangs. The scandal was first publicized about 10 years ago. In 2014, a report by professor Alexis Jay called “An Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham (1997-2013)”made a conservative estimate that 1,400 girls were sexually exploited in the town of Rotherham between 1997 and 2013. It found that girls as young as 11 were raped by groups of male perpetrators mostly of Pakistani origin. Most damning, it appears that local officials and other agencies were wary of prosecuting the crimes, or identifying the perpetrators, for fear of disrupting “community cohesion”—or, more pathetically, of being seen as racist.

It’s impossible to know whether or not Musk is addressing this controversy as a surrogate of the Trump administration, but it has led opposition leaders of the United Kingdom, including Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch and Reform Party leader Nigel Farage, to call for inquiries into the grooming gangs. Musk has also called for Farage to step down from Reform after Farage criticized Musk for his support of anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson, recently jailed for contempt of court, who Musk thinks would be a better Reform Party leader.

→This year’s recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom handed out by President Biden on Saturday ranged from the innocuous (actor Denzel Washington, U2 lead singer Bono, fashion icon Ralph Lauren, etc.) to the ridiculous (former secretary of state and failed presidential nominee Hillary Clinton) to the brazen. Squarely in the third category was hedge fund billionaire George Soros, who received the nation’s highest civilian honor from the same president who benefitted from, and was beholden to, the massive tangled web of Soros-backed NGOs that have led to some of the most disastrous policies of the past four years.

“His inspiring generosity reminds us all of our capacity and our obligation to stand up to the abuse of power and to be guardians of democracy and all people yearning to be free,” Biden said.

Specifically, a Daily Wire report released in August revealed how Soros and his son Alex Soros, who received the award from Biden on his father’s behalf, spent $117 million since 2016 to reshape the U.S. justice system. The Soros-funded group Fair and Just Prosecution, for instance, forced Soros-backed prosecutors to sign 33 pledges not to enforce certain laws and pressed them to let criminals off the hook if they are Black and to “reduce racial disparities in case outcomes by 20 percent.” At the same time, FJP was encouraging Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s kangaroo court prosecution of Donald Trump, which managed to spin a single misdemeanor bookkeeping charge into 34 felonies, to hold Trump “accountable.”

→Quote of the Day:

It won’t be long [until we have peace,’ because Europe will be looking at us, and we’ll be looking at Trump. When I talk about something with Trump, whether we meet in person or talk on the phone, all the European leaders ask; “How was it?” This shows the influence of Donald Trump. This has never happened with an American president, I tell you from my experience this gives me confidence that he can stop this war.

That’s Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyyin an interview with Lex Fridman, published on Sunday to X. Throughout his 2024 campaign, Trump pledged that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war quickly, without elaborating upon how exactly he could do it. Zelenskyy’s statement here is the first sign that that might happen, pointing to the enormous power and influence that Trump’s substantial victory has earned him.

→Hunter College professor and director of the school’s Hebrew and Jewish Studies department Leah Garrett is suing CUNY for what she sees as the school’s hesitance to crack down on antisemitism at the school. Garrett believes that her lawsuit might prove groundbreaking because it is a Title VI lawsuit (employment law) rather than a Title VII lawsuit typically used by students. In the lawsuit, she points to numerous instances of antisemitism that the school failed to address, such as taking hours to respond to complaints about swastikas painted on Israeli hostage posters hung on university walls or denying Hillel, Chabad, and Jewish students and faculty to do their annual public menorah lighting in the wake of Oct. 7.

→The IDF has started its first recruitment for the ultra-Orthodox brigade ‘Hahashmonaim.’ As of Sunday, 50 ultra-Orthodox recruits had enlisted in the brigade with an additional 100 in the first reserves company after an intense six-month training. The IDF wants this to be a first step in integrating ultra-Orthodox people into its ranks and aligning with their way of life to address operational needs in the ongoing war.

→Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced his resignation from his positions as PM and leader of Canada’s Liberal Party after a nine-year term. Deterred by reportedly disastrous poll numbers, Canadian parliamentarians of Trudeau’s Liberal Party have publicly urged Trudeau to step down from both the Prime Ministry and from his party’s leadership role after a string of missteps and crises and because many Canadians blame Trudeau for skyrocketing living costs that they perceive as being due to his failures during the COVID-19 pandemic. “It’s time for a reset,” said Trudeau. “It’s time for the temperature to come down.”

→The most hated NYC policy of all time is in effect: Welcome to the era of “congestion pricing.” Commuters to New York who have an E-ZPass will now face a $9 toll meant to alleviate traffic buildup, especially in city areas south of Central Park. This toll will be in addition to the toll fees commuters already have to pay to cross most of the bridges and tunnels that allow entry to the city. Those in favor of congestion pricing cite the need to eliminate traffic congestion and air pollution—the latter of which might explain why there are left-wing activists so giddily celebrating what is essentially a new form of tax collection—and to help raise $15 billion to fix the city’s dilapidated public transit system, which apparently Gov. Kathy Hochul and her state government can’t come up with despite the already substantial taxes collected from New York residents.

President-elect Trump has been highly critical of the policy, believing that it will hamper the recovery of post-pandemic New York, but it’s not known yet what he could do about it from the presidency. The state, according to Republican New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino, needed federal authorization to implement congestion pricing, which ostensibly means that authorization could be revoked as well. Nevertheless, congestion pricing is ultimately meant to push commuters away from driving and toward public transit, but after several high-profile stories of subway-related violence, from Daniel Penny’s trial to the woman who was lit on fire on an F train, the policy feels like a direct slap in the face to New York commuters who will now have little choice but to take a dangerous and chaotic public transit system to work, lest they be charged exorbitant fees to drive there.

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