In a TikTok video, a small girl in Gaza covered in ash asks for her mother. This is one of her millions of videos about the Israeli-Hamas conflict that have captivated users on her social platform.Heartbreaking stories and harrowing images pouring out of the conflict zone have boiled emotions thousands of miles away on the streets of London and turned social media into a battlefield.Millions of TikToks are uploaded every day, offering a variety of perspectives. israel-hamas war, as new generations join in the latest iteration of the long-running conflict. For many people, it is now their main source of news.The platform is known for short, snappy video clips that can gain huge reach by being shared and re-shared.”When anger is stirred up, things tend to spread faster,” said Dr. Christine Chen, senior lecturer in war studies at King’s College London.In the US, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley even claimed that TikTok makes people “17% more anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas” every 30 minutes, but there is no clear evidence to support that claim. do not have.Prominent British TikTok creators on both sides of the conflict say the platform provides an opportunity to foster conversations across the divide and highlight stories missed by mainstream media.
TikTok itself said it was responding “quickly and forcefully” to the Israel-Hamas war, accelerating efforts to remove fake accounts and involvement.Looking at the numbers alone, TikTok’s content appears to have a pro-Palestinian slant, but the platform argues that this reflects broader trends on social media and among younger viewers in general. There is.
src=”Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of London in support of Palestine”
“Anytime you have a strong emotional reaction, you’re much more likely to engage,” says Dr. Chen. “Social media platforms like it, so naturally we tend to spread it and stir it up even more.”The result, she says, is increased polarization and difficulty in having calm conversations.Short video clips about specific events during the conflict struggle to summarize all the relevant context, she added. “It’s very easy to bring up that particular incident and it goes viral and then the conversation dies down.”Dr Martin Farr, senior lecturer in modern British history at Newcastle University, said people had seen things on their phones in recent months that they would never forget and may shape their views on the conflict.”The scale of the violence, the scale of the loss of life, and people’s sense that one or the other was responsible, rather than a more complex and necessarily nuanced perception of the situation, was very extraordinary.” he says.”There’s an urge in all of these things to be more provocative.”Dr. Farr also pointed to what he called “atrophy.” Hamas The attacks on Israel began as the death toll in the Gaza Strip soared.Asked whether social media has exacerbated divisions over Israel and Palestine, he said: “I don’t think it’s necessarily made it worse. I think it’s hurt understanding.”
src=”Benny Greenstein asks people about Israel and Palestine. Photo: bennyjeeee”
Some of Benny’s TikToks clearly support one side or the other, while others are unsure or argue that a humane approach is needed.The comments are filled with posts supporting Israel and Palestine and users calling for “genocide.”Benny said he is inspired by his grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, and is determined to use his position to promote peace and love.Isobel Dye, 22, is currently studying for a master’s degree at LSE and has been posting on TikTok for several years, amassing more than 164,000 followers.Her interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and in particular the plight of Palestinians, began in 2021 when she attended a pro-Palestinian rally.
src=”Isabelle Dye says she reached 1 million users on TikTok in one week”
“I try to talk about things that the mainstream media doesn’t cover,” she says. ‘The British are deeply complicit’ [in the conflict], we can’t help but have an opinion on this. ”Her TikToks typically feature news clips or stories of her speaking to the camera overlaid at the top. She says she reached about 1 million people in the last week.Isobel’s audience at the time was predominantly female (80%), 66% of whom were between the ages of 18 and 24. This is a great example of how TikTok is reaching a younger demographic. Only 28% of people aged 16 to 24 read newspapers in print or online. According to Ofcom.When asked if TikTok is a good place for people involved in conflict, she said yes, with the right voices. “I try to center Palestinian voices,” she added.
src=”Pro-Israel demonstration in London”
read more:British destroyer joins task force to protect Red SeaFamily pleads for new hostage dealDebra Burns, 59, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, attends schools in England and speaks about anti-Semitism. Seeking her new audience, she also started posting about her family’s stories on her TikTok.”I’m not necessarily a prime TikTok viewer,” she says. “My mission is to spread the story of the Holocaust in hopes that it will enlighten people and that something like it will never happen again.”In the terrifying aftermath of Hamas’ attacks on Israel, she began using TikTok to amplify calls for the safe return of hostages.“I feel like a small voice, like David and Goliath, in the midst of massive anti-Israel and anti-Semitism on social media,” she says.”I don’t post about conflicts because there are a lot of people who are more knowledgeable than me and who work on conflicts better. I just try to do what I can to help them. ”
src=”TikTok tried to explain how its algorithm works”
Amid the debate over how it decides what content to show users, TikTok published a lengthy blog post saying its recommendation algorithm doesn’t take sides.”The content people see on TikTok is generated by our community, and recommendations are based on content people have previously engaged with.”TikTok does not ‘promote’ one side of an issue over another,” the company said.Videos are ranked using a predictive score based on what TikToks users have previously watched.Specifically regarding the Israel-Hamas war, TikTok said it has responded “swiftly and forcefully” and has removed more than 925,000 videos for violating policies such as violence and hate speech.It added: “TikTok does not allow inaccurate, misleading, or false content that, whether intended or not, may cause serious harm to individuals or society.”The platform said it removed more than 50,000 videos between October 7 and October 31 for containing “harmful misinformation.”While it may not be a popular app for politicians (in fact, it’s banned from UK government devices), it’s clear that TikTok is a big part of the debate about Israel and Palestine.The October 7 attack on Israel and the subsequent invasion of Gaza galvanized a new generation to join the struggle for peace in the Middle East. And places like TikTok are where that conversation takes place.Watch ‘Crossing the Divide’, a Sky News documentary about how the Israel-Hamas war has divided the people of Britain, on Saturday 23 December at 9pm.
Source: news.sky.com
