Hatred has “no place” on our platform, TikTok director tells Knesset committee
A director at TikTok has told a Knesset Committee that hatred had “no place” on the video-sharing platform and that they would increase their efforts to remove antisemitic content.
The meeting with Elizabeth Kanter, TikTok’s Director for Government Relations in Israel, was the fourth meeting that the Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs held on social networking in recent months. The meeting with the representative of the viral video-sharing service followed the creation of “an inter-ministerial taskforce” to work with social media companies to “fight the phenomenon and remove antisemitic content from the networks.”
Committee chairman, MK David Bitan told the meeting that “the phenomenon of antisemitism on social networks has significantly intensified since the outbreak of the corona crisis” and that government offices were “monitoring the phenomenon.”
Ms Kanter said: “Antisemitism is an abomination, and therefore antisemitic content that expresses hatred has no place on our platform. We have zero tolerance for organised hate groups and those associated with them. In a world that is becoming more polarised by the day, it is probably a very difficult challenge, but we will never stop working to make TikTok a safe platform for our community.”
Stressing that its policy and community guidelines “do not tolerate content that attacks or incites violence,” and did not permit hate speech, she said that TikTok enforces this with “technology tools that proactively flag content or accounts that encourage hate or extreme content.”
Noting the previous absence of TikTok, MK Michal Wunsh declared: “After its noticeable absence in the past, TikTok has chosen to take responsibility for the venomous antisemitism that exists on its platform.”
Dvir Kahana, Director-General of the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, said that there was a wide gap between declarations of policy by social media companies and “actual implementation.” She added it was their “duty” to continue to ensure the “policies of the platforms” were implemented.
Campaign Against Antisemitism has repeatedly reported on antisemitism on TikTok, especially in the form of mockery of the Holocaust.
Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.
