International
Netanyahu hails TikTok takeover as Israel’s new ‘weapon’ in information war
From LifeSiteNews
After the ADL’s alarm regarding overwhelming pro-Palestinian posts on TikTok, “Allies of Israel” are now slated to take control of the platform and its algorithm
Benjamin Netanyahu described the expected purchase of the social media platform TikTok by allies of Israel as the acquisition of a “weapon” that is “most important” to “fight the fight.” And he believes this development “could be extremely consequential.”
The Israeli prime minister was speaking to a group of “pro-Israel influencers” in a meeting after his address at the United Nations General Assembly last Friday were an overwhelming majority of national delegations walked out in apparent protest to what is widely considered a genocidal war he and his nation are inflicting against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
A media release from Netanyahu’s office reported the prime minister spoke with this group of “pro-Israel American influencers” about “challenges in the new era, as well as the public diplomacy efforts and the influence of the social networks on the discourse for and against Israel.”
Asked about how to combat dangers to the Zionist cause due to a potential loss of Evangelical support in the United States, which is also impacted by popular Israel-critics Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, Netanyahu directed his listeners to considering social media as “tools for battle” and then emphasized the expected purchase of TikTok to be “most important” in serving Israel’s interests in this regard.
“What we have to do is we have to secure that part of the base of our support in the United States, that is being challenged systematically… How do we fight back? Our influencers, I think you should also talk to them if you have a chance,” the prime minister said. “And secondly, we’re going to have to use the tools of battle. The weapons change over time… we have to fight with the weapons that apply to the battlefields within which we’re engaged. And the most important ones are on social media.”
Netanyahu then celebrated “the most important purchase that is going on right now” that he identified as being TikTok. “And I hope it goes through because it can be consequential.”
‘TikTok problem’ about free speech regarding Israel
In November 2023, a recording was leaked of the Anti-Defamation League’s Jonathan Greenblatt sounding the alarm that Israel had “a major, major, major generational problem” with all of the polling indicating “the issue in the United States’ support for Israel is not left and right. It is young and old.”
“We really have a TikTok problem, a Gen Z problem, that our community needs to … put our energy toward … like fast,” the ADL national director exclaimed at the time.
Attitudes among Generation Z Americans, those who are 30 years old and younger, toward Israel have been low and dropping steadily in recent years. A 2022 Pew survey found that 55 percent of Americans had a favorable view of Israel but that only 41 percent of those ages 18-29 had a favorable view of Israel, compared with 69 percent of those age 65 or older.
By 2024, Pew found that those in Gen Z who sympathize with Israel had fallen to just 14 percent, with 33 percent expressing sympathies for the Palestinians.
A 2023 article published by The Hill similarly reported that Gen Z “is more skeptical of Israel than older Americans. On TikTok, where half the users are under 30, #freepalestine has 31 billion posts compared with 590 million for #standwithisrael – more than 50 times as many.”
Israel Lobby orgs back TikTok bill to prevent ‘anti-Israel sentiment’ from running ‘rampant’ on platform
Seeking a remedy for this supposed problem the ADL and other groups from the Israel Lobby, along with many other entities, lobbied for the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” (PAFACA). This bill’s stated aim was to forbid applications “such as TikTok” from operating in the United States due to its ties with the Chinese government and resulting concerns over this “foreign adversary” misusing data collected from the app’s American users.
However, as Israel’s war against the people of Gaza marched on, the Jewish Federations of North America lobbied for passage of the bill, accusing TikTok of allowing “anti-Israel sentiment to run rampant” while the Zionist women’s advocacy group Hadassah also joined the lobbying due to a concern over antisemitism on the platform.
Top politicians took up this cause as well. Texas GOP Senator Ted Cruz complained that TikTok promoted “anti-Israel propaganda,” while former presidential candidate Nikki Haley alleged that “for every 30 minutes that someone watches TikTok every day they become 17 percent more antisemitic.”
Legislators heavily funded by AIPAC, bill passed for purposes of censorship
Furthermore, according to the Nebraska Examiner, each of the bill’s 55 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives had received donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) within the previous two election cycles. The total amount awarded to these legislators for their respective 2024 campaigns alone was $3.35 million.
In April 2024, just five months after Greenblatt’s warning above, the U.S. Congress passed PAFACA with bipartisan support and Joe Biden signed it into law.
Marveling at how quickly the TikTok legislation was passed Senator Mitt Romney did not say this was caused by pressing concerns in Congress over Chinese data collection, but he rather admitted the next month it was due to the volume of pro-Palestinian postings happening on that platform as compared to those supporting Israel in its ongoing attacks upon Gaza.
Pro-Israel billionaire Larry Ellison to now control TikTok’s algorithm
Last Thursday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order approving a deal to place TikTok under the control of predominantly American companies. One of the entities that will have a significant stake in TikTok with the authority to control its algorithm is Oracle, which is owned by extremely pro-Israel billionaire Larry Ellison.
Not only is Ellison the second richest man in the world, but he is the single largest private donor to an Israeli army that stands accused of enormous numbers of war crimes in Gaza.
In a piece titled “Israel wins TikTok,” Kelley Vlahos summarizes, “Larry Ellison and a constellation of billionaires will finally get their way, buying the very app they wanted to kill a year ago for being too ‘pro-Palestinian.’”
Another investor included is well-known media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who owns hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including The Wall Street Journal, Fox News and the New York Post.
‘Psychological warfare’ primarily concerned with suppressing ‘unauthorized communication among subject peoples’
In response to these developments, popular commentator Candace Owens tweeted, “I love that Bibi Netanyahu was asked how to combat Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson and his answer was effectively ‘we have to buy TikTok.’”
Owens observed, “Like it has never once occurred to these people to simply stop murdering people and maybe start telling the truth. Not even an option.”
An X/Twitter user named Heinz replied, “Notice how the solution is always more control of media platforms, never reform of their own behavior.”
Netanyahu turns his sights beyond TikTok to ‘X’ as well
With an apparent intention of “shielding the people” from information the Israeli government is loath for them to see, Netanyahu seems to expect his allies to end TikTok’s democratization of the news, putting an end to its allowing “anti-Israel sentiment to run rampant” on the platform.
Nor does this appear to be enough for him. Continuing in his discourse with “pro-Israel influencers,” the prime minister turned his sights further to focus on “X” / Twitter emphasizing the importance of engaging this social platform as well.
“And so, we have to talk to Elon, he’s not an enemy. He’s a friend,” Netanyahu said about the company’s owner, Elon Musk. “We should talk to him.”
“Now if we can get those two things (TikTok and X), we get a lot,” he concluded.
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
The recent leadership changes at Paramount Skydance suggest that the company may finally be ready to correct course after years of ideological drift, cultural activism posing as programming, and a pattern of self-inflicted financial and reputational damage.
Nowhere was this problem more visible than at CBS News, which for years operated as one of the most partisan and combative news organizations. Let’s be honest, CBS was the worst of an already left biased industry that stopped at nothing to censor conservatives. The network seemed committed to the idea that its viewers needed to be guided, corrected, or morally shaped by its editorial decisions.
This culminated in the CBS and 60 Minutes segment with Kamala Harris that was so heavily manipulated and so structurally misleading that it triggered widespread backlash and ultimately forced Paramount to settle a $16 million dispute with Donald Trump. That was not merely a legal or contractual problem. It was an institutional failure that demonstrated the degree to which political advocacy had overtaken journalistic integrity.
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For many longtime viewers across the political spectrum, that episode represented a clear breaking point. It became impossible to argue that CBS News was simply leaning left. It was operating with a mission orientation that prioritized shaping narratives rather than reporting truth. As a result, trust collapsed. Many of us who once had long-term professional, commercial, or intellectual ties to Paramount and CBS walked away.
David Ellison’s acquisition of Paramount marks the most consequential change to the studio’s identity in a generation. Ellison is not anchored to the old Hollywood ecosystem where cultural signaling and activist messaging were considered more important than story, audience appeal, or shareholder value.
His professional history in film and strategic business management suggests an approach grounded in commercial performance, audience trust, and brand rebuilding rather than ideological identity. That shift matters because Paramount has spent years creating content and news coverage that seemed designed to provoke or instruct viewers rather than entertain or inform them. It was an approach that drained goodwill, eroded market share, and drove entire segments of the viewing public elsewhere.
The appointment of Bari Weiss as the new chief editor of CBS News is so significant. Weiss has built her reputation on rejecting ideological conformity imposed from either side. She has consistently spoken out against antisemitism and the moral disorientation that emerges when institutions prioritize political messaging over honesty.
Her brand centers on the belief that journalism should clarify rather than obscure. During President Trump’s recent 60 Minutes interview, he praised Weiss as a “great person” and credited her with helping restore integrity and editorial seriousness inside CBS. That moment signaled something important. Paramount is no longer simply rearranging executives. It is rethinking identity.
The appointment of Makan Delrahim as Chief Legal Officer was an early indicator. Delrahim’s background at the Department of Justice, where he led antitrust enforcement, signals seriousness about governance, compliance, and restoring institutional discipline.
But the deeper and more meaningful shift is occurring at the ownership and editorial levels, where the most politically charged parts of Paramount’s portfolio may finally be shedding the habits that alienated millions of viewers.The transformation will not be immediate. Institutions develop habits, internal cultures, and incentive structures that resist correction. There will be internal opposition, particularly from staff and producers who benefited from the ideological culture that defined CBS News in recent years.
There will be critics in Hollywood who see any shift toward balance as a threat to their influence. And there will be outside voices who will insist that any move away from their preferred political posture is regression.
But genuine reform never begins with instant consensus. It begins with leadership willing to be clear about the mission.
Paramount has the opportunity to reclaim what once made it extraordinary. Not as a symbol. Not as a message distribution vehicle. But as a studio that understands that good storytelling and credible reporting are not partisan aims. They are universal aims. Entertainment succeeds when it connects with audiences rather than instructing them. Journalism succeeds when it pursues truth rather than victory.
In an era when audiences have more viewing choices than at any time in history, trust is an economic asset. Viewers are sophisticated. They recognize when they are being lectured rather than engaged. They know when editorial goals are political rather than informational. And they are willing to reward any institution that treats them with respect.
There is now reason to believe Paramount understands this. The leadership is changing. The tone is changing. The incentives are being reassessed.
It is not the final outcome. But it is a real beginning. As the great Winston Churchill once said; “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”.
For the first time in a long time, the door to cultural realignment in legacy media is open. And Paramount is standing at the threshold and has the capability to become a market leader once again. If Paramount acts, the industry will follow.
Bill Flaig and Tom Carter are the Co-Founders of The American Conservatives Values ETF, Ticker Symbol ACVF traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Ticker Symbol ACVF
Learn more at www.InvestConservative.com
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
Johns Hopkins University (JHU) announced on Thursday it is making tuition free for families earning less than $200,000 and will waive both tuition and living expenses for those making less than $100,000.
The university stated that “a majority of American families” will qualify for the fee exemption, allowing most students to attend without contributing a single dollar. The decision is meant to help recruit “the best and brightest students to Johns Hopkins irrespective of their financial wherewithal.”
“Trying to understand financial aid offers can be overwhelming,” David Phillips, vice provost for admissions and financial aid at JHU, said in the announcement. “A big goal here is to simplify the process. We especially want to reach students and families from disadvantaged backgrounds, rural locations, and small towns across America who may not know that a Hopkins degree is within reach.”
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In 2018, Michael Bloomberg donated nearly $2 billion to the university, the largest ever single gift to a U.S. university. JHU said it used this money “to become permanently need blind and no-loan in financial aid.”
The university also receives the most federal funding of any university, raking in more than $3 billion from the government in fiscal year 2023 for research and development alone. This is more than double what the next highest recipient of federal funding that year, the University of Washington, received.
Despite this, JHU in June complained that federal funding cuts forced it to institute a hiring freeze and pause annual pay increases for employees. In its message to the community at the time, the university also mentioned its disagreement with “recent efforts to limit or withhold visas from the international students and scholars.”
Some universities admit mass numbers of foreign students in order to pad their pockets, as such students often pay full tuition and fee costs without financial assistance.
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