Sacha Baron Cohen blasts TikTok for creating ‘the biggest antisemitic movement since the Nazis’
Actor and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen blasted social media platform TikTok for “creating the biggest antisemitic movement since the Nazis,” according to The New York Times.
More than a dozen Jewish celebrities and content creators, including Cohen, Debra Messing and Amy Schumer, participated in a 90 minute with TikTok’s head of operations, Adam Presser, and global head of user operations, Seth Melnick.
“What is happening at TikTok is it is creating the biggest antisemitic movement since the Nazis,” Cohen told the platform’s representatives during the meeting, of which the Times obtained a recording.
“If you think back to Oct. 7, the reason why Hamas were able to behead young people and rape women was they were fed images from when they were small kids that led them to hate,” Cohen said, accusing TikTok of allowing young people access to similarly explosive content.
“Shame on you,” he said, arguing that TikTok could “flip a switch” to fix the issue. Cohen claimed that social media could do more to combat the rising and rampant antisemitism, and the representatives, who are themselves Jewish, agreed.
“Obviously, a lot of what Sascha says, there’s truth to that,” Presser said, noting, however, that there is no “magic button” to deal with all of the concerns raised.
The platform has come under increased scrutiny after several users started urging their peers to read Usama Bin Laden’s “Letter to America,” which he used to justify his attack on Sept. 11, 2001.
TikTok said it has “proactively and aggressively” worked to remove any content promoting the letter and “investigating how it got onto our platform.”
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