TikTok has been under intense pressure as of late from U.S. officials, who accuse the video platform of being a hub of anti-Israel hatred. “TikTok is a tool China uses to spread propaganda to Americans. Now it’s being used to downplay Hamas terrorism,” wrote Republican Senator Marco Rubio. “TikTok needs to be shut down. Now,” he added.
Nikki Haley, another top Republican, claimed that every 30 minutes spent on the app makes Americans “17% more antisemitic [and] more pro-Hamas.”
The platform’s future remains uncertain, as President Biden approved a law that could see it blocked in the U.S. Incoming president, Donald Trump, however, has intimated that he does not favor an outright ban.
This investigation is part of a series on TikTok. A previous investigation found that, far from being a Chinese spying tool, the platform has actually hired a plethora of U.S. national security state officials to run its internal affairs. A second article explored TikTok’s fraternization with the U.S. State Department.
Spies In Our Midst
Likewise, for all the discussion that it is a hotbed of anti-Semitic prejudice turning the youth against Israel, this MintPress News investigation has found that TikTok has hired a myriad of former spooks from Israeli spying agency, Unit 8200, the Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) most controversial organization. Responsible for covert operations, spying, surveillance and cyber warfare, Unit 8200 has created a vast digital surveillance dragnet for Palestinians, uses AI-generated kill lists to target Gazans, and pioneered worldwide spying software used against politicians, activists, journalists and world leaders. It was widely reported to be behind the recent Lebanese pager attack that injured thousands of civilians.
Reut Medalion, for example, enjoyed a long career at Unit 8200, serving as an intelligence commander and later becoming head of its cybersecurity operations team. In the wake of Israel’s attack on Gaza, she moved to New York City to work as a global incident manager for TikTok’s trust and safety division. Considering the events going on in the world at the time, it is fair to wonder with what sorts of “global incidents” is she helping TikTok.
Asaf Hochman is also a longtime veteran of Unit 8200, spending far longer than standard Israeli military service requires. In 2021, TikTok hired him as their global head of product strategy and operations. Hochman now works at Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Omer Carmeli is currently TikTok’s global marketing manager. But this was not always so. Between 2004 and 2007, he was a field operations specialist with Unit 8200, serving throughout Israel’s 2006 War on Lebanon and Operation Summer Rains, the IDF’s four-month attack on Gaza.
Einav Meir was an intelligence analyst with Unit 8200 until 2015. She is now a client solutions manager at TikTok.
Omri Hollander, a client solutions lead with the global video platform, followed the same Unit 8200 intelligence analyst to the TikTok pipeline.
Diana Shpakovsky Magen, meanwhile, was once both an intelligence analyst and training commander at Unit 8200. After she left the military, she worked in tech and is now an account manager for TikTok. Shpakovsky Magen’s dates of service align with Operation Cast Lead, the 2008-2009 campaign against Gaza widely seen as one of the worst war crimes of the 21st century (until Israel’s current campaign vastly surpassed it). What her role as a commander was during the campaign is unknown.
An Elite Israeli Spying Unit
Why should it be of concern that TikTok is hiring so many former Israeli intelligence agents? Firstly, Unit 8200 is the centerpiece of Israel’s repressive and hi-tech state apparatus. It is responsible for pioneering the technology that has allowed it to create both a gigantic digital dragnet to surveil, harass and intimidate the Palestinian population and for creating spying tools aimed at penetrating and compromising foreign governments and individuals.
Unit 8200 agents use facial recognition technology to track Palestinians’ every move and listen to their phone conversations, the information they glean being used as material for blackmail. One Unit 8200 whistleblower revealed that, as part of their training, they were assigned to memorize different Arabic words for “gay” so that they could listen out for them in conversations.
The unit is also behind Project Lavender, a giant, A.I.-generated kill list of tens of thousands of Gazans that the Israeli military uses to target the strip’s civilian population. Earlier this year, it planned and carried out an attack on Lebanon, exploding thousands of pagers at the same time, injuring thousands of civilians. The event was widely described, even by former director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, as an act of terrorism.
Former Unit 8200 agents, working hand-in-hand with the Israeli national security state, have gone on to create some of the world’s most notorious malware and hacking products. A case in point is the Pegasus software used to spy on more than 50,000 journalists, politicians, diplomats, business leaders and human rights defenders. This included heads of state, such as President Emmanuel Macron of France, Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan, and President Barham Salih of Iraq.
Known purchasers of Pegasus include the Central Intelligence Agency and the government of Saudi Arabia, who used Pegasus to spy on Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi before he was assassinated by Saudi agents in Türkiye. All sales of Pegasus had to be approved by the Israeli government, who reportedly had access to the data Pegasus’ foreign customers were accruing.
Former agents of Unit 8200 doubtless possess highly desirable tech skills and knowledge. However, given the organization’s past and present actions, it is highly questionable that global tech companies hire them, especially in roles that give them access to sensitive user data or decision-making power over the content on their platforms.
Don’t Mess with Project Texas
Since the October 7 attack, senior U.S. politicians have been demanding a complete government ban on TikTok, citing what Missouri Senator Josh Hawley described as a “ubiquity of anti-Israel content.” “The Chinese Communist Party is doing this on purpose,” added his Nebraska colleague, Pete Ricketts, “they are pushing this racist agenda with the intention of undermining our democratic values.”
This is not the first time the app has faced total deletion in the U.S. In 2020, Washington branded it a Chinese Trojan horse and threatened to close it down. To appease the government, TikTok launched “Project Texas,” a $1.5 billion initiative to move the company’s data to Austin and partner with Oracle, a corporation with exceptionally close ties to the CIA.
A lesser-known aspect of Project Texas, however, was the company’s hiring of scores of U.S. national security state officials, which gave Washington significant control over the platform’s direction.
For example, Jade Nester, TikTok’s director of data public policy for Europe, was a top official in Washington, previously serving as the State Department’s Director of Internet Public Policy.
Mariola Janik, meanwhile, was a senior diplomat in the State Department and a former high official in the Department of Homeland Security before being hired in 2022 to become TikTok’s Global Trust and Safety Operations Program Manager.
Beau Patteson is one of a host of ex-CIA officials now working at TikTok. Until 2020, Patteson was a targeting analyst with the agency. TikTok hired him to identify “extremist” content on the platform, and he is now a data security manager for the company.
The company’s product policy manager, Greg Andersen, has an even more intriguing past. According to his LinkedIn profile, Andersen went from working on “psychological operations” at NATO to being a policy specialist at X (formerly known as Twitter) and then onto TikTok two years later. Shortly after, MintPress first publicized this fact in a previous investigation in this series entitled “The NATO to TikTok Pipeline: Why is TikTok Employing So Many National Security Agents?” Andersen deleted all references to the military alliance from his social media profiles.
Media Wars
It is little wonder why Washington, Tel Aviv, or any other government would wish to control TikTok. The app has grown rapidly and now boasts over 1 billion global users, including around 170 million in the U.S. The platform is particularly popular with young people. It is a primary source of news and information for Generation Z, who spend nearly one hour per day, on average, using it.
While there is no doubt that pro-Palestine content is more popular than pro-Israel videos, it appears that U.S. politicians reflexively consider this to be down to algorithmic bias, and not simply a representation of global sentiment. The United Nations continues to vote overwhelmingly to condemn Israel’s attack on its neighbors, and global polls show the country’s image has dropped precipitously in the past 12 months.
Yet it would be a mistake to assume that TikTok is biased in favor of pro-Palestine voices. Last year, MintPress News had its account suspended without warning and has not been reinstated. Popular Middle East News website Mondoweiss was also suspended, and other figures calling for Palestinian liberation have claimed their content is being suppressed.
TikTok has also taken steps to align itself with U.S. government policy, deleting more than 320,000 Russian accounts and removing at least 41,000 videos it claims were spreading misinformation about the war in Ukraine. This includes Russian state-owned media such as RT and Sputnik, which it removed in September.
Other state enemies of Washington are also suppressed. The platform attaches “state-controlled media” warning labels to China’s CGTN and Iran’s PressTV. It does not, however, do the same to Britain’s BBC, Canada’s CBC, or TRT World of Türkiye.
The hiring of individuals who were openly former agents of Israel’s most notorious spying agency – one implicated in gigantic data gathering and blackmail operations – is another sign that TikTok does not plan on being a haven for radical, anti-imperialist politics. Decisions such as the hiring of Israeli spooks to oversee proceedings are messages to Western governments not to be alarmed. It should, however, be a cause for concern for the rest of us.
Feature photo | Illustration by MintPress News
Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.