GOP Rep. Gallagher Calls TikTok ‘Digital Fentanyl’ Brainwashing American Youth Against ‘Israel,’ ‘Jews,’ and ‘the West

TikTok via Twitter.

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), the chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, excoriated TikTok for brainwashing American youth against “Israel,” “Jews,” and “the West” in a scathing op-ed for The Free Press.

According to Gallagher, the Chinese-owned social media app is in large part responsible for the fact that 51% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 believe that Hamas’ brutal attack on Israeli civilians was justified according to a Harvard University/Harris poll.

“TikTok is not just an app teenagers use to make viral dance videos. A growing number of Americans rely on it for their news,” began Gallagher for the online outlet under the headline: “Why Do Young Americans Support Hamas? Look at TikTok.”

“Today, TikTok is the top search engine for more than half of Gen Z, and about six in ten Americans are hooked on the app before their seventeenth birthday. And it is controlled by America’s foremost adversary, one that does not share our interests or our values: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),” added the Wisconsin Republican.

He went on to argue that “the application’s algorithm is exquisitely tuned to prioritize polarizing outrage and addictive, brain-numbing nonsense (at best) and dangerous propaganda (at worst). Put differently, ByteDance and the CCP have decided that China’s children get spinach, and America’s get digital fentanyl.”

Gallagher continued:

If you doubt that the CCP would introduce bias—against Israel, against Jews, against the West, or anything else—into apps under its de facto control, consider that on October 31 The Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese web platforms Baidu and Alibaba have wiped Israel off the map—literally. The two most widely used mapping programs in China show the outlines of Israel’s territory but do not label it as Israel, and may not have for some time.

Analyses have shown that since Hamas’ attack on October 7, TikTok has been inundated with expressions of support for the Palestinian cause and disdain for Israel.

“So long as TikTok—and control of its algorithm—remain in the grip of the Chinese Communist Party, we are ceding the ability to censor Americans’ speech to a foreign adversary,” concluded Gallagher. “Time for Congress to take action. Time to ban TikTok.”