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TikTok Hires IDF Veteran To Lead Its Censorship Effort Against Critics Of Israel

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by blueapples
Thursday, Jul 31, 2025 - 11:00

The long, drawn-out saga of the virtual ban of TikTok enacted during the Biden administration has come to serve as a blueprint for the increasingly authoritarian control governments have over information technology. While Big Tech companies aligned with the Washington establishment, like Facebook and Twitter under its previous ownership, served to pull the technocratic levers propagating state-sanctioned narratives, TikTok's status as an outlier threatened to disrupt that intricate structure of information control. No issue demonstrated the impact TikTok had on challenging the accepted discourse dictated by the digital ministry of propaganda more than Israel's war in the Gaza Strip. The social consciousness the platform nurtured by shining light on the brutality of the Netanyahu regime's war sowed the seeds that a new political landscape at odds with support for the Zionist cause grew from. In response, the pro-Israel lobby took steps to ensure that TikTok would be banned if the controlling interest of the social media platform was not placed into the hands of its allies.

Posts critical of Israel have become increasingly censored on TikTok.

Although President Trump used the crackdown of the app so popular among zoomers to his advantage to cultivate support from a younger demographic in the electorate, his promise to defend the principle of free speech by resolving the ban it faces has come to no fruition. With multiple extensions of the deadline forcing the existing ownership to divest itself from the platform, prolonging its fight against censorship, TikTok has succumbed to the crucible of pressure put on it from the pro-Israel lobby in an effort to placate the Trump administration. In a development signalling its losing battle against the censorship industrial complex, TikTok announced it has hired a former State Department contractor and veteran of the IDF to its Public Policy and Hate Speech team to lead efforts to  ̶c̶o̶m̶b̶a̶t̶ ̶a̶n̶t̶i̶s̶e̶m̶i̶t̶i̶s̶m̶ censor criticism of Israel on the platform.

Before being appointed as its Public Policy Manager for Hate Speech by TikTok, Erica Mindel served under the Biden administration’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, Deborah Lipstadt. In 1996, Lipstadt gained public notoriety when she was sued by iconoclastic historian David Irving for libel over her characterization of his work as Holocaust denial. Ultimately, Irving was unsuccessful with his suit and Lipstadt's victorious defense against his libel claim served to accelerate her political career, having already been appointed to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council by President Bill Clinton in 1994. She reached the apex of her career in politics when she was named Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism by the Biden administration in 2022, serving in the position until President Trump's second inauguration in January 2025. During her time as the special envoy under Biden, her office's efforts to combat antisemitism were given tremendous latitude following Hamas' October 7th attack on Israel.

Mindel was an instrumental piece of Lipstadt's office, which used the fallout from October 7th to advance the false equivalency that criticism of Israel constitutes antisemitism as a powerful censorship tactic. She now harnesses her experience from the State Department to unleash that same censorship at TikTok. According to an official job description of her role, Mindel will develop and drive the company’s positions on "hate speech," influence legislative as well as regulatory frameworks, and analyze "hate speech" trends. Before gaining the experience at the State Department serving under Lipstadt, which led to her hiring by TikTok, Mindel was an instructor in the Armored Corps of the IDF. Mindel voluntarily served in the IDF for 2 years after her decision to claim Aliyah and acquire Israeli citizenship.

The emergence of Mindel's role at TikTok comes in response to immense pressure placed on major social media platforms led by Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Dan Granot, the ADL's National Director of Antisemitism Policy, stated that Mindel's role was created following "high-level convening" organized by the ADL, which presented the implementation of positions such as hers as a recommendation to major social media platforms. With the threat of being banned by the US government serving as the Sword of Damocles atop the heads' of TikTok leadership, their platform was especially susceptible to the pressure placed on them by the ADL, ultimately surrendering to its latest shakedown. “In a moment when too many social media platforms are scaling back efforts to fight hate, ADL welcomes TikTok’s establishment of a role focused specifically on hate speech and antisemitism,” Granot stated in response to news of Mindel's hiring.

Further evidence of the ADL's political maneuvering advancing censorship across social media was evident last week when ADL CEO and National Director Jonathan Greenblatt held a press conference alongside U.S. Representatives Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Don Bacon of Nebraska to announce the Stopping Terrorists' Online Presence and Holding Accountable Tech Entities (STOP HATE) Act. The proposed legislation seeks to place further constraints on social media platforms by forcing them to work with the federal government to implement moderation policies aimed at suppressing free speech. Companies will also be required to actively monitor violations of expanded terms and conditions prohibiting "hate speech," provide the federal government with detailed public reports on those violations, and outline comprehensive plans to combat them. Every day companies fail to report this information will result in a fine of $5 million under the act.

Their press conference made the intent of the bill to enforce censorship against critics of Israel clear, as the "threat of antisemitism" served as the central rhetoric to remarks made during it. Representative Gottheimer, who is Jewish himself, highlighted the recent controversy enveloping Grok, the AI tool used by X, which came under fire for posts lauding Adolf Hitler and praising Nazism. His concerns were echoed by his congressional counterpart, Nebraska Representative Don Bacon. However, Bacon's remarks illustrated the amorphous nature of the concept of antisemitism held by the parties behind the STOP HATE Act, the censorship industrial complex, and supporters of Israel writ large whose influence they serve. Bacon characterized recent protests across the country against the humanitarian crisis brought upon Gaza by Israel as displays of antisemitism. "I saw protests out here the last two days; they were vile, right?" he said. "They were...you can see the antisemitism in their comments and how they were treating some of our members of Congress who are Jewish. I saw that firsthand," he said. Bacon's remarks demonstrated how constitutional protections like the rights to free speech and assembly would inevitably become infringed upon if the bill is passed into law.

In anticipation of increased censorship indicating that a ban of TikTok is an inevitability, the company has announced it is preparing to launch an American version of the app. The new version, dubbed M2, is scheduled to be released in app stores by September 5th. On June 19th, President Trump signed an executive order extending the deadline for enacting the TikTok ban by 90 days, now falling on September 17th. M2 has been developed to comply with existing US laws and regulations. While TikTok will remain under the current ownership of ByteDance, the new US version of the app is intended to be sold to an American company. The sale would allow ByteDance to comply with the ban TikTok faces in the US without having to divest itself from its flagship product. The Trump administration has stated it's close to securing the sale to a group of investors, including tech behemoth Oracle.

The confluence of the looming ban on TikTok, the hiring of Erica Mindel as its Public Policy Manager for Hate Speech, and the introduction of the STOP HATE Act conveys how deeply groups like the ADL have embedded themselves into the public and private sectors, guiding the policymaking of both. While TikTok once served as one of the last refuges where critics of Israel could freely express themselves, the coordinated effort between the federal government, Big Tech, and the Israel lobby shows how the sweeping digital censorship that the Trump administration once condemned as an existential threat to liberty has now become another weapon in its political arsenal.

Contributor posts published on Zero Hedge do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Zero Hedge, and are not selected, edited or screened by Zero Hedge editors.
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