Hawley Calls for TikTok Ban after Bin Laden-Post 9/11 Letter Goes Viral: ‘A Propaganda Machine’

November 17th, 2023 3:52 PM

As Communist Chinese government-tied TikTok spreads anti-Semitic hatred, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) emphasized the need to ban the popular app.

A fired-up Hawley joined Fox News's Hannity to blast TikTokers who launched a disturbing trend of promoting eliminated Al-Qaeda terrorist and 9/11 architect Osama Bin Laden’s anti-Semitic and anti-American “Letter to America” on the Communist Chinese government-tied platform. When host Sean Hannity asked Hawley why TikTok is even allowed in America at this point, the senator agreed, calling the social media platform an “espionage” and “propaganda” tool. “We ought to ban it,” Hawley declared.

Hawley mentioned the conference in California where Chinese dictator Xi Jinping was a feted and honored guest. “I think Communist China right now is just laughing,” Hawley stated. “I mean, you’ve got Joe Biden, who is bowing and scraping and begging Xi to be nice to him, while China walks all over us.” Meanwhile, TikTok is demonstrably poisoning the minds of Americans.

In fact, Hawley called TikTok “basically the social media arm of the Chinese Communist Party [CCP], and they’re spewing this anti-American propaganda, this virulent anti-Israel, anti-Semitic propaganda.” He added, speaking of the CCP, “I think they’re just sitting back and they can’t believe that we’re letting them get away with it. We shouldn’t be letting them get away with it.” Notably, TikTok is owned by ByteDance, in which the CCP owns a board seat and maintains a financial stake.

As MRC president and founder Brent Bozell said, “The Chinese are the number one enemy of the United States. They’re using [TikTok] while playing with their algorithms to mess with the American society. They’re stealing all the data.” That’s why lawmakers like Hawley aim to have it banned.

Hawley emphasized just why TikTok is so dangerous. The app “tracks everything you do on your phone, it tracks everywhere you go, every text message you send, every email you write, and it’s all that information, all of that is available to the Chinese Communist Party. It’s an espionage tool, it’s a propaganda machine and we ought to ban it.”

TikTok bragged on a Oct. 14  press statement that it had removed “over 500,000 videos and closed 8,000 livestreams” related to the Hamas-Israel conflict, for allegedly “violating our guidelines.” TikTok did try to deal with the Bin Laden trend after the fact, saying, according to NBC News, that “We are proactively and aggressively removing this content and investigating how it got onto our platform” as it violates “rules on supporting any form of terrorism.”

Conservatives are under attack. Contact TikTok via email at communitymanager@tiktok.com and demand Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment and provide transparency. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.