According to Tim Graham, there’s an easy way to know if TikTok is an anti-American communist-backed channel: Does it hate freedom? The Executive Editor of NewsBusters appeared on Varney and Co. on Thursday to address the popular social media site “permanently banning” 11 pro-free speech organizations.
Talking to Ashley Webster, Graham explained, “We have a communist Chinese-owned social media outlet that maybe we shouldn't even allow in the United States, dedicated to showing youth how to dance or whatever. And what do they seem to ban? Young Americans Foundation, Students for Life of America.”
Graham drew this conclusion: “When they don't like freedom, when they don't like videos that attack communism, you might just guess it’s a communist channel.”
Click here to read the MRC/NewsBusters Free Speech study “11 Pro-Free Speech Organizations 'Permanently Banned' by Chinese Communist Party-Tied TikTok.”
Graham also commented on Biden going 202 days without a sit down interview with a journalist:
[Biden's] last interview was with Lester Holt around the Super Bowl in February. That was on tape. They are even afraid of a Biden interview on tape. It’s one thing to put them on live but they don't want to put him on tape. And what is sad here is, yes, 202 days. Have you heard anybody in television land complaining? Have you heard The Washington Post with “democracy dying in darkness” complaining? They don't care.
A transcript of the segment is below. Click “expand” to read more.
Varney and Co.
9/1/2022
10:43
ASHLEY WEBSTER: It has been 202 days since President Biden actually had a sit down interview with the American media. Tim Graham with the Media Research Center joins me now. Tim, this is more than any of his predecessors. Is it that the party wants to keep Joe away from questions he may not be able to answer?TIM GRAHAM: Certainly. But notice, his last interview was with Lester Holt around the Super Bowl in February. That was on tape. They are even afraid of a Biden interview on tape. It’s one thing to put them on live but they don't want to put him on tape. And what is sad here is, yes, 202 days. Have you heard anybody in television land complaining? Have you heard The Washington Post with “democracy dying in darkness” complaining? They don't care.
WEBSTER: This is a president who talked about transparency and as we talked about earlier on the show, no one can be more transparent than Donald Trump who spoke daily to all the media answering any question they had.
GRAHAM: Yeah. If you look at the first 15 months, they found Biden gave 23 interviews and Trump did 95. So the idea that somehow Trump — “Trump hated the media! Trump is not transparent.” Trump loved being on television so he was going to grant those interviews. And of course Lester Holt was more hostile to Trump than he was to Biden.
WEBSTER: Yeah. Absolutely. Well, let's move on to another topic. Interestingly, TikTok has permanently banned 11 pro free-speech groups from the platform. You say the Chinese communist-tied company is basically muzzling conservative want freethinkers. Right?
GRAHAM: Yes. And we should state they will call you permanently banned and sometimes after bad publicity they will go, “Whoops!” We will put you back up.” But here we have a communist Chinese-owned social media outlet that maybe we shouldn't even allow in the United States, dedicated to showing youth how to dance or whatever. And what do they seem to ban? Young Americans Foundation, Students for Life of America. You know, “we can't let the young people see an opposing point of view.” When they don't like freedom, when they don't like videos that attack communism, you might just guess it’s a communist channel.
WEBSTER: Yeah. But they seem to get away with it, don’t they? TikTok was under the microscope with the Donald Trump administration but they seem to get away with it.
GRAHAM: Well, that’s why we think it’s important with our CensorTrack.org website to keep track of these sorts of incidents. Not all of these permanently banned outlets are permanently banned. But our MRCTV account is just shuttered. So there are groups that can’t get their message out on this platform trying to reach out to the young people.
WEBSTER: Yeah. Free speech, the irony. All right, Tim. Tim Graham, Great stuff this morning. Thank you very much for jumping in and talking to us. We do appreciate it.
