Jewish celebrities urged TikTok execs to address antisemitism on phone call

Jewish celebrities and content creators urged TikTok executives to take more action to address antisemitic content on the platform during a call Wednesday night, a TikTok spokesperson confirmed Friday.

The call was reported by The New York Times on Thursday, citing a recording of the meeting.

The meeting reportedly included more than 30 people, including Sacha Baron Cohen, Debra Messing and Amy Schumer. It followed a letter sent by Hollywood stars and influencers to the platform about similar concerns over a rise in antisemitism since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and subsequent war.  

The call was led by TikTok head of operations Adam Presser and global head of user operations Seth Melnick, the Times reported.

During the meeting, the TikTok executives appeared to agree with the sentiment that more should be done, but they stressed there is not a simple or fast solution, according to the report.  

Asked about the call, a TikTok spokesperson told The Hill in a statement, “We recognize this is an incredibly difficult and fearful time for millions of people around the world and in our TikTok community.” 

“Our leadership has been meeting with creators, civil society, human rights experts and stakeholders to listen to their experiences and feedback on how TikTok can remain a place for community, discovery, and sharing authentically,” the spokesperson added.  

During the call, TikTok reportedly faced direct accusations from the creators.  

Cohen said TikTok is “creating the biggest antisemitic movement since the Nazis” and said the company could “flip a switch” to fix the problem, according to the Times.  

Presser reportedly said “there’s truth” to “a lot” of what Cohen said but later added there is no “magic button” to address the concerns.  

Messing questioned the executives over how TikTok is moderating the pro-Palestinian slogan “from the river to the sea,” according to the Times.  

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has called the slogan antisemitic. 

Presser told members of the call that TikTok has left interpretation of the phrase, before and after the Oct. 7 attack, up to TikTok’s moderators based on how it is used, according to the Times.  

“Where it is clear exactly what they mean — ‘kill the Jews, eradicate the state of Israel’ — that content is violative and we take it down. Our approach up until Oct. 7, continuing to today, has been that for instances where people use the phrase where it’s not clear, where someone is just using it casually, then that has been considered acceptable speech,” Presser said, according to the Times.  

TikTok is not the only platform facing scrutiny over a rise in antisemitic content since the Oct. 7 attack. The ADL last week published a report documenting a rise in antisemitic hate on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. And the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) earlier this week published a report indicating X failed to remove antisemitic and Islamophobic hate since the Oct. 7 attack.  

The ADL report found a 919 percent increase in antisemitic content on X in the week after the attack. By contrast, the report found a 28 percent increase on Meta-owned Facebook in that time. The ADL noted the modest increase on Oct. 13 could be due to content not having been moderated by the time the data was collected at midnight Oct. 14.  

Joe Benarroch, head of business operations at X, shared a blog post published Tuesday touting X’s use of community notes to help moderate misinformation about the conflict.  

He also said “X has asked the ADL for the accounts and posts to verify them, but the ADL has declined to be transparent with the data.” 

An ADL spokesperson said in a statement that “since X removed API access, we have had to contract with third parties for X data.” 

“Our agreement with that third party prevents us from sharing our data which, ironically, includes back to X,” the spokesperson added. “If X wants transparency, the best way is to restore API access.”