My experience with TikTok taught me how conservatives hijacked social media
To the great detriment of society, right wing bullies and billionaires eventually figured out that they could amass political power and social influence if they flooded online with disinformation
By Wayne Besen | The Internet was once the salvation of pro-democracy liberals who held Enlightenment Values. While never perfect, the exciting new enterprise was a wellspring of accurate information and created invigorated communities where smart people could connect, share ideas and foster intelligent debate. At its zenith, the online universe was harnessed by Barack Obama’s campaign to elect him president in 2008.
To the great detriment of society, right wing bullies and billionaires eventually figured out that they could amass political power and social influence if they flooded the online zone with disinformation. If lies were elevated to the same plane as truth, reality itself could be reduced to just another viewpoint and the masses could easily be exploited.
Today, the right wing has overthrown the online order and turned social media sites into unethical cesspools and moral sewers that pump out industrial strength gaslighting. Like the Los Angeles fire department’s inability to squelch today’s wildfires, fueled by climate change, our government and mainstream media seem defenseless against the rapid spread of dangerous conspiracies.
“I can’t go toe to toe with social media,” Department of Health and Human Services Director Xavier Becerra admitted to The Washington Post this week. “Will [Congress] give me some money to compete out there with all the disinformation?”
Even if the money were available, would anyone hear Becerra’s message, or would it be silenced by amoral and cowardly social media companies who are terrified by Donald Trump and violent right wing conservative backlash?
Last week, we got a glimpse of Silicon Valley spinelessness when Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced his company would do away with fact checking. This ensures that Facebook, Threads, Instagram and WhatsApp are turned into backwaters of bigotry and a locus of lies.
There is no shortage of activists and organizations working to counter disinformation. Unfortunately, reaching a critical mass of people has become increasingly difficult. The social media companies actively suppress liberal content, while elevating the most unhinged, dishonest right-wing extremists.
When these sites do feature progressive content, they tend to showcase the most outrageous voices. The right wing deftly exploits this phenomenon, with accounts such as Libs of TikTok, that scour social media for bizarre content that portrays progressives and LGBTQ activists as insane.
I know firsthand how maddening it is to confront conservative lies on social media, when these tainted, biased companies are in the pocket of right-wing donors, politicians and provocateurs. These companies do everything in their power to bury mainstream liberal views while heavily promoting any conservative crackpot who can string more than two syllables together.
For example, I opened a TikTok account last year to promote pro-democracy and LGBTQ-affirmative narratives. My account took off like a rocket ship. At least until the account’s burgeoning popularity was noticed by right-wing activists who sprang into action.
In one post, I interviewed a respected university professor who was a scholar on the United States Constitution. Our conversation addressed how MAGA conservatives are incorrect when they claim our country is a republic, therefore it’s not a democracy.
This video quickly amassed thousands of views and effectively countered a key right-wing talking point. This raised alarms in the conservative fever swamps. They ganged up to lodge false complaints against our video so TikTok would remove our content.
Their censorious tactics worked and TikTok flagged what should have been a non-controversial academic video. These cyber thugs celebrated their “success”by taunting me and gloating at their ability to stifle debate. Several of these online activists brazenly explained what they had done to kill my message.
“Oh no, we’re beginning to weaponize Cancel Culture against you now, years of it being done to us taught us how. Your life is ours. Boy, we own you. You ran into the one pocket of constitutionalists who believe it’s time to start using your tactics against you. Your careers are OVER.”
This abusive online activist’s prediction was correct. TikTok henceforth flagged our content, and our video views plummeted to the point where we had to disable the account. Nonetheless, our team couldn’t believe that our efforts had been suppressed over a standard defense of democracy. We concluded this must have been an aberration—so we opened a new account and tried our luck again.
The new account (@waynebesen) was an instant success. We debuted with a video debunking Tulsi Gabbard that had more than 18,000 views and a week later more than 30,000 people watched our video addressing the deficiencies of Elon Musk. Within a matter of months, we gained 33,000 followers and had individual videos with over a half million views.
Sadly, the right-wing online mob, once again, found our account and set out to destroy it. Several times we posted popular videos reaching tens of thousands of people, until they were inexplicably flagged by right wing instigators. TikTok repeatedly responded to this conservative campaign by “muting” or outright removing our work.
Unfailingly, we would appeal these poor decisions, and we almost always won. However, when our content was reinstated, it would not receive the same traction and our account numbers were subsequently slowed for 1-2 weeks, making it increasingly difficult to grow our online presence.
Our shabby treatment by TikTok came to a head when the company removed yet another one of our videos. We quickly had our content restored on appeal. Yet, a couple days later the video was mysteriously removed again by the company. So, we appealed, but this time we lost with no explanation.
This rare and unexplained intervention to overturn an appeal we had already won, strongly suggests right wing interference inside the company. Our account, promoting views supported by most Americans, seems to have been deliberately targeted for retribution. Our efforts to debunk lies fell victim to the liars, who found our content detrimental to their dissemination of conspiracies.
After this final incident, our account was effectively shadow banned, meaning our average views plummeted from tens of thousands to hundreds. With no future on TikTok we abandoned the site—giving a victory to the “conservatively correct” mob.
I share my story not to gain sympathy, but as a cautionary tale on how online companies have dangerously moved to the right and good faith efforts to stanch the right’s firehoses of disinformation are often killed in the cradle by nefarious social media companies.
This untenable situation is not unique to TikTok, with Facebook transformed into a wasteland of whoppers and Elon Musk’s X a septic tank of deceit. Until a group of liberal billionaires buy competing social media sites that value truth, the Internet will remain a dangerous toilet of transgression.
This festering cancer likely played a key role in undermining Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign. It will certainly metastasize on January 20, when Donald Trump is sworn in as president.
There is palpable fear that Trump will misuse government agencies, such as the Department of Justice and the IRS, to go after non-profits who fight against right wing lies. In April, Trump declared on Truth Social, “How do so-called non-profits get away with spending all of their time and money on ‘getting Donald Trump’? We are watching these thugs and sleazebags closely!”
An article in The Chronicle of Philanthropy by Mike Berkowitz addressed what might be in store for left-leaning non-profits:
We can expect the new administration to target a broad swath of philanthropic organizations based on their ideological views or their efforts to hold the administration accountable. These would include organizations fighting mis and disinformation, government watchdogs, voter engagement groups, LGBTQ rights organizations, environmental NGOs, and immigration and reproductive rights groups.
The MAGA-right is telegraphing their true intentions by embracing authoritarians and right-wing populists, such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Argentina’s Javier Gerardo Milei. Indeed, CPAC held their annual conference in Hungary and in July, Orbán met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. In December, CPAC held its sinister shindig in Buenos Aires featuring an international cabal of extremists.
Three things must occur to save civilization from a global right-wing conspiracy supercharged by online lies:
1) Conservatives need to turn on each other. For example, this week Steve Bannon attacked Elon Musk as a “truly evil person”. He vowed to “get Elon Musk kicked out by the time he’s inaugurated. He won’t have a blue pass with full access to the White House. He’ll be like everyone else. He should go back to South Africa.”
2) The current social media behemoths and their compromised companies are tainted beyond repair. As I mentioned earlier, new social media sites must be created by liberal tycoons to offer online alternatives that value truth.
3) Far-reaching reforms must be enacted by Congress. Frank Pizzoli wrote an illuminating article in The Village Voice, where he reviews a book by author Steven Brill, The Death of Truth: How Social Media and the Internet Gave Snake Oil Salesmen and Demagogues the Weapons They Needed to Destroy Trust and Polarize the World — and What We Can Do About It.
“This crisis is not inevitable or irreversible. There are a variety of specific, practical steps … that we can take to reverse this devastating erosion of trust,” Brill writes. (Check out the article to read about his many practical solutions)
Unless the online environment is drastically recalibrated in favor of honesty, we will continue down the slippery slope to civilizational oblivion. Without facts, there can be no democracy, no science, no free media and ultimately no individual freedom or human rights. Into this truth vacuum will step glum cultures of nihilism, autocracy and death, similar to what we now have in Vladimir Putin’s dystopian Russia. Taking back control of the Internet is the battle of our time and the winner of this crucial fight will decide the world’s fate and future
Wayne Besen is the Founding Executive Director of Truth Wins Out, the Center Against Religious Extremism (TWOCARE.org)