Amid a national hysteria claiming the popular video-sharing app is a Chinese Trojan Horse, a MintPress News investigation has found dozens of ex-U.S. State Department officials working in key positions at TikTok.
by Alan Macleod
Part 6 - Spies in our midst
Some of the furor over TikTok’s supposed threat has been stoked artificially by its rivals. Facebook, for example, is known to have contracted a PR firm to carry out a nationwide smear campaign against TikTok, presenting the platform as a “threat to children” and placing articles talking up the dangers of its competitors in newspapers across the country.
Yet Facebook itself has been subject to the government TikTok treatment. In 2018, Mark Zuckerberg was hauled before Congress and grilled for hours on the dangers of his platform. Elected officials discussed breaking the company up or even imprisoning Zuckerberg for his role in promoting misinformation. If the goal was to intimidate him into giving up editorial control of the platform, then it may have worked. Only weeks after the inquest, Facebook announced that it was “partnering” with the Atlantic Council, an arm of NATO, whereby the group would now influence what billions of people saw – and did not see – in their news feeds.
Yet Facebook itself has been subject to the government TikTok treatment. In 2018, Mark Zuckerberg was hauled before Congress and grilled for hours on the dangers of his platform. Elected officials discussed breaking the company up or even imprisoning Zuckerberg for his role in promoting misinformation. If the goal was to intimidate him into giving up editorial control of the platform, then it may have worked. Only weeks after the inquest, Facebook announced that it was “partnering” with the Atlantic Council, an arm of NATO, whereby the group would now influence what billions of people saw – and did not see – in their news feeds.
The Atlantic Council has long been among the most hawkish organizations on China and Russia, publishing lurid reports about the extent of the latter’s penetration of Western society. It is also strongly suspected that the Atlantic Council was involved in the infamous “Prop or Not” group, a shadowy organization that labeled hundreds of alternative media outlets (including MintPress News) as likely Russian propaganda.
As a result of recent algorithm changes, Facebook traffic to alternative news websites has been completely throttled, as the platform strongly privileges establishment media or conservative outlets. MintPress, for instance, has lost over 99% of its Facebook traffic. For the state, this sort of corporate algorithmic strangulation is far more effective than outright government bans; it achieves virtually the same suppression metrics while provoking far less public outrage.
Facebook itself is teeming with agents from the national security state. Aaron Berman, for instance, who leads the team that is ultimately in charge of content moderation for the platform, was, until 2019, a high-ranking member of the CIA, writing the president’s daily briefings until he jumped ship to Facebook.
As a result of recent algorithm changes, Facebook traffic to alternative news websites has been completely throttled, as the platform strongly privileges establishment media or conservative outlets. MintPress, for instance, has lost over 99% of its Facebook traffic. For the state, this sort of corporate algorithmic strangulation is far more effective than outright government bans; it achieves virtually the same suppression metrics while provoking far less public outrage.
Facebook itself is teeming with agents from the national security state. Aaron Berman, for instance, who leads the team that is ultimately in charge of content moderation for the platform, was, until 2019, a high-ranking member of the CIA, writing the president’s daily briefings until he jumped ship to Facebook.
Another Berman, Deborah, spent nearly a decade as an intelligence analyst at Langley. As a Syria specialist, it is quite possible she was part of the CIA’s ongoing dirty war against the country, whereby the agency funded, trained and maintained an army of jihadists to overthrow the Assad government. In early 2022, however, she left the CIA to take up a position managing Meta’s trust and safety team.
The Bermans are just two of dozens of CIA agents now running Facebook’s worldwide operations that were profiled in a previous MintPress investigation, “Meet the Ex-CIA Agents Deciding Facebook’s Content Policy.”
Facebook and TikTok are far from outliers, however. It is sometimes difficult to find a senior Google employee who was not previously a member of the CIA; Twitter has been hiring an alarming number of FBI agents to run its operations; and Reddit mysteriously appointed hawkish Atlantic Council member Jessica Ashooh to become its director of operations, despite her having little to no relevant experience.
The Bermans are just two of dozens of CIA agents now running Facebook’s worldwide operations that were profiled in a previous MintPress investigation, “Meet the Ex-CIA Agents Deciding Facebook’s Content Policy.”
Facebook and TikTok are far from outliers, however. It is sometimes difficult to find a senior Google employee who was not previously a member of the CIA; Twitter has been hiring an alarming number of FBI agents to run its operations; and Reddit mysteriously appointed hawkish Atlantic Council member Jessica Ashooh to become its director of operations, despite her having little to no relevant experience.
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