After a bill in US Congress was overwhelmingly passed to ban the social media app TikTok, social media users outraged online and linked the move to pro-Israel groups trying to curb the surge of pro-Palestinian content on the platform.

The Wall Street Journal also reported last week that there was “new momentum in part because of anger over TikTok videos about the Israel-Hamas conflict”.

In another report by the WSJ, Democrat Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi said it was the war in Gaza that led him to support a ban on TikTok. Krishnamoorthi said “Oct 7 really opened people’s eyes to what’s happening on TikTok”.

Republican Senator Josh Hawley sent a letter to the Biden administration in November calling for the ban of TikTok. In the letter, he specifically cited the “ubiquity of anti-Israel content on TikTok” as one of his main reasons for advocating for the ban.

Others pointed to the idea that the goal of pro-Israel groups is not to ban the social media giant, but for a pro-Israel entity to purchase the application.Last week, former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he is putting together a group of investors to try and buy TikTok.

“They are not trying to ban #TikTok. They are trying to use government power to force TikTok to be taken over by pro-Israel ownership to silence criticism of #Genocide and #apartheid,” said Craig Mokhiber, the former director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.