Top-line investor in TikTok acquisition fretted over desire 'to embed the love' of Israel in US
'We have to embed the love and respect for Israel in the American culture,' says Safra Catz
The recent head of a company slated to play a key role in the management of TikTok's US operations following its $14 billion forced divestiture from China-based parent company ByteDance privately expressed concern about growing anti-Israeli sentiment.
An email from former Oracle CEO Safra Catz to one-time Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was first reported by the Responsible Statecraft website. It was part of a hack of Barak's email account.
"We have all been horrified by the growth of the BDS movement in college campuses and have concluded that we have to fight this battle before the kids even get to college. We believe that we have to embed the love and respect for Israel in the American culture. That means getting the message to the American people in a way they can consume it," Catz wrote to Barack in February 2015.
She was referring to the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, an economic pressure campaign on Israel modeled after an effort that helped topple apartheid in South Africa.
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An anonymous source told Responsible Statecraft that Catz "will be nowhere near the algorithm of TikTok."
Catz transitioned to Oracle's executive vice chair from CEO in September, meaning she likely had a significant role in the negotiations that led up to the near-complete deal to transfer TikTok's US operations to a US-majority consortium, of which Oracle is expected to play a major role.
US Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that "American investors will actually control the algorithm" that will feed content to users after the deal is completed.
An anonymous US official earlier told reporters that a copy of TikTok's content recommendation algorithm will be given to the joint venture, and will be "fully inspected and retrained by the security provider on US user data, and then it's going to be operated by that US entity."
Commenting on Oracle's role in the new consortium, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the tech firm would serve as "TikTok's trusted security provider, and they will independently monitor the safety and data security of all US user data on TikTok's platform."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu minced no words about the importance of TikTok's sale as he addressed a gathering of social media influencers last week.
"We have to fight with the weapons that apply to the battlefields on which we are engaged. And the most important ones are on social media. And the most important purchase that is going on right now is, class? TikTok," he said. "TikTok, number one. Number one. And I hope it goes through, because it can be consequential."
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