Pro-Israel billionaires and UAE royals: meet TikTok's new owners
The $14 Billion Handover: Who's Taking Control?
In a landmark deal that reshapes the digital landscape, TikTok's U.S. operations were sold for $14 billion to a consortium led by pro-Israel billionaires and Abu Dhabi royals, a move that has ignited immediate concerns over the future of free speech and content moderation on one of the world's most influential platforms.
This ownership shift, technically compliant with U.S. mandates for "majority American control," places editorial power in the hands of investors with deep financial and ideological ties to the Israeli military and a Gulf state known for suppressing dissent. The implications for how information about Gaza and Palestine flows to over 170 million American users are profound and unsettling.
The National Security Facade and the Gaza Pretext
While the official narrative demanded TikTok's sale over nebulous fears of Chinese data espionage, the research reveals a more candid truth. By late 2023, members of Congress were explicitly targeting the app over its Gaza coverage. After October 7, TikTok became an unprecedented conduit for Palestinian voices, with raw, unfiltered videos reaching tens of millions of young Americans in real-time.
Senator Josh Hawley directly cited "anti-Israel content" as a reason for a ban, and a meeting of forty corporate executives with TikTok's CEO complained about pro-Palestinian material. The national security argument provided a politically acceptable vessel for what was, in essence, a narrative control operation. The eventual sale to Israel-aligned figures was, for many observers, an inevitable outcome of this pressure campaign.
The Legal Architecture of Unaccountable Power
To understand the potential for censorship, one must examine the legal framework that enables it. Platforms like TikTok are shielded by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and the First Amendment, which protect their editorial discretion. This means they can remove content deemed controversial without legal recourse for users.
When "Editorial Discretion" Becomes Silencing
As seen in internal documents, this power is exercised with little transparency. The setup is designed to keep editorial authority concentrated, unaccountable, and in private hands. Under the new ownership, decisions about removing videos documenting life in Gaza or settler violence could be made by a board that includes executives from firms funding the IDF, with no requirement to disclose such actions.
Learning from Meta's Playbook on Palestine
Before speculating on TikTok's future, it's crucial to look at the present. Meta's systemic censorship of Palestine content on Instagram and Facebook serves as a chilling precedent. Human Rights Watch documented over 1,000 cases of suppressed pro-Palestine posts. Palestinian journalists had accounts disabled mid-documentation, with reach artificially throttled and no effective appeal process.
This was all defended as protected editorial judgment. The fear is that TikTok's new owners, now including a UAE sovereign fund from a nation that criminalizes dissent, will adopt a similar or even more aggressive posture, using the same legal protections to justify it.
The Human Cost: Artists, Activists, and Erased Voices
The stakes are intensely personal for creators worldwide. A spoken-word artist in Ramallah, a diaspora organizer in Dearborn fundraising for relief, or a filmmaker in Jenin—their ability to share stories now hinges on the discretion of owners with demonstrated geopolitical interests. There is no obligation for transparency when videos are removed at the request of entities like the Israeli Cyber Unit.
This creates an "artist's trap": the platform is essential for reach and solidarity, but using it risks sudden demonetization, shadow-banning, or deletion without explanation. For communities relying on TikTok to bypass traditional media gatekeepers, this ownership change represents a direct threat to their digital lifeline.
Geopolitics and the Future of the Digital Public Square
This sale transcends a simple corporate transaction; it signifies the formal enmeshment of major social platforms with state-aligned capital. When a U.S. tech giant like Oracle—a partner in the deal with reported anti-Palestinian bias—joins with Gulf royals and pro-Israel financiers, it creates a powerful bloc with shared interests in managing online discourse.
The innovative insight here is that the battle over TikTok was never just about data servers. It was a conflict over who controls the story. In an age where conflict is narrated through smartphone clips, controlling a key distribution platform is a strategic imperative. The deal effectively outsources a form of digital foreign policy to private actors, blurring the lines between corporate content policy and state interest in unprecedented ways.
Resisting the Silencing: Demands for a New Paradigm
The path forward demands robust resistance and clear alternatives. Civil society organizations have called for TikTok's new U.S. entity to commit to transparent, unbiased moderation and human rights due diligence. This includes co-designing policies with affected communities and creating effective appeal processes. The challenge is monumental, as the financial and political incentives for suppression are now baked into the ownership structure.
Ultimately, this saga exposes a fundamental tension: our digital public squares are owned by private entities whose interests may directly conflict with the free flow of information. The fight for TikTok has laid bare that when speech challenges power, the architecture of the internet itself can be quietly reconfigured to silence it. The question now is whether users and advocates can build enough counter-pressure to keep those squares truly open.