Media

‘We Are Being Manipulated’: Professor Explains How China Is Spreading Pro-Hamas Sentiment On College Campuses

An NYU professor explained how he believes China spreads pro-Hamas sentiment. [Screenshot/X/JuliannaFrieman]

[Screenshot/X/JuliannaFrieman]

Julianna Frieman Contributor
Font Size:

New York University (NYU) professor Scott Galloway explained how he believes China is spreading pro-Hamas sentiment on college campuses Tuesday on “Morning Joe.”

Pro-Palestinian protesters have recently occupied tents on college campuses including Columbia University and New York University (NYU), sparking confrontation between New York Police Department (NYPD) officials and demonstrators. Galloway told MSNBC that he thinks young Americans are being “manipulated” by content on TikTok, a popular social media platform with roots in China.

“What might sound paranoid to those who might not [unintelligible], I think we are being manipulated, specifically youth, through their frame through the world is TikTok,” Galloway said. “If you look at TikTok, there are 52 videos that are pro-Hamas or pro-Palestinian for every one served on Israel. I think that we are being manipulated. I think that Americans are easier to fool than to convince they’ve been fooled. But if I were the CCP, I’d be doing exactly the same thing. I think social media is sowing division and polarization in our society.”


TikTok has been in the spotlight recently as the House of Representatives passed legislation in March that would force Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok in order for the app to remain operational in the U.S. Since then, the Senate voted Tuesday in favor of a foreign aid package including a provision that could lead to a TikTok ban, which is expected to be signed into law by President Joe Biden soon.

Galloway said that the reason college students are spreading pro-Hamas sentiment is “complicated.” He said young people have a proclivity to distance themselves from what older people believe, adding that students “conflate” the conflict in the Gaza Strip to the Civil Rights Movement. (RELATED: ‘It Is Shocking!’: Holocaust Survivor Tells Fox Host Anti-Jewish Protests Leave Her ‘Scared’)

“I think it’s complicated,” Galloway said. “I think, one, people have a healthy gag reflex on what people our age think. And I think that’s healthy. Two, I don’t think Israel has draped itself in glory over the last 20 or 30 years. They shifted to kind of being kind of a David to the Goliath.”

“I also think that incorrectly, students on campus conflate the Civil Rights Movement with what is going on in Palestine and have digressed, unfortunately, because of an orthodoxy promoted by me and my colleagues that there are oppressors and oppressed. And the easiest way to identify oppressors is how white and how rich they are,” he continued. “Fairly or unfairly, Israel is seen as ground zero for whiteness and how wealthy they are.”

Columbia University canceled in-person classes Monday and announced that all classes at its main campus will be held remotely for the rest of the semester.