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WikiLeaks Profile picture
@wikileaks
Sep 25 • 2 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X
Israeli-Aligned Billionaires Seize TikTok in Battle for U.S. Narrative Control

The White House has announced that the forced sale of TikTok will be finalized this week. The new ownership led by Larry Ellison - the largest individual donor to the IDF - will take control of U.S. user data and the algorithm which the White House says will be "retrained".

Ellison, who made his fortune developing Oracle - a database system he originally built for the CIA - already controls CBS, Paramount, MTV, Comedy Central, Showtime, Nickelodeon (which makes kids shows) as well as Channel 10 in Australia and Channel 5 in the UK. Ellison is also expected to finalize control over Warner Bros. Discovery (including CNN, HBO and the Discovery channel) before the end of 2025.

Even before the forced sale is finalised, censorship of TikTok content critical of Israel, including of the deal itself, has reached extreme levels as the platform moves to align with its prospective new owners. Fox – a Murdoch asset - is also seeking to join the Ellison consortium, a move that could enable cross-promotion between Fox and TikTok, further tightening the Israeli-aligned information bubble.

Disapproval of what Israel is doing in Gaza has risen to 60% of the US population, nearly double the approval rate of 32%.

The U.S. still has over three years of Trump left. Israeli-aligned Jewish billionaires control OpenAI, Google, Meta/Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp, Palantir, CBS, HBO, and most of Conde Nast (Reddit, Vogue, The New Yorker, Wired, GQ, Vanity Fair) as well as numerous Hollywood studios, regional papers and radio stations.

Europe, meanwhile, remains largely absent, offering little real competition in the information space. Its one real success story? Telegram, which it managed to comprehensively alienate after France arrested its founder, supposedly for not handing over enough user data.

Will the EU and other U.S. allies align with the “Israelified” TikTok algorithm, or attempt to create a politicised alternative of their own?

Decentralised alternatives like Keet and Nostr offer strong resistance to censorship but are still young. Larger platforms like Telegram and Rednote carry serious risks of censorship, including eventual sell-off to other interests. For users the sweet spot may be to use both. One for political reliability, the others for a (politically temporary) audience.
Sources:

Video: ADL CEO Jonathon Greenblatt speaks in the Knesset, 7 January 2025

Nostr: nostr.com
Keet: keet.io

Israel’s Biggest US Donor Now Owns CBS
just-international.org/articles/israe…

Larry Ellison Is A Billionaire Today Thanks To The CIA
businessinsider.com/the-cia-made-l…

Trump says Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Murdochs will be involved in TikTok deal
edition.cnn.com/2025/09/21/bus…

Pro-Israel tech firm to take control of US TikTok algorithm
thecradle.co/articles/pro-i…

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More from @wikileaks

WikiLeaks Profile picture
Mar 22
Google's deal to buy Israeli cybersecurity heavyweight Wiz for $32 billion won't just be Google's largest ever acquisition. It also imports a major new cohort of Israeli Unit 8200 military intelligence alumni into the tech giant.

apnews.com/article/google…
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Unit 8200 is a specialised Israeli signals intelligence unit – equivalent to the NSA - and the largest single military unit in the Israel Defense Forces. It is behind the development of 'Lavender,' an artificial intelligence system used to automate assassination targets in the Gaza genocide: “...the IDF bombed them in homes without hesitation, as a first option. It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. The system is built to look for them in these situations.”

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Unit 8200 graduates are heavily represented in Israel's tech startup sector, creating a pipeline for military intelligence personnel to be absorbed into the global tech sector via the venture capital ecosystem: “...nearly 50% of founders whose companies were acquired for over $100 million in the last decade served in the unit [8200]”

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Read 7 tweets
WikiLeaks Profile picture
Feb 20
Who funds the biggest US Think Tanks?
The Department of Defence, foreign governments and military contractors: "If think tanks are reliant on Pentagon contractors and there is no counterbalancing voice, it can lead to an entire sector singing in chorus for things that will benefit Pentagon contractors — most notably, ever-increasing defense budgets and foreign conflicts."

- Big Ideas and Big Money: Think Tank Funding in America (2025)
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"Since 2019, top Pentagon contractors have contributed more than $34.7 million to the 50 U.S. think tanks included in this study."
quincyinst.org/research/big-i…Image
"The U.S. government contributed at least $1.49 billion to U.S. think tanks from 2019 to 2023. More than half the funding came from the Department of Defence."
quincyinst.org/research/big-i…Image
Read 5 tweets
WikiLeaks Profile picture
Feb 8
USAID has pushed nearly half a billion dollars ($472.6m) through a secretive US government financed NGO, "Internews Network" (IN), which has “worked with” 4,291 media outlets, producing in one year 4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching up to 778 million people and "training” over 9000 journalists (2023 figures). IN has also supported social media censorship initiatives.

The operation claims “offices” in over 30 countries, including main offices in US, London, Paris and regional HQs in Kiev, Bangkok and Nairobi. It is headed up by Jeanne Bourgault, who pays herself $451k a year. Bourgault worked out of the US embassy in Moscow during the early 1990s, where she was in charge of a $250m budget, and in other revolts or conflicts at critical times, before formally rotating out of six years at USAID to IN.

Bourgault’s IN bio and those of its other key people and board members have been recently scrubbed from its website but remain accessible at archive.org. Records show the board being co-chaired by Democrat securocrat Richard J. Kessler and Simone Otus Coxe, wife of NVIDIA billionaire Trench Coxe, both major Democratic donors. In 2023, supported by Hillary Clinton, Bourgault launched a $10m IN fund at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). The IN page showing a picture of Bourgault at the CGI has also been deleted.

IN has at least six captive subsidiaries under unrelated names including one based out of the Cayman Islands. Since 2008, when electronic records begin, more than 95% of IN's budget has been supplied by the US government (thread follows)
Image
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Read 17 tweets
WikiLeaks Profile picture
Nov 5, 2024
Some questions for @realDonaldTrump:

1. How will you handle the so-called deep state “wolves in MAGA hats” circling your transition team, posing as MAGA to obtain powerful positions in a prospective Trump administration? After all, personnel is policy.
2. In your previous administration, you appointed figures like Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, William Barr (former CIA), Robert O’Brien, Nikki Haley, and Elliott Abrams, who often opposed your “America First” rhetoric, especially on foreign policy and freedom of speech.

If elected again, can you assure that these individuals, or others like Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio—both funded by arms companies—will not hold positions in your administration?
3. Many of these individuals have not only opposed your policies but have actively worked against you, even putting their weight behind your prosecution. For instance, Mike Pompeo accused you of keeping classified documents, suggesting that doing so endangered U.S. soldiers. He also directed the CIA to draw up plans to assassinate Julian Assange, suppressed the release of JFK files at the CIA’s request, and claimed, “There is no deep state at the CIA.” What is your stance toward those who merely feign support for MAGA?
Read 5 tweets
WikiLeaks Profile picture
Oct 25, 2024
Suggested questions for tonight’s @JoeRogan interview with @realDonaldTrump:

1. How will you handle the so-called deep state “wolves in MAGA hats” circling your transition team, posing as MAGA to obtain powerful positions in a prospective Trump administration? After all, rhetoric is cheap but personnel is policy.
2. In your previous administration, you appointed figures like Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, William Barr (former CIA), Robert O’Brien, Nikki Haley, and Elliott Abrams, who often opposed your “America First” rhetoric, especially on foreign policy and freedom of speech. If elected again, can you assure that these individuals, or others like Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio—both funded by arms companies—will not hold positions in your administration?
3. Many of these individuals have not only opposed your policies but have actively worked against you, even putting their weight behind your prosecution. For instance, Mike Pompeo accused you of keeping classified documents, suggesting that doing so endangered U.S. soldiers. He also directed the CIA to draw up plans to assassinate Julian Assange, suppressed the release of JFK files at the CIA’s request, and claimed, “There is no deep state at the CIA.” What is your stance toward those who merely feign support for MAGA?
Read 5 tweets
WikiLeaks Profile picture
Oct 2, 2024
The Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly – with parliamentarians from 46 Council of Europe member states – will today debate and then vote on a draft resolution entitled "The detention and conviction of Julian Assange and their chilling effects on human rights"

This resolution, drafted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, is based upon the report of Ms Thorhildur Sunna Ævarsdóttir, the Icelandic human rights expert, and MP from the Icelandic Pirate Party 👉pace.coe.int/en/files/33734…Image
NOW: Watch live

Following Julian Assange's testimony yesterday, the debate and vote on the draft resolution "The detention and conviction of Julian Assange and their chilling effects on human rights" at the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly
"This [Assange] case tests our collective commitment to human rights and press freedom. If we tolerate the persecution of those who reveal the truth we undermine the very foundations of pluralistic democratic society.

The core values of our organisation oblige us to stand firmly in defence of justice, transparency, the rule of law and human rights" – Vladimir Vardanyan, National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia
Read 15 tweets

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