TikTok appoints ex-IDF solider as its ‘hate speech manager’

TikTok has appointed a former soldier in the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) as its Hate Speech Policy Manager.

TikTok: employing Zionists to oversee hate speech

Erica Mindel, a ‘proud Zionist’ is a former instructor in the Israeli army’s Armoured Corps, in which she spent two and a half years. From 2022 to 2025 she was  a contractor for the US State Department during the Biden administration, working for Deborah Lipstadt, the special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism.

Prior to this role Mindel was an instructor in the Israeli army’s Spokesperson’s Unit.

Mindel will now be formulating TikTok’s hate speech policies, shaping relevant legislative and regulatory frameworks, and monitoring trends, especially those related to ‘antisemitic content’.

From the beginning of the genocide in Gaza, pro-Palestinian users of TikTok have complained they have fallen victim to ‘shadow banning’, a process in which the platform limits the visibility of a user’s posts without notifying them.

Sada Social is a Palestinian digital rights organisation which monitors and documents digital violations against Palestinian content, and works for change in this area. Back in February 2024, TikTok officials met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, in the occupied territory, amid what the Times of Israel called the ‘proliferation of anti-Israel and antisemitic content across the platform’-a visit which Sada Social saw as a ‘troubling sign of TikTok’s alignment and complicity with a regime officially accused of committing war crimes’.

According to the Sada Social’s 2024 Digital Index, these violations were most frequent on Instagram, at 31%, followed by TikTok which carried out 27% of all digital violations targeting Palestinian  content. TikTok’s own Transparency Report for the second half of 2024 shows it complied with 94% of the Israeli government’s requests to remove content. Journalists and media outlets were particularly affected by these digital violations.

Double standards

In a statement Sada Social accuses TikTok of continuing its partnerships with a political and military regime currently under international investigation, by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and continuing to publish content showing IOF soldiers celebrating their crimes and mocking Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Inflammatory Israeli content has spread unchecked on TikTok while, Sada Social says, videos documenting Israeli actions in Gaza have been banned. The centre also officially submitted a request to remove Hebrew songs which promote hate and violence, such as Harbu Darbu, but TikTok has refused to act.

Sada Social emphasises that:

The responsibility for managing hate speech policies should never be entrusted to individuals affiliated with institutions known for systemic hatred. Protecting the digital rights of Palestinians demands genuine independence within platform policy teams, and a thorough reassessment of biased and double-standard content moderation practices.

Featured image via the Canary