TikTok creators and celebrities confronted TikTok executives and other employees in a private meeting Wednesday night, urging them to do more to address a surge of antisemitism and harassment on the popular video service.
The meeting, held on a video call for about 90 minutes and joined by more than 30 people in all, included actors Sacha Baron Cohen, Debra Messing and Amy Schumer. It was led by Adam Presser, TikTok's head of operations, and Seth Melnick, its global head of user operations. The executives said they wanted to know more about what the creators were experiencing to improve the app, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The New York Times.
The celebrities and creators described, sometimes with fiery rhetoric, how TikTok's tools did not prevent a flood of comments like «Hitler was right» or «I hope you end up like Anne Frank» under videos posted by them and other Jewish users.
«What is happening at TikTok is it is creating the biggest antisemitic movement since the Nazis,» Cohen, who does not appear to have an official TikTok account, said early in the call. He criticized violent imagery and disinformation on the platform, telling Presser «shame on you» and claiming that TikTok could «flip a switch» to fix antisemitism on its platform.
Presser and Melnick of TikTok, who are also Jewish and based in the United States, were largely conciliatory in the meeting. «Obviously a lot of what Sacha says,