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      in Elections

      Kai Cenat Resolves Union Square Melee Charges With Apology, Officials Say

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      The social media superstar known for marathon streaming sessions was charged with inciting a riot after a video game console giveaway erupted in mayhem last summer.The social media star Kai Cenat will not be prosecuted on charges of inciting a riot in Manhattan after agreeing to post a public apology and paying for the damage caused when thousands of his fans erupted in a chaotic melee in Union Square last summer, officials said on Tuesday.A spokesman for Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, said prosecutors planned to drop their case against Mr. Cenat and two other men, Denzel Dennis and Muktar Din, in exchange for the apology and $57,000 in restitution.Mr. Cenat paid $55,000 of the restitution total, which went to the Union Square Partnership to cover landscaping and other costs, the district attorney’s office said. Mr. Dennis and Mr. Din paid the balance.Mr. Cenat posted the apology on his Snapchat account on Tuesday, and Mr. Bragg’s spokeswoman, M’Niyah Lynn, said the prosecution would be dropped once the apology had been online for 24 hours. Mr. Dennis and Mr. Din were expected to post the apology as well.Mr. Cenat, noting that he is from New York, wrote in the apology that what began as a promotional event had quickly turned into “an unsafe situation for the people who live and work in the neighborhood, first responders and my followers that attended the event.”“It was never my intent for it to get so out of hand,” he added, “and I have learned a very valuable lesson that social media is a very powerful tool to do good, but it can also cause dangerous, unwanted situations if it is not used properly.”The Union Square episode, which began shortly after 3 p.m. on Aug. 4 and lasted several hours, resulted in 65 arrests (nearly half of them of underage youths); injuries to police officers and some of those in the crowd; and damage to food carts, police vehicles and stores, officials said.The events began when Mr. Cenat, who has millions of followers on Twitch and other social media platforms, summoned his fans to the area, where he said he would give away video game consoles. The gathering lacked a city permit, and the police learned of it from a social media post only hours before the crowd began swelling, officials said at the time.Hordes of young people were soon packing Union Square Park and spilling onto the surrounding streets and sidewalks and blocking cars and pedestrians. The Union Square Greenmarket shut down early, and subway trains began bypassing the Union Square station.Within an hour, the Police Department had initiated a Level 4 mobilization, its highest-level response. Some in the crowd were peaceful, but others were not. One cluster of people stormed a construction site. Building materials, rocks, bottles, basketballs, a computer and fireworks sailed through the crowd.“I believe he saw that day how much influence he really has,” Jeffrey Maddrey, the Police Department’s chief of department, said of Mr. Cenat afterward. More

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      in US Politics

      ‘It’s just not hitting like it used to’: TikTok was in its flop era before it got banned in the US

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      TikTok is facing its most credible existential threat yet. Last week, the US Congress passed a bill that bans the short-form video app if it does not sell to an American company by this time next year. But as a former avid user whose time on the app has dropped sharply in recent months, I am left wondering – will I even be using the app a year from now?Like many Americans of my demographic (aging millennial), I first started using TikTok regularly when the Covid-19 pandemic began and lockdowns gave many of us more time than we knew how to fill.As 2020 wore on, the global news climate becoming somehow progressively worse with each passing day, what began as a casual distraction became a kind of mental health lifeline. My average total screen time exploded from four hours a day to upwards of 10 – much of which were spent scrolling my “For You” page, the main feed of algorithmically recommended videos within TikTok.At the time, content was predictable, mostly light and mind-numbing. From “Get Ready With Me” (GRWM) narratives to kitten videos and the classic TikTok viral dances, I could dive into the algorithmic oblivion anytime I wanted. I loved TikTok.The “For You” page taught me actually useful skills like sign language, crocheting and how to cook when you hate cooking (I do). It also filled my days with extremely dumb distractions like the rise (and subsequent criticisms) of a tradwife family and the politicized implosion of several influencers in 2022 over cheating allegations. I enjoy watching urban exploration videos in which people inexplicably hop down into sewers and investigate abandoned houses to see what they can find. Over the course of many months, I watched a man build an underground aquarium and fill it with live eels. I treasured every wet moment. Once I learned a dumb TikTok dance – Doja Cat’s Say So, which went mega-viral during the pandemic. I probably could still do it if pressed, but don’t look for it on my TikTok profile – I came to my senses and deleted it. I don’t post often, but I did genuinely enjoy the trend of “romanticizing your life” – setting mundane video clips to inspirational music. I was inspired to share my own attempts.But now, according to my iPhone’s Screen Time tool, my average time on TikTok ranges from 30 minutes to two hours a day – a far cry from the four-plus hours I was spending at the peak of the pandemic. My withdrawal from TikTok was not a conscious choice – it happened naturally, the same way my addiction began.As my partner put it during a recent nightly scroll before bed: “It’s just not hitting like it used to.” I still find some joy on the app. The delight is just less abundant than it was. Something has changed on TikTok. It’s become less serendipitous than before, though I don’t know when.Others seem to agree, from aggrieved fellow journalists to content creators on the platform and countless social media threads – which raises the question: as TikTok faces a potential ban in the US, was the app already on its way out?Top apps wax and wane, and content creators noticeAs with all trends, the hot social network of the moment tends to wax and wane (remember Clubhouse?). Facebook – the original top dog of social media and still the biggest by user numbers – has seen young users flee in recent years, despite overall growth bringing monthly active users to 3 billion in 2023.But unlike Meta, TikTok is not a public company – which means we may never get granular insight into its user metrics, which have surely evolved over the past few years amid political turmoil and changes to the platform. The company has recently stated that the proposed ban would affect more than 170 million monthly active users in the US.View image in fullscreenCreators – especially those who get most of their income from social media – are hyper-aware of fluctuations in the app of the moment, said Brooke Erin Duffy, associate professor of communication at Cornell University. From the time TikTok was first threatened with a ban by Donald Trump in 2020, major users of the platform raised the example of Vine – the now defunct short-form video platform – as a cautionary tale.“They are aware of the ability of an entire platform to vanish with very little notice,” she said. “[The potential Trump ban] was four years ago, and since then there has been an ebb and flow of panic about the future among creators.”With that in mind, a number of creators who grew a large audience on TikTok have been diversifying, trying to migrate their fanbases to other platforms in case TikTok disappears. Others have grown frustrated with the algorithm, reporting wildly fluctuating TikTok views and impressions for their videos. Gaming influencer DejaTwo said TikTok has been “very frustrating lately” in a recent post explaining why they believe influencers are leaving the platform. “The only reason I still use TikTok is because of brand loyalty,” they said.The unwelcome arrival of the TikTok ShopIn September 2023, TikTok launched its TikTok Shop feature – an algorithm-driven in-app shopping experience in which users can buy products directly hawked by creators.The feature has a number of benefits for TikTok: it boosts monetization of its highly engaged audience, allowing users to make purchases without ever leaving the platform. Integrating shopping will also allow TikTok to compete with platforms like Instagram and Facebook, which have long integrated shopping capabilities, as well as with Chinese e-commerce sites like Temu and Shein, which promise cheap abundance. It is also part of a broader effort from TikTok to move away from politicized videos and other content that may jeopardize its tenuous position with regulators, many of whom believe it has been boosting pro-Palestinian content despite all evidence to the contrary.Some users have pushed back against the shop’s new omnipresence on the app, often characterized as a kind of QVC shopping channel for gen Z users, stating that it takes away from the fun, unique and interesting original content that earned TikTok its popularity.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The shopping push has not been very interesting or resonant in general, especially for younger users,” said Damian Rollison, director of market insights for digital marketing firm SOCi. “Shopping is not what appeals to US users on TikTok.”TikTok’s push of the shopping features, in spite of little interest from its audience, underscores the lack of say users and creators have over their favorite platforms and how they work. Creators report feeling pressure to participate in the shopping features lest their content get buried in the algorithm, said Duffy.“There is a tension for creators between gravitating towards what they think TikTok is trying to reward, and their own sense of what the most important and fulfilling kinds of content are,” she said.The magic algorithm – TikTok’s biggest asset (or liability)TikTok’s success has been largely attributed to its uncannily accurate algorithm, which monitors user behavior and serves related content on the “For You” page. According to a recent report, ByteDance would only consider selling the platform to comply with the new bill if it didn’t include the algorithm, which would make it nearly worthless.The algorithm, however, can be too responsive for some users. One friend told me they accidentally watched several videos of a niche Brazilian dance and their feed has been inundated with related content ever since. Conversely, I find if I spend less time on TikTok, when I log back in I find myself besieged with inside jokes that I am not quite in on – creators open monologues with “we’ve all seen that video about [fill in the blank]”. Most recently, my feed was filled with meta-memes commenting on a video about a series of videos about a Chinese factory I’d never heard of.“More so than any other platform. TikTok is very trend-based,” said Nathan Barry, CEO of ConvertKit. “It has its own kind of culture that you have to be tapped into in order to grow in a way you don’t see on platforms like Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts.”The mystery of the algorithm is not unique to TikTok. Because social media platforms are not transparent about how they decide which content reaches users, it creates confusion and paranoia among creators about “shadow banning”, when content is demoted in the algorithm and shown less.“Because these algorithms are opaque and kind of concealed behind the screens, creators are left to discuss among themselves what the algorithm rewards or punishes,” said Duffy. “Companies like to act like they are neutral conduits that just reflect the interests and tastes of the audience, but, of course, they have a perverse level of power to shape these systems.”TikTok’s legacyEven if TikTok refuses to sell and shuts down forever, as its parent company seems to want, the app has left an indelible mark on the social media landscape and on the lives of the tens of millions who used it. Many users have stated they quit their traditional jobs to become full-time influencers, and will be financially devastated if TikTok disappears. In Montana, where a ban was passed (and later reversed) many such influencers lobbied aggressively against it.TikTok’s impact on me will continue in the form of countless pointless facts that are now buried deep in my brain: yesterday I spent 10 minutes of my life learning about the history of Bic pens. I watch ASMR – autonomous sensory meridian response – videos there when I am trying to fall asleep. BookTok influencers still give me legitimately enjoyable recommendations. The other day I laughed until I cried at this video. Entertaining drama remains, including one woman who was recently accused of pretending to be Amish to gain followers. I watched a cat give birth to a litter of kittens on TikTok Live just last week.The platform’s biggest legacy moving forward is the solidification of a demand for short-form videos, said Rollison – one that its competitors have yet to meet successfully. While Meta has invested heavily in Instagram Reels and Alphabet in YouTube Shorts, no platforms have found the secret sauce that TikTok has to keep users highly engaged.The Reels venture at Meta had been growing rapidly when the company last released numbers specific to the platform. In recent earnings reports, Meta did not report Reels engagement numbers specifically, but its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, said that Reels alone now makes up 50% of user time spent on Instagram. Still, the company said it is focusing on scaling the product, and not yet monetizing it. Alphabet has also declined to share recent numbers on its Shorts, but said in October the videos average 70bn daily views. Executives called the product a “long-term bet for the business” in Alphabet’s most recent earnings call.“TikTok is still the defining standard of success in the realm of short-form video,” Rollison said. “It has defined a need, and if it goes away, that is going to create a vacuum that will be filled by something. The need for short-form video will survive the death of any particular platform.” More

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      in US Politics

      Dark Brandon popping off: is Joe Biden’s ‘cringe’ TikTok helping or hurting him?

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      In Joe Biden’s TikTok debut, timed to the Super Bowl in February, the president answered rapid-fire questions like “Chiefs or Niners?” (neither, he picked the Eagles because his wife’s a “Philly girl”) and flashed the Dark Brandon meme. He got more than 10m views, so by pure metrics, the video was no flop. But to use one of TikTok’s favorite disses, for many gen Z viewers it felt “cringe” – even pandering. Worse still, the TikTok, captioned “lol hey guys”, made the rounds after Israel struck Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza strip. Biden’s jokes infuriated users who flooded the post with the comment “WHAT ABOUT RAFAH?”“I don’t want my president to be a TikTok influencer,” read the headline of one USA Today editorial. One (actual) influencer told CNN the president’s attempt at meme-ing felt “performative”. A warm welcome to the app, it was not. But Biden’s team kept posting.Biden’s TikTok account, Biden-Harris HQ, has put out more than 150 videos since February, notching over 3.9m likes and 313,000 followers. That’s more than Maxwell Frost (570,000 likes, 96,000 followers), who became the first gen Z member of Congress in 2023, but a fraction of Bernie Sanders’ 11.4m likes or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 987,000 followers on the app. Congressman Jeff Jackson, a Republican from North Carolina with 2.2 million TikTok followers, is one of the most visible politicians on the app. His posts almost always hit more than a million views – only 11 of Biden’s videos have hit more than a million views.View image in fullscreenIf the idea of a president trying to go viral on TikTok seems frivolous, consider what’s at stake for Biden, who’s running a tight election race against Donald Trump. Gen Z was crucial in staving off a predicted “red wave” during the 2022 midterms, and Biden hasn’t exactly locked down the demographic for 2024: a Harvard poll from April found that Biden leads Trump by eight percentage points among 18- to 28-year olds, down from the 23-point lead Biden had at the same point in the 2020 election. The president’s continued support for Israel in the war on Gaza, which has killed more than 34,000 people, is eroding youth support – especially as pro-Palestinian protests spread across US college campuses.TikTok is the most downloaded app among 18- to 24-year olds, and many young people count it as their main source of news. Is Biden winning over young voters by meeting them where they are?Dunking on TrumpHardly any Biden-Harris HQ TikToks show Biden awkwardly interacting with pop culture – not after what happened with his Super Bowl post. Instead, the account has hit its stride focusing on policy issues and dunking on conservatives.More than half of Biden’s TikTok content reminds viewers of Trump’s worst gaffes, such as the times Trump suggested that Americans inject bleach to ward off the coronavirus, or when he stared directly at the 2017 eclipse. The fight to protect abortion rights also features prominently. One post pulls a quote from a recent press conference, during which the former president bragged about ending Roe v Wade. Another reminds viewers that a Trump-endorsed candidate for Michigan state senate seat, Jacky Eubanks, called for banning birth control and gay marriage.“It’s very clear to me that Biden’s primary goals on TikTok are in line with his digital goals overall: to highlight and remind folks how dangerous Trump is, and to highlight the accomplishments that Biden has made that no one knows about,” said Josh Klemons, a Democratic digital strategist.View image in fullscreenNoting that many of TikTok’s younger users “didn’t live through Trump’s first presidency as an adult”, Klemons stressed that it was important Biden use his TikTok to zero in on the former president’s catastrophic track record. TikTok is a largely progressive platform, where anti-Trump content does well, and anti-Trump posts are among Biden’s most-watched TikToks. (They’re also an invitation to trolls: top comments on the bleach post, including “Biden sucks” and “Ban Joe Biden”, are all from pro-Trump accounts.)Many Biden TikToks have hundreds of thousands of views, with videos going moderately viral by TikTok standards. That’s not bad reach, but it could be better.A genuinely moving Biden TikTok, seemingly pulled from a campaign ad, shows a man named Bob approaching the president in a restaurant and shaking his hand in thanks for lowering the cost of insulin. It showcases Biden’s well-honed ability to connect one-on-one with voters … but it has only 224k views. Compare that with someone like Jackson, whose most recent TikTok on the war in Ukraine earned more than 1m views.One of Biden-Harris HQ’s highest-performing videos of late pulls a clip from an interview the president did with Howard Stern, in which he described Trump’s response to the January 6 riot. “When they were storming the Capitol … he was sitting in that dining area off the Oval Office for three hours… He said nothing … It was almost criminal.” The clip has 233,000 views – not a flop, but not a rousing success either.In another TikTok, the Biden campaign reposted a video of Steve Bannon talking about Project 2025, an extensive collection of proposals intended to reshape the federal government in support of a Republican agenda if Trump wins the election. Bannon says a second Trump administration would put his opponents in prison “on the evening after we’ve won”. The Biden campaign captioned the clip: “Project 2025 deserves more attention.”It’s a good caption – and Project 2025 does get attention on TikTok, usually in posts that do better than Biden’s. A recent TikTok from the voting advocacy group NowThis Impact, which has 3.3 million followers, also shared information about Project 2025. That video got more than 3.6m views. Biden’s received 43,000, while another Project 2025-themed TikTok from Biden, featuring Lara Trump, received just under half a million viewers.Bringing in backupThough Biden appears in some of his account’s TikToks – usually dragging Trump – the account isn’t all about him. (Perhaps a lesson learned from Hillary Clinton, who used social media during the 2016 race as if she were typing the tweets herself.) Instead, it often taps surrogates to help make Biden’s case. In one TikTok, Sanders speaks about supporting Biden despite not agreeing with him on every issue – a line the campaign no doubt hopes will land with gen Z voters who are against the war in Gaza. AOC touts Biden’s recent record on the climate crisis, and members of the Kennedy family filmed a video saying they support Biden, a swipe against the third-party candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr.View image in fullscreenBiden also posted a clip of Frost, the token gen Z politician, reminding his peers in Congress that Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene had spoken at an event held by white supremacists in 2022. “Someone like Maxwell Frost is going to hit differently [to that audience],” Klemons said. He also pulls in young viewers who might not realize they’re watching what is effectively a Biden campaign ad.Other Biden TikToks smartly mimic influencer content, with what appear to be younger campaign staffers speaking directly to camera about a abortion, immigration or, again, Trump gaffes. “You’ll never believe what Trump is doing in the courtroom,” one such host says in an intro that cuts to a screenshot of a New York Times report on the former president “struggling to stay awake” during his New York trial.“I like how they use younger people from their campaign to be some of the messengers,” said Ashley Aylward, a research manager at the gen Z-focused, DC-based consulting group Hit Strategies. “I think they should lean into that more, and just kind of let [the young people] take it all over. They could make ‘a day in the life working for the Biden campaign’, or a video that humanizes these people and shows that voting for this administration isn’t just voting for Biden, but it’s a group of diverse voices.”Aylward also recommended the account post fewer videos of Biden stumping – recent TikToks that feature Biden himself were filmed during campaign appearances.“If someone isn’t interested in politics, that’s not going to end up on their For You page, and if it does, they’ll scroll by it as soon as they see a podium,” she said. “But if they see a younger person doing a day in the life, or talking through a current event, it’s a smart way to reel people in without them even knowing they’re watching a campaign video.”And though it’s not quite a proxy, Biden’s TikTok has leaned into his so-called Dark Brandon persona, a laser-eyed character that riffs upon a pro-Trump meme. When Biden makes a joke at Trump’s expense during a speech, that’s supposedly Dark Brandon “popping off” or “dragging Trump”, as recent TikToks put it.“I actually do love the humor and using Dark Brandon to show that he can make jokes about himself,” Aylward said. “The account uses young people language in the TikTok caption, like ‘Biden cooks Trump,’ but they aren’t having Biden use the language himself. They’re showing this all from a young person’s point of view, engaging in the language they use.”Whether the effect is cringey or not, it seems, depends on one’s taste.Silence on Gaza and a possible TikTok banBiden’s TikTok account has faced more serious criticisms than cringey-ness. One of young people’s biggest concerns is the mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza. In the comment section of his videos, users frequently ask Biden to engage with the topic or to order a ceasefire, but the account has remained silent on the issue.“Biden’s TikTok is clearly a one-way form of communication,” said Yini Zhang, an assistant professor at the University at Buffalo who studies social media and politics. “They’re sticking to some clearly thought-out talking points. They have issues they want to avoid, like Gaza, and the TikTok page is not as interactive as we often think it might be.”Another issue is the irony of Biden’s team putting resources toward TikTok when just last week, Biden signed a measure that could see the app banned in the US. (TikTok remains blocked on most government devices, per a 2022 law.)“It’s a funny position for him to be in,” Klemons said. “I can’t think of a situation that’s similar, where somebody is actively using a platform that they’re actively trying to get rid of. But they need to be where the people are.”It would take at least nine months for the app to disappear if it does at all, so Biden can milk the platform for the entire election cycle. Trump, who does not have a TikTok account, is currently opposed to a TikTok ban. (He’s posting furiously on Truth Social, where, funnily enough, Biden-Harris HQ also runs an account.) In fact, many politicians don’t even touch TikTok due to security concerns.TikTok’s allure has always been its supposed authenticity, with the most popular personas on the app appearing real, raw, unfiltered – even if many of their videos are highly scripted. “They want to project this persona of being authentic in a way that maximizes their appeal, but they also have to be careful in what they say,” Zhang said.Biden is no different. His TikTok follows the trends of the platform. His memes aren’t groundbreaking, but they’re not totally embarrassing either. His stats are middling, and he avoids engaging directly with young people on tough issues. Viewers are constantly reminded of his greatest hits, a persona he’s cultivated through decades in the public eye, but ultimately, the account is just another campaign mouthpiece. A TikTok alone will not clinch an election. More

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      in Elections

      Meet the Men Who Eat Meat

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      With the help of Joe Rogan, a social media trend with staying power emerged from a 2018 book, “The Carnivore Diet.”“Girl dinner” this is not.In a social media trend that won’t stop, ravenous meat eaters, mostly men, show themselves chomping on rib-eye steaks, bacon and innards.In a recent online video, a popular TikTok user who posts as @carnivoreray unveiled a new snack recipe. After sliding sheet pans packed with fatty bacon strips into the oven, he melted two sticks of butter from grass-fed cows. Once the bacon was crisp, he poured the melted butter into the sheet pans. Then he popped the concoction into the freezer.The next morning, the influencer bit into the frozen treat while filming himself for his roughly 170,000 TikTok followers. “This tastes like candy,” he said. (The person behind the account did not reply to requests for comment.)The video belongs to an enduring social media genre quarterbacked largely by muscular fellows who claim that a meat-heavy diet is the key to mental and physical well-being.A stricter version of high-fat, low-carb regimens like the Atkins diet and keto, the carnivore diet consists of meat, seafood and eggs — period. While some add dairy and a little fruit to the mix, the strictest proponents adhere to what they call B.B.B.E — that is, beef, bacon, butter and eggs.TikTok and Instagram are awash in videos of these men (and some women) feasting on a petting zoo’s worth of meat products. Some boast about having not consumed a vegetable in months. They also claim health benefits including drastic weight loss and sharpened mental acuity. Some of the so-called “meatfluencers” forgo not only carbs but also dishware, eating straight from the cutting board.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      TikTok Star Is Killed in Third Death of Social Media Influencer in Iraq

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      The shooting of Ghufran Mahdi Sawadi, known online as Um Fahad, comes amid tightening laws and increasingly conservative attitudes in the country.It took less than 46 seconds for the helmeted assassin to pull over his motorcycle, walk to the driver’s side of the S.U.V., yank open the door and fire his handgun four times, killing one of Iraq’s most prominent TikTok personalities, a 30-year-old woman whose name on social media was Um Fahad.The security camera footage of the killing in front of a Baghdad home on Friday evening is startlingly explicit but sheds little light on either the killer’s identity or the reason Um Fahad was targeted. The Iraqi Interior Ministry, which released the video, said it had formed a committee to investigate her death.The victim, whose real name was Ghufran Mahdi Sawadi, had become popular on social media sites, especially TikTok and Instagram, where her videos showed her wearing tight or revealing clothing, or singing and cuddling her young son. They won her some 460,000 followers, but also drew the ire of conservatives in Iraqi society and in the government.At one point, officials ordered Ms. Sawadi jailed for 90 days, reprimanding her for a post that showed her dancing at her 6-year old son’s birthday party.At her sparsely attended funeral, her brother, Ameer Mehdi Sawadi, said he had little faith that her killer would be caught.“I can name many innocents who have been killed,” Mr. Sawadi said. “Have you heard anything about their case? Did they find the killer? No.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Elections

      A Dispatch From Inside Columbia’s Student-Led Protest for Gaza

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      On Wednesday morning, on a corner across the street from Columbia University, a man dressed in black, a huge gold cross around his neck, brandished a sign that featured a bloodstained Israeli flag and the word “genocide” in capital letters. He was also shouting at the top of his lungs.“The Jews control the world! Jews are murderers!”I watched as a pro-Palestine protester approached the man. “That is horribly antisemitic,” she said. “You are hurting the movement and you are not a part of us. Go away.”The man shouted vile, unprintable epithets back at her, but the woman, who told me she had come to New York from her home in Baltimore to support the protesting students, walked away.Hours later, a well-known congressional reporter covering House Speaker Mike Johnson’s visit to Columbia’s campus posted a photograph of the same man. “One sign here at the Columbia protest,” the reporter, Jake Sherman, wrote. “This man is ranting about Jews controlling the universe.”The man wasn’t “at the Columbia protest.” The university’s campus has been closed to outsiders for over a week — even as a journalist and an alumnus, I had trouble getting in. He was, several people on social media told Sherman, a well-known antisemitic crank completely unconnected from what was unfolding on campus. Indeed, last week I had seen a man wearing an identical cross carrying a similarly lettered sign that read, “Google it! Jews vs. TikTok” protesting outside Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Lower Manhattan. He was, for the record, standing on the pro-Trump side of the protest area.But the incident is emblematic of how difficult it has become to make sense of what is actually happening on college campuses right now. As the protests have spread to dozens of campuses and counting, competing viral clips on social media paint vastly different versions of what’s happening inside these pro-Palestine camps. Are they violent conflict zones, filled with militant protesters who hurl antisemitic abuse and threaten Jewish students, requiring, as some political leaders have suggested, deployment of the National Guard? Or is it a giant love-fest of students braiding daisy chains and singing “Kumbaya”?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Elections

      Congress Passed a Bill That Could Ban TikTok. Now Comes the Hard Part.

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      After President Biden signs the bill to force a sale of the video app or ban it, the legislation will face court challenges, a shortage of qualified buyers and Beijing’s hostility.A bill that would force a sale of TikTok by its Chinese owner, ByteDance — or ban it outright — was passed by the Senate on Tuesday and is expected to be signed quickly into law by President Biden.Now the process is likely to get even more complicated.Congress passed the measure citing national security concerns because of TikTok’s Chinese ties. Both lawmakers and security experts have said there are risks that the Chinese government could lean on ByteDance for access to sensitive data belonging to its 170 million U.S. users or to spread propaganda.The proposed law would allow TikTok to continue to operate in the United States if ByteDance sold it within 270 days, or about nine months, a time frame that the president could extend to a year.The measure is likely to face legal challenges, as well as possible resistance from Beijing, which could block the sale or export of the technology. It’s also unclear who has the resources to buy TikTok, since it will carry a hefty price tag.The issue could take months or even years to settle, during which the app would probably continue to function for U.S. consumers.“It’s going to be a royal mess,” said Anupam Chander, a visiting scholar at the Institute for Rebooting Social Media at Harvard and an expert on the global regulation of new technologies.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Elections

      Taylor Swift Has Given Fans a Lot. Is It Finally Too Much?

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      Swift has been inescapable over the last year. With the release of “The Tortured Poets Department,” her latest (very long) album, some seem to finally be feeling fatigued.Four new studio albums. Four rerecorded albums, too. A $1 billion oxygen-sucking world tour with a concert movie to match. And, of course, one very high-profile relationship that spilled over into the Super Bowl.For some, the constant deluge that has peaked in the past year is starting to add up to a new (and previously unthinkable) feeling: Taylor Swift fatigue.And it is a feeling that has only solidified online in the days following the release of “The Tortured Poets Society,” which morphed from a 16-song album into a 31-song, two-hour epic just hours after its release.Many critics (including The New York Times’s own) have suggested that the album was overstuffed — simply not her best. And critiques of the music have now opened a sliver of space for a wider round of complaint unlike any Swift has faced over her prolific and world-conquering recent run.“It’s almost like if you produce too much… too fast… in a brazen attempt to completely saturate and dominate a market rather than having something important or even halfway interesting to say… the art suffers!” Chris Murphy, a staff writer at Vanity Fair, posted on X.Which is not to say nobody listened to the album; far from it. Spotify said “Poets,” which was released on Friday, became the most-streamed album in a single day with more than 300 million streams.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More