Parents rightfully wonder whether TikTok trends that harm American teenagers are boosted intentionally by Beijing. Lawmakers, however, should consider whether Beijing is boosting TikTok trends that are harmful to America’s political interests as well. Consider the odd case of the Willow Project.
On Feb. 20, the Alaska House passed a resolution asking for President Joe Biden’s final approval of the Willow Project, a bipartisan-supported Alaskan oil-drilling venture the president has since greenlit. Within a few days of the Alaska House approval, several op-eds from environmentalists began cropping up, urging Biden to reject the oil venture. However, with both Republican and Democrat Alaskan politicians supporting the Willow Project, there was largely limited pushback from the left-wing corporate media.
Indeed, much Willow Project outrage came from TikTok. The anti-Willow Project movement against Biden was so big on TikTok that NPR ran the headline, “Can TikTokkers sway Biden on oil drilling?” According to NPR, the Willow Project had become a “galvanizing issue for Gen Zers passionate about climate change.” There’s just one problem: Many of the mega-viral videos, and certainly the earliest ones, don’t appear to have been posted by climate-conscious Gen Zers at all.
I made a spreadsheet of 64 TikTok accounts with viral videos opposing the Willow Project. As of last Friday, each of the accounts, with videos garnering anywhere from 65,000-7.6 million views, had posted exclusively anti-Willow Project content and began first posting on Feb. 28 at the earliest. None of the videos include people’s faces. All of them use
