The Edition: TikTok intifada

Best of the Spectator

The Spectator

News Commentary, News, Daily News, Society & Culture

4.4 • 785 Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2021

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this week’s podcast, we talk to James Ball, author of this week’s cover story on the ‘TikTok Intifada’ about the themes he uncovers in his analysis of the impact of social media on the conflict in the Middle East. The conversation with James continues with our next guest, Professor Gabriel Weinmann of Haifa University in Israel, the author of an in-depth report on the rise of incendiary, unregulated material on TikTok. As Arab and Israeli youngsters create and consume violent footage on the app, is it time that it was reined in - or is it a lost cause?

'This is a platform that targets young audiences. I would say we have a very young, gullible and naïve, unsuspecting type of audience' - Dr Gabriel Weinmann

Next up, The Spectator’s deputy editor Freddy Gray meets the Financial Times’s Jemima Kelly, to debate the recent lulls and highs of those mercurial currencies, Dogecoin and Bitcoin. Has the cult of Elon Musk, a new clampdown by China and the erratic unpredictability of a boom built largely on hype, memes and hot air, finally put the kibosh on cryptocash?

'If we talk about bitcoin, there’s really not a difference between bitcoin and dogecoin apart from that fact that one says it’s a joke and one says it's really serious!' Jemima Kelly

And finally - the annual Turner art prize rarely fails to spark a bit of controversy and this year’s nominations have reliably provided. There’s been plenty in the way of debate, but not especially in terms of tangible art. The 2021 shortlist comprises five ‘collectives’, most of whom some of whom have barely touched a paintbrush in their lives, has been announced - and in this week’s magazine, art critic Oliver Basciano argues that the politicisation of the Turner is in danger of sidelining values of aesthetics and free expression. He’s joined by critic and author Hettie Judah, to mull over what, how, and why the radical line-up of nominees have been selected and what this means to the British art world.

‘It’s an atypical year - you talk about people going and making weird and exciting stuff in their bedrooms or studios but we’ve not been able to see much of it this year. So, I mean, are we going to have an exhibition of the most-liked works on Instagram?' - Hettie Judah

Presented by Cindy Yu

Produced by Arsalan Mohammad

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The Spectator magazine combines incisive political analysis with books and arts reviews of unrivaled authority.
0:07.6	Subscribe today for just £12 and receive a 12 week subscription in print and online, plus a £20 £20,000, Amazon gift voucher, absolutely free.
0:17.3	Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash voucher.
0:24.5	Hello and welcome to the edition podcast from The Spectator. I'm Cindy Yu.
0:29.7	Every week we take a look at some of the stories from the new issue and invite their writers and guest experts to join us in explaining and debating them. This week, are we witnessing
0:39.7	the unfolding of the TikTok Intifada? Why are cryptocurrencies in thrill to online humour? And has the
0:47.0	venerable Turner Prize for Art been turned into a platform for politically correct activists?
0:55.7	First up this week, the violence in the Middle East has been fanned on the ground by the widespread use of platforms such as WhatsApp and TikTok.
1:03.7	Videos of atrocities and violence are everywhere, spreading propaganda and misinformation on both sides.
1:10.3	In this week's cover story, the journalist James Ball asks how and why this is happening.
1:15.1	James, you write about this TikTokisation of global politics.
1:18.9	Just paint a picture for us. What's happening?
1:21.3	So it's starting to look at how this kind of most youthful, most energetic, most grabby of the social networks
1:30.2	is starting to sort of move beyond the kind of areas where it would kind of be mocked as
1:36.0	teens dancing or, you know, makeup tutorials. Not that there's anything wrong with either of
1:41.9	those things. But actually, it's starting to clearly touch on the most serious of issues.
1:51.1	And we can obviously see that in TikTok's kind of response to the escalation of conflict in Israel-Palestine,
1:59.7	which is now run for more than 10 days,
2:03.2	it's worst in a decade. And lots of people who aren't intrinsically political are encountering
2:10.1	really visceral videos and explanations of the conflict from TikTok. Now, it's that kind of passive news thing that can be the most
2:20.4	interesting, but the most sort of potentially inflammatory. People who actively seek out a
2:27.1	newspaper article or something like that are often going to have quite a lot of the context in the
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Spectator, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Spectator and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.