TikTokTrends Week: 27

February 1st - February 8th

Hi!

Welcome to week 27 of TikTokTrends!

This week I will be talking about #AOC and #WeWontLookDown.

Before we begin, some personal news! I have recently joined ABC News as a Visual Verification Producer! I'm very excited to start verifying and fact-checking online content for the ABC News team!

Let's begin!

#AOC

This week, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez was accused of being a liar by the right for exaggerating and lying about what she went through during the Capitol attack last month. Cortez shared her experience live on Instagram on February 1st. In the hour-long video, Cortez talks about the Capitol attack and a past sexual assault that she made public for the first time.

In the video, Cortez describes where she was and what she was doing on January 6th, and how she felt as the rioters were entering the Capitol building.

The video above was posted by a right-wing content creator named Vince Dao. In the video, he shows the ongoing feud between right-wing trolls and Cortez on Twitter. Showing one of the more popular tweets from Jack Posobeic, a republican Twitter user who supposedly fact-checked Cortez's story.

In her video, Cortez clearly states that she was in her office, browsing through lunch options, right after taking the Covid-19 vaccine. She talks through her mental mindset, goes into her past sexual assault experience, and how she was feeling in the days coming up to January 6th.

Cortez then details what happened in her office, explaining that she heard an unannounced person loudly banging on her door, as her chief of staff told Cortez to hide. Dao asks, "How can she be fearing for her life if she is in a separate building?" Questioning Cortez and saying that she was exaggerating her experience.

Many people agreed on Twitter, #AOClied, was trending, and she was also compared to Jessie Smollett, with the hashtag AlexandriaOcasioSmollet. Right-wing social media users widely shared this picture of a map with arrows pointing at the Capitol building and AOC's whereabouts in an attempt to fact-check her.

Cortez posted a tweet as a response to this image, saying that the whole area is called the Capitol Complex, not just the Dome and that there were bomb threats in surrounding buildings her office was located in. Cortez rebutted the spreading misinformation by sending an email out to her followers with steps on how to stop the spread. On TikTok and other social media platforms, this move was seen as a meltdown, rather than an act of stopping misinformation.

In the video, Cortez never says she was in the Capitol Dome, the main building that was attacked; AOC never says she had an interaction with a rioter, nor does she imply it. Additionally, although Cortez was not in the Dome, she was in a building that was evacuated due to a bomb threat. Her mental state should not be debated. She rightfully could have been was scared, traumatized, and fearing for her life, not knowing who was banging on her door, due to rioters roaming freely the Capitol Dome, less than a mile away from her office.

#WeWontLookDown

Things are getting heated in Turkey; as a Turkish citizen and as a journalist with an outlet, I think it is my duty to explain what is happening in a country that I call home. The hashtag WeWontLookDown, (translated from the Turkish, #AşağıyaBakmayacağız) is one of the many hashtags where users are showing their support to the Bogazici University students and faculty that are currently protesting the Erdogan-appointed rector to their university.

On January 4th, Melih Bulu was appointed as the Bogazici University rector. A university that is well known for its liberal values. The appointed rector has a history with the ruling political party (AKP); he was a district president for AKP in 2002.

What began in early January as teachers and students calmly and rightfully protesting the appointee quickly was escalated by the Police and Erdogan himself, calling the students terrorists and assaulting their rights to protests by detaining, humiliating, and attacking them.

The hashtag started after a video of Police allegedly forcing arrested protestors to look down went viral. The now infamous image of this protestor looking up, directly into the camera, surrounded by a dozen police, is one of the iconic moments caught on camera.

The protests quickly grew around the country and in many parts of the world. Erdogan, clearly scared of a second rendition of the Gezi Protests, doubled down his attacks, targeting the LGBTQ+ community, Bogazici University academics, Ayse Bugra, opposition parties, and many others for organizing and starting these protests.

In 2016, after the coup attempt, Erdogan took emergency action allowing the president's office to appoint rectors to universities, which used to be done by internal elections within each university. After the 2017 referendum, Erdogan took full control, changing Turkey's governing system from a parliamentary system to a presidential system, to quickly adapt and change anything he deemed necessary.

Demonstrations started with faculty and students, standing with their backs turned at the rectorate building, in gowns. After the protests began to grow, police enforcements began attacking and detaining peaceful protestors.

The video above is a response to Erdogan's comments on the LGBTQ+ community. The video is in Turkish; here is what Erdogan says: "LGBT, there is no such thing! This country is a national country!" He continues to say, "This country is spiritual, and with these values, it is walking towards the future." Claiming that the LGBT community goes against the country's values.

Videos like the one above went viral on TikTok. Content creators used Erdogan's sound about the LGBT community to then vanish from the frame. Hundreds of videos can be found of content creators doing this trend on TikTok, Instagram, and other social media platforms.

Since then, LGBTQ+ organizations have published an announcement on Twitter condemning the hate speech coming from the government and called for solidarity. In a political climate as dangerous as the current one in Turkey, this announcement is a bold move towards the right way. Just last week, many on the expanding platform Clubhouse were arrested for their involvement in group conversations about the protests. And yesterday, a college student was arrested for creating a Whatsapp group about the protests.

Erdogan continued his speech by calling the protesting students terrorists and accusing the opposition, others of organizing the protests. A Bogazici University student took it upon himself and answered all of Erdogan's questions in this Viral video. The video is also in Turkish; The student can be seen answering some of Erdogan's questions. When Erdogan says, "Are you actually students?" The student shows his school ID. When Erdogan accuses the protests of being terrorists, he shows a video of peaceful protestors. The video quickly went viral on social media platforms in Turkey.

I don't think the protests will die down anytime soon, but they will be disregarded by the Erdogan controlled Turkish media outlets, and Erdogan will continue to attack and de-legitimize the efforts of the protestors. Turkey is going through one of the hardest times in its history. The global economic crisis has hit Turkey very hard; the spread of the Coronavirus has yet to slow down, and now an uprising that started with the injustice at Bogazici University and has now spread to protesting the government, Erdogan, and the current, far-right regime in Turkey.

#DirenBogazici(#ResistBogazici)

#MelihBuluIstifa(#MelihBuluReisgn)

In Other News

TikTok is working on stopping the spread of misinformation. With the new update, TikTok will now prompt users before sharing content deemed misinformation by fact-checkers or has yet to be fact-checked. The platform hopes that reminding users that the video they are trying to share contains content that couldn't be verified will slow down the spread of wrongful information. Additionally, TikTok has partnered with Logically, a technology company with a large dedicated fact-checking team, to help determine the content's validity on the platform.

Twitter has a new way to fight misinformation! A new program created by Twitter called Birdwatch is bringing a community-oriented approach to fact-checking. They are planning to use user-generated tickets to help identify and fact-check misinformation on Twitter. Users will be able to add notes and provide context to the misinformation. Also, the data will be publicly available to everyone. Birdwatch is currently in the prototype phase and is asking people to apply to join the community.

---

That is all I have for this week! Let me know what you think by hitting reply to this email or sending me a DM through Twitter!

Thank you for reading; I hope to see you next week!