TikTok

How Disinformation Splintered and Became More Intractable

On the morning of July 8, former President Donald J. Trump took to Truth Social, a social media platform he founded with people close to him, to claim that he had in fact won the 2020 presidential vote in Wisconsin, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Barely 8,000 people shared that missive on Truth Social, a far cry from the hundreds of thousands of responses his posts on Facebook and Twitter had regularly generated before those services suspended his megaphones after the deadly riot on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021.

And yet Mr. Trump’s baseless claim pulsed through the public consciousness anyway. It jumped from his app to other social media platforms — not to mention podcasts, talk radio or television.

Within 48 hours of Mr. Trump’s post, more than one million people saw his claim on at least dozen other media. It appeared on Facebook and Twitter, from which he has been banished, but also YouTube, Gab, Parler and Telegram, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

gone mainstream among Republican Party members, driving state and county officials to impose new restrictions on casting ballots, often based on mere conspiracy theories percolating in right-wing media.

Voters must now sift through not only an ever-growing torrent of lies and falsehoods about candidates and their policies, but also information on when and where to vote. Officials appointed or elected in the name of fighting voter fraud have put themselves in the position to refuse to certify outcomes that are not to their liking.

a primary battleground in today’s fight against disinformation. A report last month by NewsGuard, an organization that tracks the problem online, showed that nearly 20 percent of videos presented as search results on TikTok contained false or misleading information on topics such as school shootings and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

continued to amplify “election denialism” in ways that undermined trust in the democratic system.

Another challenge is the proliferation of alternative platforms for those falsehoods and even more extreme views.

new survey by the Pew Research Center found that 15 percent of prominent accounts on those seven platforms had previously been banished from others like Twitter and Facebook.

F.B.I. raid on Mar-a-Lago thrust his latest pronouncements into the eye of the political storm once again.

study of Truth Social by Media Matters for America, a left-leaning media monitoring group, examined how the platform had become a home for some of the most fringe conspiracy theories. Mr. Trump, who began posting on the platform in April, has increasingly amplified content from QAnon, the online conspiracy theory.

He has shared posts from QAnon accounts more than 130 times. QAnon believers promote a vast and complex conspiracy that centers on Mr. Trump as a leader battling a cabal of Democratic Party pedophiles. Echoes of such views reverberated through Republican election campaigns across the country during this year’s primaries.

Ms. Jankowicz, the disinformation expert, said the nation’s social and political divisions had churned the waves of disinformation.

The controversies over how best to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic deepened distrust of government and medical experts, especially among conservatives. Mr. Trump’s refusal to accept the outcome of the 2020 election led to, but did not end with, the Capitol Hill violence.

“They should have brought us together,” Ms. Jankowicz said, referring to the pandemic and the riots. “I thought perhaps they could be kind of this convening power, but they were not.”

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For Gen Z, TikTok Is the New Search Engine

When Ja’Kobi Moore decided to apply this year to a private high school in her hometown of New Orleans, she learned that she needed at least one letter of recommendation from a teacher. She had never asked for one, so she sought help.

“Teacher letter of recommendation,” she typed into TikTok’s search bar.

Ms. Moore, 15, scrolled TikTok’s app until she found two videos: one explaining how to ask teachers for a recommendation letter and the other showing a template for one. Both had been made by teachers and were easier to understand than a Google search result or YouTube video, said Ms. Moore, who is planning to talk to her teachers this month.

dance videos and pop music. But for Generation Z, the video app is increasingly a search engine, too.

TikTok’s powerful algorithm — which personalizes the videos shown to them based on their interactions with content — to find information uncannily catered to their tastes. That tailoring is coupled with a sense that real people on the app are synthesizing and delivering information, rather than faceless websites.

On TikTok, “you see how the person actually felt about where they ate,” said Nailah Roberts, 25, who uses the app to look for restaurants in Los Angeles, where she lives. A long-winded written review of a restaurant can’t capture its ambience, food and drinks like a bite-size clip can, she said.

TikTok’s rise as a discovery tool is part of a broader transformation in digital search. While Google remains the world’s dominant search engine, people are turning to Amazon to search for products, Instagram to stay updated on trends and Snapchat’s Snap Maps to find local businesses. As the digital world continues growing, the universe of ways to find information in it is expanding.

said at a technology conference in July.

Google has incorporated images and videos into its search engine in recent years. Since 2019, some of its search results have featured TikTok videos. In 2020, Google released YouTube Shorts, which shares vertical videos less than a minute long, and started including its content in search results.

TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese internet company ByteDance, declined to comment on its search function and products that may be in testing. It said it was “always thinking about new ways to add value to the community and enrich the TikTok experience.”

Doing a search on TikTok is often more interactive than typing in a query on Google. Instead of just slogging through walls of text, Gen Z-ers crowdsource recommendations from TikTok videos to pinpoint what they are looking for, watching video after video to cull the content. Then they verify the veracity of a suggestion based on comments posted in response to the videos.

This mode of searching is rooted in how young people are using TikTok not only to look for products and businesses, but also to ask questions about how to do things and find explanations for what things mean. With videos often less than 60 seconds long, TikTok returns what feels like more relevant answers, many said.

Alexandria Kinsey, 24, a communications and social media coordinator in Arlington, Va., uses TikTok for many search queries: recipes to cook, films to watch and nearby happy hours to try. She also turns to it for less typical questions, like looking up interviews with the actor Andrew Garfield and weird conspiracy theories.

elections, the war in Ukraine and abortion.

TikTok’s algorithm tends to keep people on the app, making it harder for them to turn to additional sources to fact-check searches, Ms. Tripodi added.

“You aren’t really clicking to anything that would lead you out of the app,” she said. “That makes it even more challenging to double-check the information you’re getting is correct.”

TikTok has leaned into becoming a venue for finding information. The app is testing a feature that identifies keywords in comments and links to search results for them. In Southeast Asia, it is also testing a feed with local content, so people can find businesses and events near them.

Building out search and location features is likely to further entrench TikTok — already the world’s most downloaded app for those ages 18 to 24, according to Sensor Tower — among young users.

TikTok “is becoming a one-stop shop for content in a way that it wasn’t in its earlier days,” said Lee Rainie, who directs internet and technology research at the Pew Research Center.

That’s certainly true for Jayla Johnson, 22. The Newtown, Pa., resident estimated that she watches 10 hours of TikTok videos a day and said she had begun using the app as a search engine because it was more convenient than Google and Instagram.

“They know what I want to see,” she said. “It’s less work for me to actually go out of my way to search.”

Ms. Johnson, a digital marketer, added that she particularly appreciated TikTok when she and her parents were searching for places to visit and things to do. Her parents often wade through pages of Google search results, she said, while she needs to scroll through only a few short videos.

“God bless,” she said she thinks. “You could have gotten that in seconds.”

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TikTok’s CEO Navigates the Limits of His Power

TikTok recently tried to tamp down concerns from U.S. lawmakers that it poses a national security threat because it is owned by the Chinese internet company ByteDance. The viral video app insisted it had an arm’s-length relationship with ByteDance and that its own executive was in charge.

“TikTok is led by its own global C.E.O., Shou Zi Chew, a Singaporean based in Singapore,” TikTok wrote in a June letter to U.S. lawmakers.

But in fact, Mr. Chew’s decision-making power over TikTok is limited, according to 12 former TikTok and ByteDance employees and executives.

Zhang Yiming, ByteDance’s founder, as well as by a top ByteDance strategy executive and the head of TikTok’s research and development team, said the people, who declined to be identified for fear of reprisals. TikTok’s growth and strategy, which are led by ByteDance teams, report not to Mr. Chew but to ByteDance’s office in Beijing, they said.

increasingly questioned TikTok’s data practices, reigniting a debate over how the United States should treat business relationships with foreign companies.

On Wednesday, TikTok’s chief operating officer testified in Congress and downplayed the app’s China connections. On Thursday, President Biden signed an executive order to sharpen the federal government’s powers to block Chinese investment in tech in the United States and to limit its access to private data on citizens.

a March interview with the billionaire investor David Rubenstein, whose firm, the Carlyle Group, has a stake in the Chinese giant. Mr. Chew added that he had become familiar with TikTok as a “creator” and amassed “185,000 followers.” (He appeared to be referring to a corporate account that posted videos of him while he was an executive at Xiaomi, one of China’s largest phone manufacturers.)

Jinri Toutiao. The two built a rapport, and an investment vehicle associated with Mr. Milner led a $10 million financing in Mr. Zhang’s company that same year, three people with knowledge of the deal said.

The news aggregator eventually became ByteDance — now valued at around $360 billion, according to PitchBook — and owns TikTok; its Chinese sister app, Douyin; and various education and enterprise software ventures.

By 2015, Mr. Chew had joined Xiaomi as chief financial officer. He spearheaded the device maker’s 2018 initial public offering, led its international efforts and became an English-speaking face for the brand.

“Shou grew up with both American and Chinese language and culture surrounding him,” said Hugo Barra, a former Google executive who worked with Mr. Chew at Xiaomi. “He is objectively better positioned than anyone I’ve ever met in the China business world to be this incredible dual-edged executive in a Chinese company that wants to become a global powerhouse.”

In March 2021, Mr. Chew announced that he was joining ByteDance as chief financial officer, fueling speculation that the company would go public. (It remains privately held.)

appointed Mr. Chew as chief executive, with Mr. Zhang praising his “deep knowledge of the company and industry.” Late last year, Mr. Chew stepped down from his ByteDance role to focus on TikTok.

Kevin Mayer, a former Disney executive, left after the Trump administration’s effort to sunder the app from its Chinese parent. China was also cracking down on its domestic internet giants, with Mr. Zhang resigning from his official roles at ByteDance last year. Mr. Zhang remains involved in decision making, people with knowledge of ByteDance said.

Mr. Chew moved to establish himself as TikTok’s new head during visits to the app’s Los Angeles office in mid-2021. At a dinner with TikTok executives, he sought to build camaraderie by keeping a Culver City, Calif., restaurant open past closing time, three people with knowledge of the event said. He asked attendees if he should buy the establishment to keep it open longer, they said.

a TikTok NFT project involving the musical artists Lil Nas X and Bella Poarch. He reprimanded TikTok’s global head of marketing on a video call with Beijing-based leaders for ByteDance after some celebrities dropped out of the project, four people familiar with the meeting said. It showed that Mr. Chew answered to higher powers, they said.

Mr. Chew also ended a half-developed TikTok store off Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, three people familiar with the initiative said. TikTok briefly explored obtaining the naming rights of the Los Angeles stadium formerly known as the Staples Center, they said.

He has also overseen layoffs of American managers, two people familiar with the decisions said, while building up teams related to trust and safety. In its U.S. marketing, the app has shifted its emphasis from a brand that starts trends and conversations toward its utility as a place where people can go to learn.

In May, Mr. Chew flew to Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum, speaking with European regulators and ministers from Saudi Arabia to discuss digital strategy.

June letter to U.S. lawmakers, he noted that ByteDance employees in China could gain access to the data of Americans when “subject to a series of robust cybersecurity controls.” But he said TikTok was in the process of separating and securing its U.S. user data under an initiative known as Project Texas, which has the app working with the American software giant Oracle.

“We know we’re among the most scrutinized platforms,” Mr. Chew wrote.

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TikTok, Other Social Companies Address Data Privacy Before Congress

TikTok’s chief operating officer and other social media executives commented on national security concerns in a Wednesday Congressional hearing.

Executives from Twitter, Meta, TikTok and YouTube met with Congress on Wednesday to address concerns that content on their platforms could be harmful to homeland security. Specifically, senators wanted to know what the companies are doing to mitigate extremism and foreign influence campaigns. Much of the conversation landed on TikTok.

Democratic Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan asked why it took so long for these platforms to take QAnon seriously. The movement spread widely with the help of social media. He noted that it took these companies years to ban QAnon content and referenced a Public Religion Research Institute report that found 16% of the American population think the conspiracy is real.

“We’re fundamentally an advertising platform,” said Neal Mohan, YouTube chief product officer. “I have firsthand experience myself over the years when they feel that sort of content is on our platform, that they walk away. And so we have not just a moral imperative — that’s my top priority, living up to our responsibility — but it aligns with our business goals.”

A large chunk of the conversation was focused on whether a direct relationship exists between TikTok’s parent company, based out of China, and the Chinese government. There are concerns that the government may ask the company to turn over data on U.S. users. Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio repeatedly pressed TikTok’s chief operating officer on whether the company would cut off data access to the country and Chinese TikTok employees.

“What I can commit to is that our final agreement with the U.S. government will satisfy all national security concerns,” said Vanessa Pappas, TikTok Chief Operating Officer. “We are working with the U.S. government on a resolve through the CFIUS process in which we will continue to minimize that data.”

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley also inquired about the relationship between TikTok and the Chinese government.

“Would it surprise you to learn that Forbes magazine recently reported that at least 300 current TikTok or ByteDance employees were members of Chinese state media and affiliated with the Chinese communist party?” Sen. Hawley asked.

“We don’t look at the political affiliations or can’t speak to individuals, but what I can tell you is we’re protecting the data in the United States,” Pappas said.

: newsy.com

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‘Succession,’ ‘Ted Lasso’ Top Emmys; 1st-Time Winners Shine

Television’s biggest stars gathered to celebrate their achievements at the 2022 Emmy Awards, hosted by Kenan Thompson.

“Succession” and “Ted Lasso” topped the Emmy Awards on Monday, in a ceremony that touted the influence of TV and extended honors to global sensation “Squid Game” and winners who delivered messages of empowerment.

The evening’s uplifting tone, as voiced especially by Zendaya, Lizzo and Sheryl Lee Ralph, was in contrast to the darkness that pervaded the storytelling of best drama series winner “Succession” and even comedy series victor “Ted Lasso.”

“Thanks for making such a safe space to make this very difficult show,” said Zendaya, claiming her second best drama actress award for “Euphoria,” about a group of teens’ tough coming-of-age.

“My greatest wish for ‘Euphoria’ was that it could help heal people. Thank you for everyone who has shared your story with me. I carry them with me, and I carry them with” Rue, her character, Zendaya said.

“Succession,” about a media empire run by a grasping and cutthroat family, split drama series honors with “Squid Game,” the bold South Korean-set drama about the idle rich turning the poor into entertainment fodder.

Lee Jung-jae of “Squid Game,” who played the show’s moral center, became the first Asian to win the Emmy for best drama series actor.

“Thank you for making realistic problems we all face come to life so creatively on the screen,” Lee said to “Squid Game” creator Hwang Dong-hyuk, who earned the Emmy for best drama series directing. In Korean, Lee thanked the audience in his native country for watching.

Backstage, Hwang said this was “a major moment for us,” and Lee said he expected the awards to open doors for other Asian actors.

Jason Sudeikis and Jean Smart collected back-to-back acting trophies, but several new Emmy winners were minted, with Lizzo and Quinta Brunson and Sheryl Lee Ralph of “Abbott Elementary” collecting trophies.

Brunson, who created and stars in the freshman series, won the Emmy for comedy series writing. ABC’s “Abbott Elementary,” also nominated for best comedy, is a rare bright spot for network broadcasting in the age of streaming and cable dominance.

Sudeikis won his second consecutive trophy for playing the unlikely U.S. coach of a British soccer team in the comedy “Ted Lasso,” with Smart matching that haul for her role as a veteran comedian in “Hacks.”

Sudeikis gave a rare awards show shoutout to TV consumers: “Thanks to the people who watch this show and dig it as much as we dig making it.”

There was a ripple of reaction in the theater when “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong mentioned Britain’s new king, Charles III, in accepting the show’s trophy, the cast standing alongside him.

“Big week for successions, new king in the U.K., this for us. Evidently a little bit more voting involved in our winning than Prince Charles,” Armstrong said. “I’m not saying we’re more legitimate in our position than he is. We’ll leave that up to other people.”

Ralph stopped the Emmy Awards show by accepting the best supporting actress comedy award for “Abbott Elementary” with a brief but rousing song of affirmation.

“I am an endangered species, but I sing no victim song. I am a woman, I am an artist and I know where my voice belongs,” she belted out. She then encouraged anyone doubting their dream “I am here to tell you this is what believing looks like.”

The audience, including Lizzo and many of television’s biggest stars, leapt to their feet to cheer on Ralph.

When Lizzo herself accepted the award for best-competition series trophy for “Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls,” she offered another emotional pep talk.

“When I was a little girl, all I wanted to see was me in the media. Someone fat like me, Black like me, beautiful like me,” the music artist said.

There were also cheers for presenter Selma Blair, who has discussed her multiple sclerosis diagnosis publicly and who used a cane on stage.

“Ted Lasso” co-star Brett Goldstein, won comedy supporting actors, while Matthew Macfadyen of “Succession” and Julia Garner of “Ozark” earned drama series supporting actor honors.

“It’s such a pleasure and privilege for me to play this bonkers gift of a role in this wonderful show,” Macfadyen said in accepting the trophy for his role as a scheming member of a media empire family.

Garner was among the winners who took advantage of covering all bases by thanking her husband and others in an on-screen message.

“The White Lotus” collected several honors, including best limited or anthology series.

The achievements of “Squid Game,” “Abbott Elementary” and a few other shows didn’t change the relative lack of diversity in this year’s nominations, which included significantly fewer people of color than in 2021.

Host Kenan Thompson kicked off the Emmys with a tribute to TV, dismissing TikTok as “tiny vertical television,” and a musical number saluting series’ theme songs from “Friends” to “The Brady Bunch” to “Game of Thrones.”

Once the music stopped, Thompson provided a mic-drop moment — announcing Oprah Winfrey as the first presenter. Winfrey strutted onto the stage holding an Emmy statuette, declaring the night “a party!” The night’s first award went to Michael Keaton for his role in “Dopesick.” Winfrey and Keaton hugged before she handed him his trophy.

“It means something,” Keaton said of the award for playing a caring doctor ensnared with his patients by addiction. He went on to recall the “magic” of being introduced to TV when his dad won a set at a raffle and thanked his parents for not mocking his youthful attempts at acting.

Amanda Seyfried earned the limited-series lead actress trophy for “The Dropout,” in which she played ill-fated Silicon Valley whiz kid Elizabeth Holmes. She thanked a list of family and colleagues and even her dog, Finn.

Murray Bartlett won the best supporting actor award for “The White Lotus,” a tragicomedy set in a Hawaii resort. Jennifer Coolidge, who won best supporting actress honors for the show, delighted the audience by shimmying to the music intended to cut off her acceptance speech.

The award for best variety talk show went to “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” with stand-up special “Jerrod Carmichael: Rothaniel” winning for best writing for a comedy special.

“Good night, everybody. I’ma go home. I’m not like a sore winner, but I’m going to go home because I can’t top this right now,” an overcome Carmichael told the audience.

Glamour was back with some metallic sparkle and lots of bright color as an otherworldly Britt Lower, Old Hollywood Elle Fanning and their fellow stars posed for photographers.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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Why Is Tiktok Under Scrutiny Again?

TikTok has been under scrutiny since a social media company claimed the app was collection data from Americans and giving China access to U.S. info.

As far back as 2020, former President Donald Trump attempted to force the sale of the social media company TikTok to Oracle, claiming that the app was storing data collected on its American user base in China, and thus enabling the possible surveillance of U.S. citizens. That sale was eventually blocked, but it opened the door to a cycle in which, every few months, U.S. government entities attempt new investigations into TikTok’s data collection.

It begs the question — what exactly is novel about these data misuse accusations in 2022?

The newest cycle started in June, when Buzzfeed published leaked audio from 80 internal TikTok meetings which showed that U.S. data was “repeatedly” accessed from China. Around the same time, Republican FCC Chair Brendan Carr published a letter in which he claimed to have new evidence that TikTok “harvests swaths of sensitive data” that “are being accessed in Beijing.”

The conversation shifted from data storage or giving data away to the Chinese government, to data access.

“You can think about this as a Google drive, right? So you or most of us will have something on our Google Drives. And when we want to share photos with our loved ones, for example, we don’t actually send a USB drive to them. We just provide them with a link to our Google Drive folder and thereby they can access the photos from there,” said Ausma Bernotaite, a candidate at the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University.

John Wihbey is an associate professor of Media Innovation at Northeastern University.

“I think there are some — there are some legitimate concerns that with some combination of otherwise private data, that the Chinese government could be building profiles about U.S. persons, and could be potentially tuning algorithms at various key points in the electoral cycles in the United States to try to influence voter behavior,” said Wihbey. “And we don’t yet know exactly how that data could be exploited.”

The other important question at hand here is whether TikTok collects more intrusive data than other social media companies. Any American platform with bottom line based on using personal data to serve ads could be collecting similar data.

“U.S. social media platforms like Snapchat, then Facebook, now Meta, Instagram, Pinterest have been taking advantage of that surveillance capitalism, as we call it. Just really monetizing our attention,” said Bernotaite. “And now we have a different actor. So, it’s kind of like the devil we don’t know in a way, because we’ve not really had to deal with Tiktok’s corporate representatives for that long.”

Bernotaite noted that until we find ways to ensure data transparency from all social media companies, regardless of where they’re based, we’re never going to find out exactly if and whether data misuse is occurring. But that may be easier said than done. Wihbey told Newsy that much of this issue is driven by competition concerns, so we may not get to that point if the U.S. wants to ensure that its social media companies can stand alongside TikTok.

“The United States has almost entirely dominated this space of media, entertainment, social platforms. China has done very well to grow its own domestic market and has impressive companies there, but they really haven’t reached the rest of the world. So, this is their big winner in this early phase of an ongoing battle between the two countries over media and communications technologies,” said Wihbey.

: newsy.com

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TikTok Is Helping Foster Conversations About Mental Health

Therapist Courtney Tracy says TikTok is helping people talk about mental health. But she also warns of the dangers of misinformation.

TikTok is chock-full of dance performances, funny pet videos and fan pages.

But the short-form video platform is also a growing home for mental health professionals helping viewers seek out support. Hashtags like #TherapistsOfTikTok have around 570 million views on the platform, while #MentalHealth has over 43 billion views.

Courtney Tracy is a therapist and mental health advocate with more than 1.8 million followers on TikTok.

“I started making videos on social media in late 2019. I went through a major family tragedy in the beginning of 2019 that caused me to have a lot of mental health issues. So, as a therapist, I wanted to show up online and tell the truth about that,” Tracy said.

Through her work, she speaks honestly about her struggles with trauma and borderline personality disorder, also known as BPD. And her videos answer questions about therapy; destigmatize mental illnesses like BPD, anxiety, depression and addiction; and remind viewers that mental health professionals are human too.

“As therapists we hear so much of other people’s difficult lives and we carry that around because we do care — as much as some people think we don’t, we really do. And that weighs on us. So, when we have to hold other people’s stuff, and our own stuff, it can get really heavy sometimes,” Tracy continued. “One of my favorite types of videos to make are my point-of-view videos where I play a therapist, and then I also play myself as a client. And I think some of the best responses that I’ve received are people who haven’t been to therapy before who say, ‘Wow, these are my symptoms,’ or ‘This is something that I would want to talk about in therapy and seeing the way that a therapist might respond to something that I might say makes me feel so much safer going into the space.'”

Tracy says viewers — including other mental health professionals — have responded positively to her honesty and candidness.

That conversational tone is common on TikTok, and Tracy says it’s fostering more conversations about mental health care.

Experts like Tracy warn, however, of the dangers of misinformation from the platform — especially from creators who aren’t mental health professionals.

One study from earlier this spring found that of the top 100 TikTok videos about mental health, around half were “general” informational videos on the subject and around 40% involved users talking about their own personal experiences and stories.

While the study notes the personal stories posted by users were typically met with support and validation, more research should be done “on the potential role of intervention by health care professionals.”

“If we don’t understand truly mental health, if we’re getting misinformation, or we’re misanalyzing ourselves or our own symptoms, then yes, we’re talking about it more, but we’re not actually making progress for ourselves or for our communities,” Tracy said. “And I think that there’s going to take some fluctuation and some reorganizing, but I think it’s a good thing. The more voices that we have out there talking about mental health, the more they’ll become refined, and then the more it becomes actually just a normal thing to be talking about, which is the goal.”

Beyond normalizing conversations about mental health, Tracy and other mental health advocates, including singer and actress Selena Gomez, “Queer Eye’s” Karamo Brown and Prince Harry, are pushing for more mental health resources and affordable access to therapy.

Newsy’s mental health initiative “America’s Breakdown: Confronting Our Mental Health Crisis” brings you deeply personal and thoughtfully told stories on the state of mental health care in the U.S. Click here to learn more.

: newsy.com

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Ex-Barista Says Starbucks Is Engaging In ‘Unprecedented Union-Busting’

Starbucks is fighting to squash a unionizing movement, claiming it’s disruptive, but employees say the chain has fired over 85 pro-union workers.

A Starbucks in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood may look no different from any of the 15,000 other Starbucks stores in the U.S., but as a new union location, it’s part of a growing organizing movement.

The movement is growing so fast it’s prompting Starbucks to engage in what critics call an unprecedented union-busting campaign.

Jasper Booth-Hodges lives five minutes away from the union store in Hyde Park where he used to work.

“I have worked 40 hours a week for over two years at this company,” Booth-Hodges said. “I am one of the main openers.”

The former barista said he loved his job, for the most part.

“I had such good rapport with so many customers,” he said.

Then last month, Booth-Hodges said he was fired in retaliation for leading the union push.

“The fact that I was a really active part of the union organizing committee meant that they were going to find anything they could to get rid of me,” he said.

Starbucks denies that, telling Newsy that Booth-Hodges was terminated for violations of the company’s time and attendance policies.

Nationwide, more than 230 locations have voted to join the Starbucks Workers United union since last December, with six of them being in Chicago.

In total, nearly three-quarters of all votes cast have been in favor of unionizing.

Labor experts say the speed and success of the movement is unheard of.

“There’s just no historical comparison to what they have achieved by winning election after election after election,” said John Logan, professor of labor studies at San Francisco State University.

But Starbucks is fighting tooth and nail to squash it, arguing that unions are disruptive to its relationship with employees.

Meanwhile, Starbucks Workers United tells Newsy the coffee chain has fired over 85 pro-union workers.

“I remember saying, ‘I’ve been here for 13 years. You can’t even explain to me why I’m being separated or provide me any details?'” said Sam Amato, former Starbucks employee.

When Amato was fired last month after 13 years on the job, all of his colleagues at his store near Buffalo, New York walked out in solidarity. A TikTok video of the incident, posted by the Union, has been seen nearly 30 million times.

A month later, Amato and his former colleagues are still on strike, picketing at the store every day.

“It just makes me a little emotional thinking about it,” Amato said. “But they’ve been so incredibly supportive, and I know that they they’re behind me 100%.”

Starbucks has racked up hundreds of labor violation complaints at the National Labor Relations Board, a federal enforcement agency.

Last week, the NLRB said Starbucks has been illegally withholding wages and benefits from thousands of union workers. In response, Starbucks is accusing the agency of being biased and colluding with union organizers to rig elections.

For labor expert John Logan, the problem lies with weak union protection laws that are too easy for giant corporations to ignore.

“The penalties for violating the law are not sufficient punishment for companies who are egregious lawbreakers like Starbucks,” Logan said.

Back in Chicago, Booth-Hodges is appealing his termination, while open to the possibility of getting his job back.

“I do plan on going back if I get reinstated, but regardless of that, this is so much bigger than just me getting reinstated or not,” Booth-Hodges said. “This is about letting corporations know that they can’t get away with this, that they need to be held accountable when they break labor laws.”

: newsy.com

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