If the former U.S. secretary of state and her peers are only consuming legacy news sources then they’d be the ones who are uninformed, writes Aastha Uprety.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaking at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, in January 2016. (Gage Skidmore, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)
By Aastha Uprety
Common Dreams
CN at 30
As unconditional support for Israel becomes more of a political liability and solidarity with Palestine establishes itself as a litmus test, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her fellow status-quo defenders are blaming social media for the U.S. public’s growing solidarity with Palestine.
In accusing young people of falling for fake news, they rely on an outdated assumption that equates social media with falsehoods — and equates legacy media with trustworthiness. What’s clear is that Clinton and her peers who partake in similar rhetoric fail to grasp the nuances of today’s media landscape, particularly as it has unraveled around Palestine.
More and more Americans have realized that Israel’s post-Oct. 7 assault on Gaza is not only disproportionate but genocidal, and that in spite of the carnage, the U.S. government continues to provide diplomatic cover and send billions in military aid.
It’s no wonder that public sentiment has shifted considerably against Israel in the past two years, with young people in particular being increasingly supportive of Palestine. This sea change has made establishment politicians very nervous.
In several recent speaking engagements, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has lamented that these pro-Palestine young people have the unfortunate habit of getting their news from social media; to her, that makes them uninformed and sorely misled.
“More than 50 percent of young people in America get their news from social media. Just pause on that for a second,” she said at an event for the newspaper Israel Hayom earlier this month. “They are seeing short-form videos, some of them totally made up, some of them not at all representing what they claim to be showing. And that’s where they get their information.”
I ran into Hillary Clinton at the Doha Forum and asked about her recent claim that young people oppose Israel’s genocide in Gaza because they do “not know history” and are duped by “pure propaganda” on social media. She declined to answer. pic.twitter.com/GMSKzjQLFq
— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) December 7, 2025
The claim that social media is misleading and misinforming young people is simply an attempt not only to delegitimize pro-Palestine sentiment but to cast doubt on the devastation in Gaza itself.
Clinton’s framing is reminiscent of 2016-era misinformation discourse, back when the U.S. public hadn’t fully figured out what to do with social media’s rapid acceleration and impact on politics.
But that familiar rhetoric does not apply to the youth-driven political realignment on Palestine. When Clinton implies that pro-Palestine sentiment is a result of misinformation — a fraught umbrella diagnosis that often tries to encompass too much, and whose remedies can clash with the ideals of free speech — she attempts to place it within the context of Facebook fueling atrocities in Myanmar, Russian information campaigns working to influence the U.S. election, and then-candidate Donald Trump labeling every media outlet “fake news,” forcing them to have tough conversations about when and how to fact-check his claims.
While the current media landscape and its relationship to politics is still bleak, Clinton’s accusation is much more about her fealty to Israel and the centrist-liberal order. The claim that social media is misleading and misinforming young people is simply an attempt not only to delegitimize pro-Palestine sentiment but to cast doubt on the devastation in Gaza itself.
Children in Gaza rummaging through ruins and trash posing catastrophic environmental and health risks, July 2024. (Ashraf Amra /UNRWA/Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 3.0)
The data point that half of Americans get (some of) their news from social media alarms most people — perhaps a valid instinct, given the current media landscape of local news in decline, billionaires taking over outlets, and profit-driven influencers peddling dubious wellness claims via vertical video. Social media did democratize information sharing without necessarily embedding any accountability mechanism for its quality and accuracy, resulting in a lot of low-quality content of dubious veracity.
But this doesn’t mean that social media users are only, primarily, or even significantly consuming fake news or slop. Pew Research Center reports that users, shockingly, do make assessments about what content they’re looking at. Not to mention that plenty of the content on social media is content from news outlets themselves.
According to Clinton, what’s most concerning is the fact that so many young people are getting their information from TikTok, given that the app is “governed by an algorithm — at least up til now — still largely manipulated by the Chinese Communist Party.”
Her geopolitical paranoia echoes CNN commentator Van Jones, who in October placed blame on Iran and Qatar for running a “disinformation campaign” that flooded social media users with images of “dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby.”
Both try to convince audiences that concern for Palestine is just an information-operations campaign from our geopolitical enemies. Reports from earlier this year indicated that the legislation banning TikTok was, in part, ushered along by lawmakers’ worries about the prevalence of content critical of Israel on the platform.
Yet the most damning lesson here is not the growing reliance on getting information from social media, or even the fact that our collective outlook toward it should be more nuanced (it should!). Rather, it’s the collapse of trust in traditional legacy media that has accompanied young peoples’ shifting views on Palestine. The media industry utterly failed in its charge to report the news, and it failed to defend colleagues in Gaza as they were systematically murdered by the Israeli government.
The New York Times in particular has been especially egregious, most infamously failing to retract their story “Screams Without Words” even after its credibility was seriously questioned.
Let’s say Clinton and her peers are only consuming these news sources (and even then, they’d have to be taking great lengths to avoid reading the quality reporting on Gaza that mainstream publications do often release, not to mention ignoring the numerous reports from human rights organizations and experts), then they’d be the ones who are uninformed — not the bogeyman of kids on social media.
The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security issued a statement last week on Clinton’s baseless accusations:
“What truly seems to unsettle Secretary Clinton is not ‘misinformation,’ but rather the fact that younger generations are no longer consuming a single, state-controlled narrative. They are accessing unfiltered images and testimonies that challenge decades of political messaging.”
Clinton’s basic premise — denying the genocide in Gaza — is false. Young people know that they’re being gaslit. Yes, it is true that they’ve experienced “TikTok smashing their brains all day long with videos of carnage in Gaza.” They’ve seen Western media bend over backwards to diminish blame on Israel. And they’ve seen resilient Palestinian journalists like Bisan Owda showing Gaza through her own eyes.
At the Doha Forum, Clinton said it’s “a provable fact that most Americans… get their news from social media.” To echo Foreign Policy Editor-in-Chief Ravi Agrawal’s response: “Is that a bad thing?”
Aastha Uprety is a writer and editor based in New York City. She has an MPA in social policy and technology, media, and communications from Columbia University.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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Imo, a “common dream” is that Aastha Uprety’s follow-up column’s headline is, *“Hey, Hilary, leave them kids alone.”
…. “There are certain teachers who hurt, harm, endanger not only the children; but adults, any way they can.”
“The younger generations” Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Y.1, Gen Y.2, Gen Z, Gen A, Gen B, including the Baby Boomers, “have never been more critical to your financial institution’s future.” UNLESS HRC “understands who “we”are and what “we”want,” HRC will never f/ever “capture a dollar of “our” money.” Imo, everybody, knows, HRC does it for the f/money.
HRC fka “a Goldwater Girl” is six (6) decades removed from Generation Alpha. HER “old school” mentality exposes how far she is from being part of that generational cohort.” Imo, HER “principle” objective, i.e., “the Fire In HER Belly,” is HER jam: “Keep America Dumb!” … “According to Clinton, what’s most concerning is the fact that so many young people are getting their information from TikTok, given that the app is “governed by an algorithm — at least up til now — still largely manipulated by the Chinese Communist Party.” Aastha Uprety
… “Gen Alpha has several nicknames, such as “Generation Glass” or “iPad Kids,” referring to their early interaction with screens and technology. [Generation Alpha starts with children born between 2012 and 2024. They are currently between 0 and 13 years old (about 51 million people in the U.S.).”
Since many Gen A children have Millennial parents, they can also go by the term “Mini Millennials.” Popularized on TikTok, “Honey Badgers” highlights the generation’s fearlessness and tendency to challenge authority.”
… “Generation Beta is the name for the new, youngest generation on the planet. However, in the same way Gen Y morphed into Millennials and Gen Z became Zoomers, it’s possible that members of Gen B may adopt new names as they grow up. But first, they’ll need to learn to talk.” * “Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z, Gen A and Gen B explained.” By KASASA, 9.3.25 @
POSTED BY KASASA | SEPTEMBER 3, 2025 hxxps://www.kasasa.com/exchange/articles/generations/gen-x-gen-y-gen-z
“While the current media landscape and its relationship to politics is still bleak, Clinton’s accusation is much more about her fealty to Israel and the centrist-liberal order. The claim that social media is misleading and misinforming young people is simply an attempt not only to delegitimize pro-Palestine sentiment but to cast doubt on the devastation in Gaza itself.” Aastha Uprety. TY!!!
… “So, let us once and for all dispense with the lie about the US being a mediator, a restraining influence, or as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (considered to be on the extreme Left of mainstream US politics) put it, ‘working tirelessly for a ceasefire’. A party to the genocide cannot be a mediator.”
….. “Not all the power and money, not all the weapons and propaganda on earth can any longer hide the wound that is Palestine. The wound through which the whole world, including Israel, bleeds.” Arundhati Roy @ hxxps://pentransmissions.com/2024/10/15/no-propaganda-on-earth-can-hide-the-wound-that-is-palestine-arundhati-roys-pen-pinter-prize-2024-speech/
Imo, “All hail the All Generations Anti-Fascists advocating for social justice and equality!” TY, CN. “Keep It Lit!”
I wonder if she/they are getting the picture that their BS has zero chance of sprouting wings-instead they should maybe turn around and look down and see for themselves. With what they say really looks like.
I despise Hillary Clinton. She is a war criminal and liar. I fail to understand why ANYONE listens to her rantings. I agree with Guillermo above that she is absolutely despicable.
Good read: Diana Johnstone, Queen of Chaos. The misadventures of Hillary Clinton, Counterpunch, 2015.
What was the DNC thinking? They still don’t get it.
“… collapse of trust in traditional legacy media that has accompanied young peoples’ shifting views on Palestine. The media industry utterly failed in its charge to report the news, and it failed to defend colleagues in Gaza as they were systematically murdered by the Israeli government.” This says it all. Main Stream Media news is controlled and has been for decades. BTW, Hillary lost all credibility with her statement, “What difference does it make . . . ” regarding Ambassador Chris Steven’s death in Benghazi, assassinated by a ‘mob’ overthrowing Gadhafi, who was breaking away from a Rothschild central bank & instituting the gold dinar.
Hey!
I have an idea, let’s all get our information from the same shining stars who told us Saddam had WMD, Gaddafi’s forces were intent on raping their way across Libya, Assad gassed his own people, and Russia had absolutely no reason whatsoever to launch its SMO.
We’ll all be so much more enlightened and knowledgeable! Spread the word at your Christmas gathering.
Western civilization is making the Palestinians pay for the antisemitism born of the Roman occupation 2000 years ago stealing a religion and basing it on mythological revamping to weaponize their religion and use it against them for resisting occupation. Then the religion took over governments and has been running wars for dominance and with the conversion of Viking raiding party principles for a Valhalla of lives reborn from war into an new life for a new war over and over.
The Settler Colonialist oligarchs are losing their grip on the public mind and they are showing their true colors in their response. They need to be destroyed.
I agree.
HRC’s pronouncement here goes with the smug attitude she’s shown for decades. Like “a basketful of deplorables.” Never mind people so desperate they voted R. Never mind the neolib Dem party elite dumped the New Deal and abandoned the working class majority decades ago. Blinkered defenders of the Ivy League Ds instead go on and on about how stupid ‘those people’ are. But how smart is it to denigrate people whose votes you need? How smart is ignoring suffering in the Rust Belt/Appalachia?
Therefore easy to deny the horrendous suffering in Gaza. Clinton and the rest of the Dem party elite have their narrow worldviews echoed by like-minded arbiters of what’s fit to print or broadcast. Of course they expect us inferiors to accept their superior judgments. When we don’t, it must be because we’re stupid. And when we find alternative news sources with compelling evidence, it must be silly social media addictions and/or foreign propaganda. Never mind we’ve figured out their neolib economics and neocon wars to defend empire are destroying us lesser humans, our local ecosystems, and most of the world.
The New Deal was not created as a progressive move. It was created to prevent a revolution. FDR had to explain to the oligarchs during the Great Depression that if the government didn’t step up and help the working class, the workers would string the oligarchs from lamp posts by their necks.
Ever since mid-20th century, Israelis have been trying to eliminate Palestinians, the way they think the USA eliminated the Native Americans. Mrs. Clinton ought to know this from old-fashioned non-social media.
… to think that she was, or thought herself,
on the verge of becoming potus, with such
a narrow worldview …
Indeed they are wrong and not sure they don’t know it. Just like my city council; how can top tier officials be so uninformed/ignorant unless they want to be?
Let us flood Clinton’s InBox with images from Gaza dating back. Let us send her cc of books by Norman Finklestine, Illan Pappe, etc. Hillary Clinton, one of the architects of the Proxy War destroying Ukraine. Wellesley should be ashamed to claim her as an alum. The US should be ashamed that she ever was appointed as Sec of State.
And Columbia University should be ashamed to have her on its faculty.
Mrs. Clinton is and has always been an absolutely despicable person.
Just answering to the headline: No shit.