Guy Christensen’s sick TikTok terror rant pulled after he called for 1 million followers to support accused DC killer Elias Rodriguez
An anti-Israel teen with nearly a million online followers has urged people to “support’’ accused DC killer Elias Rodriguez in a rant so vile TikTok pulled it down.
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An anti-Israel teen with nearly a million online followers has urged people to “support’’ accused DC killer Elias Rodriguez in a rant so vile TikTok pulled it down.
Guy Christensen — a baby-faced, keffiyeh-wearing 19-year-old from Pennsylvania who goes by the online handle “YourFavoriteGuy’’ — said in Thursday’s video: “I want to urge you first to support Elias’ actions.”
He was referring to Rodriguez, the 31-year-old alleged hate-filled assassin who gunned down Israeli Embassy diplomats Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim as they left an event in Washington DC on Wednesday night.
In an interview with The New York Post, Christensen was asked if his post could be interpreted as openly supporting the murders of the victims and replied: “I think the only people who are interpreting [that] as such are the people’’ who are using the slayings of “those two Zionist officials … as a pretence to silence critics of Israel.”
The teen — in the TikTok footage that garnered more than 632,500 views before being taken down — called Lischinsky, 30, a “war criminal.
“And the same was true for the woman,’’ he said, referring to Milgrim, 26, Lischinsky’s slain girlfriend.
Christensen, a college freshman who refused to say where he goes to school, added to The Post by phone, “You will not hear me sympathise with war criminals.’’
The young man also insisted Rodriguez was “not a terrorist.
“He is a resistance fighter,’’ the teen said.
In his video, Christensen had said, “I do not condemn the elimination of those two Zionist officials who worked at the Israeli Embassy last night … and here’s why.
“Israel has a live-streamed a genocide to the entire world the last two years,’’ he said.
“You cannot expect to such a thing in this world without the people standing up to fight to stop you in any way they can, to resist against you.’’
He added to The Post, “I think it’s very shameful that the media would rather cover Elias Rodriguez over the death of hundreds of Palestinians yesterday.’’
TikTok still had Christensen’s inflammatory video up early Friday afternoon.
Christensen has 321,000 TikTok followers, 419,000 Instagram followers and 88,500 followers on X.
A spokesman said in an email about a half-hour after a Post inquiry about it that the footage had since been taken down “for violating our Community Guidelines.’’
“Our Community Guidelines prohibit anyone from promoting violent or hateful actors, and we do not allow conspiracy theories that are violent or hateful, such as denying well-documented violent events,’’ the spokesman said.
Christensen told The Post that his video had been initially taken down by TikTok, then he appealed and won. After it went up again, it was taken down again, and he appealed and succeeded in his bid.
He said it was taken down a third time and that there would be no appeal.
The footage remained as a repost on X, which did not respond to a Post request for comment.
Christensen’s disturbing rant was just one of several posted on social media in the wake of the heinous attack.
Skigh Johnson, a Canadian woman in her 20s, also wrote her own hate-filled post on TikTok on Thursday in front of footage of herself grinning and posing.
“To the people who [gun emoji] and unalived 2 Israelis in Washington DC then screamed free Palestine at their [skull emoji] bodies. I love you and I will help make sure you’re taken care of in jail,’’ she posted, followed by kissy and party emojis.
Johnson has more than 13,000 followers on TikTok and the clip had been viewed hundreds of times as of Friday evening.
Critics were swift to denounce such hate-fuelled postings — while demanding more safeguards to prevent the vitriol from trickling down to kids.
“TikTok by allowing this content — and just as insidiously using an algorithm that exposes people to this hateful speech even when they are not searching for it — is exacerbating anti-Semitism and violence,’’ New York City Democratic City Councilwoman Julie Menin told The Post.
“At what point does TikTok bear responsibility for spreading hate speech and inciting a violent call to action?”
David Zimmerman, a senior research fellow with George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, said social media doesn’t typically start children on the path to violent radicalism — but it can help them along.
“It’s not necessarily the start of the radicalisation process, it accelerates the radicalisation process,’’ he told The Post.
“Ideally, [social media sites] are picking up on this type of activity, but I don’t know if the companies have enough resources to put toward it — that’s the scary part,” he said.
“It’s going to fall on communities, it’s going to fall on families, it’s going to fall on education,’’ said Zimmerman, a retired FBI agent.
State Assemblywoman Nily Rozic (D-Queens), said, “It’s very clear that social media platforms, unwittingly or not, facilitate anti-Semitism, so they’re implicated in the violence that emanates from it.
“We’ll have to figure out a public policy answer to that, a solution to that, but it is very clear that these social media platforms are targets and hotbeds for violent extremist anti-Semitism, anti-Semitic content at an alarming rate.
“There’s very little difference between people who murder Jews and those who cheer them on or swipe through their content,’’ she said.
“Far too many people have been willing to turn a blind eye and indulge this kind of hate speech.”
Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, called it “totally unsurprising’’ that Christensen’s video was allowed to be posted.
And the fact that it was yanked down, “Let’s be real — it all comes down to politics,” he said.
Sobolik, author of “Countering China’s Great Game,’’ said TikTok is controlled by China’s Communist Party and needs to curry favour with the Trump administration, which has generally been an Israeli ally.
“What has been allowed to fester in the dark corners of the internet is now bursting into the open with deadly consequences,’’ said New York Democratic congressman Dan Goldman.
“It is incumbent on all of us — elected officials, tech executives, and everyday Americans — to confront and combat the anti-Semitism that motivated this attacker wherever and whenever it rears its ugly head.”
Additional reporting by Vaughn Golden and Craig McCarthy
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Originally published as Guy Christensen’s sick TikTok terror rant pulled after he called for 1 million followers to support accused DC killer Elias Rodriguez
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