- Bill Ackman seems to be reconsidering his earlier calls to out anti-Israel Harvard students.
- On Tuesday, he tweeted about a video of a masked man on Harvard Square expressing love for Hamas.
After calling on Harvard University to reveal the names of students who signed an anti-Israel letter last month, Bill Ackman isn't so sure anymore.
In a lengthy post on X on Tuesday, the billionaire hedge fund manager diverged from his mid-October tweets demanding student identities, now saying the real concern lies in social media's algorithms.
He was responding to a video posted on X that shows a masked man expressing support for Hamas and calling for the extermination of Israelis. Insider geolocated the video on Google Maps and found it was filmed on Dunster Street on the Harvard University campus. It's unclear whether the man in the video was a Harvard student.
"Thinking about it more, identifying this racist anonymous thug and giving the world an economic incentive to find him isn't the answer," Ackman wrote.
The billionaire said he instead imagined a "world where someone will sit down with this kid, and give him perspective on his hate speech."
"Outing him will just increase the anger," he wrote. "Someone close to him that he respects needs to confront him and give him perspective."
Social media is the problem, Ackman now says
Ackman warned of social media's influence on growing tensions around the world, saying it had been "amplifying the hate for a decade as algorithms wind us up."
He called on Meta, X, and TikTok to change their content algorithms to promote common ground, and he took particular aim at TikTok, saying it should "probably be banned" in the US.
"TikTok is massively manipulating public opinion," Ackman wrote. "Compare the generational differences on support for Hamas. 51% of the TikTok generation say that Hamas' barbaric acts are justified."
A poll of 2,116 American voters conducted October 18-19 by Harvard's Center for American Political Studies and Harris Insights and Analytics found that 51% of respondents ages 18 to 24 said Hamas' killing of Israeli civilians on October 7 could be "justified by the grievance of Palestinians."
The poll also found that 48% of those ages 25 to 34 said Hamas' attacks could be justified. But overall, only 24% of all respondents said the October 7 attacks could be justified. (Respondents were given two choices, that the killings "can be justified" or "were not justified.")
Notably, the same poll found that 54% of those ages 18 to 24 said law firms should refuse to hire students who "supported Hamas and the attacks on Israeli civilians" — aligning with Ackman's earlier call to blacklist the Harvard letter signatories. Most responses from all other age demographics expressed the opposite view, saying law firms should hire such students.
A billionaire's October campaign for names
Ackman, who founded and runs the hedge fund management firm Pershing Square, is a Harvard alumnus.
He initially bashed a group of Harvard student organizations who signed a letter blaming Israel for Hamas' attacks and tweeted on October 11 that he wanted to know the names of signatories so he would not hire them in the future.
As controversy brewed around Ackman's tweet, he doubled down on his stance, saying the students in question should "be prepared to stand up and be personally accountable for his or her views" and urged them not to bank on the "Harvard brand" anonymously.
When some members of the signing organizations said they weren't aware of the letter's contents, Ackman suggested they persuade their group to withdraw the statement or resign.
Some co-signee groups later publicly withdrew their support for the statement.
Harvard's president, Claudine Gay, said the student statement did not represent the university's stance.