There were rumblings about this for a while, but it looks like the Trump TikTok deal is done, and it’s somehow the worst of all possible outcomes, amazingly making all of the biggest criticisms about TikTok significantly worse. Quite an accomplishment.
The Chinese government has signed off on the deal, which involves offloading a large chunk of TikTok to billionaire right wing Trump ally Larry Ellison (fresh off his acquisition of CBS), the private equity firm Silver Lake (which has broad global investments in Chinese and Israeli hyper-surveillance), and MGX (Abu Dhabi’s state investment firm), while still somehow having large investment involvement by the Chinese.
It wasn’t subtle that the goal was always for Trump’s buddies to just basically steal a big ownership chunk of a Chinese short form video company that U.S. tech companies couldn’t out innovate. Offloading the company to his friends at Oracle and Walmart was Trump’s stated goal during the first administration, only thwarted because he lost the 2020 election. Everything else was decorative.
As I’ve spent years arguing, if these folks were all so concerned about U.S. consumer privacy, they should have passed a functional modern internet privacy law applying to all U.S. companies and their executives.
If they cared about propaganda, they could have fought media consolidation, backed creative media literacy reform in schools, or found new ways to fund independent journalism.
If they cared about national security, they wouldn’t have helped elect a New York City real estate conman sex pest President, and they certainly wouldn’t have actively aided his cronyism.
Imagine.
Yeah, every time trump says its fake news… and then you know does nothing to try to improve reporting to be more factual… I remember how much of a shit head he is…
The bill passed to ban TikTok was terrible bill. A bunch of people ate up the marketing for it and it didn’t take even 2 years from passing to start getting abused. Easily predictable outcome
I was a TikTok lurker for a couple years. The app is plagued with misinfo and low IQ slop, but this unregulated nature also made it one of the best sources for things that mainstream media ignored.
A good chunk of my algorithm was news about Palestine. Recently, suddenly, it all disappeared. Poof no more Palestine info, here’s some Israeli propaganda instead. Their moderation policy changed, so any comments with mild criticism of Israel were deleted. Discussion of Israel’s crimes will get your account striked and banned.
I can only assume this trend will be even worse with disgusting Zionist Larry Ellison bankrolling it.
Trump TikTok => LikKok
They still won’t get the exact algorithm which ByteDance will retain.
Service that was shit to begin with becomes more shitty. In other news, water is wet.
Oh no! Anyway
You may not like tiktok or use it but a lot of people do. And now it’s in the hands of a bunch of nasty bastards.
When has it not been in the hands of a bunch of nasty bastards?
Fair but I’m going to hazard a guess that these guys are worse. For all the hand-wringing about Chinese influence I never saw proof of anything nefarious.
Oh no! Etc
You know what else is in their hands? Their phones, so they can put them away.
Oh no! Anyway
