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The TikTok Flip-Flop

Puppycow

Penultimate Amazing
Puppycow
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Trump's TikTok ban reversal comes after meeting megadonor who has stake in TikTok (ABC News)

As Donald Trump reverses his position on potentially banning TikTok ahead of an expected House vote this week on legislation that could lead to it being blocked in the U.S., the former president has been rebuilding his relationship with a GOP megadonor who reportedly has a major financial stake in the popular social media platform.

Trump met with the donor, hedge fund manager Jeff Yass, earlier this month at a Club for Growth donor retreat in Palm Beach, Florida, on March 1.
. . .

The former president, who had originally spearheaded efforts to ban TikTok during his time in the White House, reversed his stance last week, posting on his own social media platform that getting rid of TikTok would benefit Facebook and that he doesn't want that to happen, suggesting Facebook is a bigger problem for the country.

"I don't want Facebook ... doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!" he wrote.
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Facebook is still an American company though. TikTok is Chinese. So what about this "megadonor"?
Yass, who did not respond to a request for comment on Monday, owns a significant stake in in TikTok's China-based parent company ByteDance, The Wall Street Journal reported last year.

"I've supported libertarian and free market principles my entire adult life," Yass told the Journal then. "TikTok is about free speech and innovation, the epitome of libertarian and free market ideals. The idea of banning TikTok is an anathema to everything I believe."
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Really? So can you criticize the Chinese government on TikTok? I've never used it myself. No interest in trying yet another new social media app. I'm skeptical of this idea that free speech is entirely unfettered on TikTok, particularly coming from a man with a big financial stake in the company.

Meanwhile, on the other side:
Democrat Sen Warner cedes 'Trump was right' on TikTok being 'enormous' national security issue (Fox News)

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., revealed on Monday that he believes former President Donald Trump was right when he sounded the alarm on TikTok and its national security implications.

"It was rare for me to say that Donald Trump was right," Warner said during a committee hearing on worldwide threats. "But Donald Trump was right years ago when he pointed out the enormous national security concerns around TikTok, both in terms of obtaining data, but also think about the percentage – I think there are about 170 million Americans who use TikTok."
. . .

During his presidency in 2020, Trump signed an executive order to effectively ban the app in the U.S. But the action was blocked by the courts.

However, the current presidential candidate has appeared to change his tune in 2024. "Frankly, there are a lot of people on TikTok that love it," Trump said in a Monday interview. "There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it."
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So lots of young kids being addicted to it is now a good thing? :boggled:

Just interesting to me how the politics on this have apparently reversed.

It seems like there's plenty of flip-flopping going on here on both sides, but what should I think about the underlying issue?

Although I don't use it myself, I have seen people on the train using it. You swipe from one video to the next. Usually watching only a fraction of a second to a couple of seconds of each video until swiping again. Apparently it's kinda addictive, and designed to be used on a smartphone primarily. You can use it with just one hand, for example, on a train. Low-effort, instant gratification and short attention span.

If indeed 170 million Americans use TikTok (really??) that would be more than half the country. I'm a little skeptical of that figure. Would TikTok users who vote punish the party that took away their toy? Or is it mostly used by non-voters or people who don't care enough to vote on the issue? If Trump reversed his stance on this, maybe he was influenced by a megadonor like Yass, and/or maybe he senses that the politics no longer favor banning it (whatever you think about it in principle, it's a vote-loser; simple arithmetic).

I imagine that TikTok users would tend to care more about the issue than non-TikTok users, and therefore, I don't see how being for banning it would be a net positive if indeed anyone would actually change their vote based on this particular issue. :confused:
 
Puppycow said:
Matt Yglesias:

https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-case-against-tiktok
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Excerpt:
Here’s the analogy I like to use. It’s 1975 and a state-owned Soviet firm wants to buy CBS. What happens? Well, what happens is they wouldn’t be allowed to. The FCC would block it. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the US or its predecessors would block it. If they didn’t have the power, congress would write a new law. And even if it wasn’t CBS, if it was a chain of local TV affiliate stations, the outcome would be the same. There would be no detailed factual analysis or demand for gold standard evidence that a Soviet-owned television station might do Moscow’s bidding or that television is capable of influencing public opinion. We’d reject the idea out of hand. And rightly so, because the downsides would be very clear, and the upside minimal.
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now, apply that same reasoning to private ownership, especially by some a far-right religious cult like Sinclair.
 
The fear that an entity with a malicious agenda should be prevented from buying a major US media platform. I think it should be expanded beyond just China or any specific country. I think Sinclair Broadcasting fits that bill, despite it being an American company.
 
I'm going to ask this as straightforward as possible in hopes that someone here will be able to answer it. I've asked this a ******* thousand times and no one seems to be able to tell me.

What agenda is China pushing through TikTok? It's a series of videos. It's the same as youtube shorts, or instagram, or the old vines program. If the idea is that they're stealing\hording\selling\using data from my phone then tackle that problem, but I've watched dozens of hours of TikTok and I haven't seen an agenda outside of my own algorithm.

The "attention span" nonsense is the same bull **** we've been hearing since video games, and before. If you don't like it, then don't like it. It's seriously that easy, but the US government don't seem to give much of a **** about Google mining every possible piece of information, or Facebook, etc. Sure they pay lip service to it, but what is this Chinese company walking away with that I'm supposed to be scared of? Reminds of the "stick hoop" scene in A Million Ways to Die in the West.
 
plague311 said:
I'm going to ask this as straightforward as possible in hopes that someone here will be able to answer it. I've asked this a ******* thousand times and no one seems to be able to tell me.

What agenda is China pushing through TikTok? It's a series of videos. It's the same as youtube shorts, or instagram, or the old vines program. If the idea is that they're stealing\hording\selling\using data from my phone then tackle that problem, but I've watched dozens of hours of TikTok and I haven't seen an agenda outside of my own algorithm.

The "attention span" nonsense is the same bull **** we've been hearing since video games, and before. If you don't like it, then don't like it. It's seriously that easy, but the US government don't seem to give much of a **** about Google mining every possible piece of information, or Facebook, etc. Sure they pay lip service to it, but what is this Chinese company walking away with that I'm supposed to be scared of? Reminds of the "stick hoop" scene in A Million Ways to Die in the West.
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Good questions. I’d say the difference is that Google is American and under some sort of US control, or would be subject to US prosecution, whereas TikTok would just laugh at any US laws it breaks. The US is seemingly toothless in trying to bite back at any Chinese spying, identity theft, or data mining.
 
How Donald Trump switched to defending TikTok

Two former White House aides tied to an investor with a stake in TikTok, including Kellyanne Conway, were involved in a campaign to persuade the former president

Josh Dawsey

“Despite their frustrations with Meta, Trump’s comments on TikTok were frustrating to some of the China hawks in his orbit who want the former president to take a tougher line. Still, one person in Trump’s orbit, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly reflect their thinking, called TikTok a Chinese “disinformation warfare tool” but said that the former president also needs to get elected to deal properly with China.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/03/12/trump-tiktok-ban-lobbying/
 
plague311 said:
I'm going to ask this as straightforward as possible in hopes that someone here will be able to answer it. I've asked this a ******* thousand times and no one seems to be able to tell me.

What agenda is China pushing through TikTok? It's a series of videos. It's the same as youtube shorts, or instagram, or the old vines program. If the idea is that they're stealing\hording\selling\using data from my phone then tackle that problem, but I've watched dozens of hours of TikTok and I haven't seen an agenda outside of my own algorithm.

The "attention span" nonsense is the same bull **** we've been hearing since video games, and before. If you don't like it, then don't like it. It's seriously that easy, but the US government don't seem to give much of a **** about Google mining every possible piece of information, or Facebook, etc. Sure they pay lip service to it, but what is this Chinese company walking away with that I'm supposed to be scared of? Reminds of the "stick hoop" scene in A Million Ways to Die in the West.
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I don't know but I suspect the concern is more what TikTok is looking at on your computer/phone/tablet while you are looking at the cute kitten. I've been banned from having TT on my computer for several years by my employer because we are a DOD contractor. Not that I cared, don't even have it on my mobile devices.
 
Brainster said:
I don't know but I suspect the concern is more what TikTok is looking at on your computer/phone/tablet while you are looking at the cute kitten. I've been banned from having TT on my computer for several years by my employer because we are a DOD contractor. Not that I cared, don't even have it on my mobile devices.
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That is why I don't use Tik Tok. That, and I find the standard TIk Tok content to be incredibly annoying.
 
Donal said:
The fear that an entity with a malicious agenda should be prevented from buying a major US media platform. I think it should be expanded beyond just China or any specific country. I think Sinclair Broadcasting fits that bill, despite it being an American company.
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I don't like TikTok or Sinclair media, but dislike trampling freedom of speech even less.
I also wonder just how the hell you enforce a Tik Tok ban.
ANd, of course, the question is who decided what is an malicious agenda?
 
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I have to wonder that between this and the other thread how many ways TikTok can be spelled.
TikTok TicTock tiktok Tik Tok TIk Tok
 
Mark Lavin was still badmouthing commie TikTok on his stupid show yesterday or today, wonder how he'll spin the reversal. Or just ignore it.
 
dudalb said:
I don't like TikTok or Sinclair media, but dislike trampling freedom of speech even less.
I also wonder just how the hell you enforce a Tik Tok ban.
ANd, of course, the question is who decided what is an malicious agenda?
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Hey, if you want simple answers to complicated questions, there's always FOX News. I'm just pointing out that the focus on TikTok seems to go beyond the valid security concerns and into some good old-fashioned xenophobia.
 
Donal said:
Hey, if you want simple answers to complicated questions, there's always FOX News. I'm just pointing out that the focus on TikTok seems to go beyond the valid security concerns and into some good old-fashioned xenophobia.
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Facebook, Twitter, Google and other American social media companies are blocked or severely curtailed in China.

I don't see how China has any standing to complain if the US does the same to Chinese internet companies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China

Once a popular search engine, most services offered by Google China were blocked by the Great Firewall in the People's Republic of China. In 2010, searching via all Google search sites, including Google Mobile, was moved from mainland China to Hong Kong.

By November 2013, Google's search market share in China had declined to 1.7% from its August 2009 level of 36.2%, though it has slowly risen since, representing 3.8% of the search engine market by July 2020.[3][4][5]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall

The Great Firewall (GFW; simplified Chinese: 防火长城; traditional Chinese: 防火長城; pinyin: Fánghuǒ Chángchéng) is the combination of legislative actions and technologies enforced by the People's Republic of China to regulate the Internet domestically.[1] Its role in internet censorship in China is to block access to selected foreign websites and to slow down cross-border internet traffic.[2] The Great Firewall operates by checking transmission control protocol (TCP) packets for keywords or sensitive words. If the keywords or sensitive words appear in the TCP packets, access will be closed. If one link is closed, more links from the same machine will be blocked by the Great Firewall.[3] The effect includes: limiting access to foreign information sources, blocking foreign internet tools (e.g. Google Search,[4] Facebook,[5] Twitter,[6] Wikipedia,[7][8] and others) and mobile apps, and requiring foreign companies to adapt to domestic regulations.[9][10]
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One point people in favor of this proposed ban or sale have made is that China would definitely do the same if TikTok were an American company, and has done so and continues to do so with regard to US social media companies.
 
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