Political things aside, it's crazy to see so much of a flip-flop so quickly. Has there been any other behavior like this in the past where a company "shut themselves down" to make a big political statement and then almost immediately undid the shut down?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_shutdowns_in_the_Un...
They were following the law. Anything else is just promises by people who are not exactly known for following through with them
Shutting down because the law says it, and to prevent really big penalties, is not making “a big political statement
OnlyFans did something similar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnlyFans#Restrictions_on_porno...
The timing and phrasing make it clear that this was planned and negotiated in advance, and the shutdown was just for show in order to be able to post a memo about how "President Trump" saved it. If actual negotiation had to occur, it would not have happened in the twelve hours between midnight and noon on Sunday morning.
The point of the stunt was to persuade large numbers of younger folks that the Ds are the bad guys and Trump in particular is the hero. And it'll work as designed.
The Tik Tok in-app notes for "shutting down" and "we're back" both referenced Trump by name. I doubt they would do that without his explicit consent.
Trump beamed his name and heroics directly into the eyeballs of 50m people before he even took office. That wouldn't have happened without the brief blip going dark.
Odds are good he said he'd pardon them (which is a whole different story) but ensured they'd go dark for a few hours, either by withholding his guarantee or by directly coordinating it with them.
This is Trump. It's always about him. If we haven't learned that we haven't learned anything.
The ban was the stick and selling it for a lot of money was the carrot. ByteDance surprised almost everyone in choosing the stick.
There's too much effort and uncertainty involved in actually creating a problem and then actually fixing it.
It's much easier and more reliable to create the perception of a problem by promulgating lots of FUD, then engage in performative theatrics to nullify the FUD and proclaim the problem fixed.
Trump was against Tiktok before he was for it.
He was also against crypto currencies before he released his own.
Trump has never had any issue he has not been on both sides of. He has no ideology, he does what benefits him in the moment at any given moment.
A number of internet services (e.g. Wikipedia) shut down temporarily on Jan 18, 2012 as a political statement against SOPA.
He appointed a bunch of corrupt Supreme Court judges, and they upheld an obviously unconstitutional law (bill of attainment). Now, on his first day in office, he gets to be a hero by unilaterally deciding not to enforce the law.
So, moving forward, (1) we should expect increasingly unjust and draconian laws, and (2) as long as you do what Trump asks, you can break whatever federal laws you want.
(Zukerberg, Bezos and Trump have already gotten in line for this.)
I wish people would understand that Trump has no ideology. Over a span of decades, Trump has been critical of liberals and conservatives, often at the same time. He's praised conservatives and liberals, often at the same time. His political positions are aligned with whatever benefits him the most.
He doesn't care about making life better for the middle class. He doesn't care if immigration restrictions are relaxed or tightened. He doesn't care about whether or not transgender people have access to health care or can or can't serve in the military. He only cares what positions on those issues will benefit him and his friends at any given time. And if tomorrow holding the opposite position will benefit him more, he'll switch, just like that, and somehow convince his base that's what they believe too.
Trump is the one who was championing the idea of a TikTok divestiture or ban, back when he was president the first time. He's only changed his mind on that because opposing the ban is better for him now.
Either because they gave in to the ploy, or because they were unable to close a TikTok deal, the Democrats look incompetent here. And Trump gains favour in the younger demo (that he's already pretty strong in) AND with SMB because he gave TikTok more time.
In Trump's world, I think you should cause a problem, blame somebody else, and then fix it.
The app stores removed the app in accordance with that timeline too.
"Rep. Mike Waltz calls out the Biden campaign's TikTok account: 'They should be ashamed'":
* https://www.foxnews.com/video/6346831867112
Waltz chosen as Trump's national security advisor:
* https://www.npr.org/2024/11/11/nx-s1-5187098/trump-national-...
And currently "Trump security adviser doesn't rule out continued Chinese ownership of TikTok":
* https://www.reuters.com/technology/trump-security-adviser-do...
So ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Trump as a private citizen, can't issue a statement and automatically over-turn a law.
If someone wants to enforce the law, they still can. It's still on the books, and Supreme Court upheld it.
Their preference to shut down instead of receiving tens of billions of dollars would be a clear violation of a company’s fiduciary duty to shareholders for any normal company. But ByteDance’s allegiance isn’t to their shareholders.
https://action.aclu.org/send-message/tell-congress-no-tiktok...
https://www.thefire.org/news/fire-scotus-tiktok-ban-violates...
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/eff-statement-us-supre...
It seems to me that they aren't "pretending" they honestly believe the issue is about free speech. Laws that does not explicitly curtail free speech but effectively still does just that can certainly be created.
And if anything, if tiktok US is sold it will be way below its actual value, so there are many reasons to resist this apart from the political ones. And I assume they expect they will come to a concession in the first place.
This is not strictly true - when a company leaves a huge market, it is imprudent to leave behind a well-resourced competitor in place. If I were a ByteDance shareholder, I'd hate if it spun off TikTok America LLC, and then having TikTok America compete against ByteDance in Europe and the Rest of the world on an equal technological footing, but perhaps even deeper pockets from American markets.
Would you argue for Tesla or Apple to sell to China? Do you think Musk would divest his China business? The parallels are almost identical
1. Tesla cars collect a huge amount of data.
2. Tesla is already banned from being driven by government officials.
3. Tesla has the best self driving algorithm
4. Chinese cars are already banned in the US
5. China is Tesla's second largest market
6. Tesla is the 3rd largest EV company in China
Would you be surprised if Elon decided to exist China instead of "receiving tens of billions of dollars" from China?
It’s a restriction on my speech. Telling me where I can publish a video? Telling me what apps I can download? Telling my software vendor what software they’re allowed to let me get? Telling internet providers what servers they’re allowed to let my device access?
The law doesn’t fine TikTok. The law fines the people who let me download an application I’ve chosen to use. At $5,000 per instance.
It’s not about TikTok’s rights being violated. It’s about mine, and yours.
It is not. A company would be (financially) punished if it didn't follow regulations. DiDi was an example. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/23/investing/didi-us-delisti...
This is only true if you assume the US is the only market that matters. But TikTok is very much an international phenomenon, and selling would likely harm the company far more than a couple billion. Firstly it would give another company everything they need to run a global competitor to TikTok, including software, infrastructure and userbase. Secondly it might encourage other countries to also force TikTok to sell.
Giving in here would be the beginning of the end of TikTok and could well be argued to be a violation of the company's fiduciary duty to shareholders. It would be the ultimate version of chasing short-term gains by selling the long-term future.
The short term "number go up" mentality is breeds is a cancer.
I am shedding tears for those poor shareholders.
https://action.aclu.org/send-message/tell-congress-no-tiktok... https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/banning-tiktok-i...
Is a freedom of speech issue.
Your argument is a false dichotomy, and it's made in bad faith. You argue that they should have taken a 10B pay day, meanwhile they are alive today and arguable worth over 100B.
A lot of folks here are saying that the TT ban had nothing to do with free speech. A couple of indirect rhetorical questions that might be relevant to help illuminate opinions about TT:
1. If there were a single newspaper (in the pre-internet era) that developed and printed a lot of reporting with a particular political outlook and was the home of many columnists known for being the premier thinkers with that outlook, and a law were passed that had nothing to do with the content but had the effect of shutting down that paper, and only that paper, would this be a speech issue?
2. If a political rally were assembling to petition for redress of their grievances, and a law were passed that told them they could say what they wanted but the rally was only allowed to occur in a specific field 30 miles outside the city and 3 miles from the nearest paved road, would this be a speech issue?
3. Given that deadtree-books-in-physical-libraries are not the primary point of reference for most people anymore, if you wanted to block access to certain kinds of information and/or make a statement about doing so, what action would you take in the 21st century to do the equivalent of a book burning? And would this be a speech issue?
There are obvious and easy things you can point out about how the TT law is different from each of those three scenarios, don't @ me about that. But it seems to me that most people who are serious (or, publicly serious, which is a little different) about supporting the TT ban give reasons for it that would be inconsistent with their answers to one or more of those three questions.
I don't understand why this is not the primary takeaway. Regardless of the specifics of this issue, it is objectively a huge power grab for a president to vow to not enforce a law that had bipartisan approval of both the legislative and judiciary branches.
The very dangerous path started a long time ago, or at least that's how it feels from abroad. "He can't" followed by "He wouldn't" then "He did".
I'm baffled people keep saying this. You're miles down the dangerous path - you've almost reached the end of it. This is nothing new.
Everything is illegal.
You live by the KING.
That is a very weird precedent for us to be setting.
TikTok is, as we speak, breaking US law.
I wonder if there was actually a bipartisan majority in favor of getting rid of TikTok?
Yes, the bill passed by a bipartisan majority, but TikTok was not the only thing in that bill. Previous attempts to advance a standalone TikTok bill had failed to get majority support.
This time it got attached to a bill that provided $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, $26 billion in aid for Israel, and $1 billion of additional humanitarian assistance for food, medical supplies, and clean water for Gaza. There was also $8 billion for security in Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific.
A lot of Congress considered that aid (or parts of it) to be critical, and it had taken a lot of time to get there. I bet as a result of that a lot of Congress members would vote "yes" even if they disagreed with the TikTok part.
When Biden signed it he spoke about the importance of all the aid provisions and didn't mention TikTok at all.
It was a rider tacked onto a must-pass bill. There’s nothing about the manner it was passed that makes it special or particularly blessed. This was classic congressional sausage-making.
The system was designed with these checks and balances in mind explicitly.
The future has been clearly telegraphed, and who is going to stop him?
In his own words years ago, he could shoot someone on 5th avenue and his supporters would find excuses for him.
Does he have a coherent position on this that these actions support?
There is a good chance there will be no more fair elections in US.
No, Trump can’t legally postpone or give reprieve to TikTok. The time has passed for that.
Once Congress has enacted a statute and the President has signed it into law, the executive branch must enforce it. An executive order cannot override or suspend a duly passed law unless Congress included an explicit waiver or suspension provision in that law. Nothing in the text of this act appears to grant the President such discretion, so there is no straightforward way for the President to “undo” or pause the ban by executive order. The only way to alter or lift the ban would be through new legislation or a valid constitutional challenge in court.
That seems unlikely considering the Supreme Court already rules on the matter.
It's President Trump, what are you going to do about it? The man has been regularly breaking the law since 2016 and there is never any political will to stop him.
Trump v. U.S. established it's not illegal when Trump does it.
All those opportunist-narcissist shit-stirrers out there rely on the prudent and consequently slow self fixing mechanisms of societies (beyond the dumb and lazy childish masses vegetate below these figures and so looking up to them) like viruses on the delayed adaptation of the immune system. The host that feed them may easily die this way? Not their problem!! They have their shine and rule moment and they do not have much of miserable and futile life left anyway, f*ck others!
Edit: found one from Pew. "The share of Americans who support the U.S. government banning TikTok now stands at 32%." Sept 05, 2024. In contrast, 87% US lawmakers voted for the law that caused this.
Support has declined and opposition has increased. I don't think there's much of a disconnect here though, since it doesn't seem there are many people with strong opinions counter to what Congress chose to do.
But that's why it isn't a direct democracy. Sometimes government needs to do things that are not popular.
But of course this is always going to be an opportunity for a populist to take advantage of the disconnect. Sometimes, as in this case, that is damaging. But of course it's well within the rights of politicians to play that game.
The relevant poll would be one right after the ban was enacted on bipartisan support. It's far too politicized now meaning that a huge percentage of people will simply support/reject it purely based off of "their candidate" being for/against it.
This holds for both sides of the debate.
Note that a majority/plutority becomes more skewed when aggregating constituencies.
Granted 52% -> 87% is still a big increase, but there you have it.
Absurd that the Republicans are somehow going to swoop in and "Save the day" on an issue they themselves championed.
People always blame Democrats for things that Republicans do.
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521...
The parties are just brands competing against each other to appeal to different segments of the same market, offering essentially the same product in different packaging. Getting your competitor to adopt a market position that you've already prepared a response to is a neat trick.
This is par for the course, and I don't understand why anyone would expect anything different.
What would have been a solution to the problem that people would have appreciated?
Efforts to save TikTok have been bipartisan (“Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said he spoke with Biden on Thursday to advocate for extending the deadline to ban TikTok.”) and efforts to enforce the ban have also been bipartisan (“Democrats had tried on Wednesday to pass legislation that would have extended the deadline, but Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas blocked it. Cotton, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that TikTok has had ample time to find a buyer.”)
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/biden-wont-enforce-tik...
Like inflation, this was a problem Trump created and now he’s getting credit for fixing it.
I think this overlooks one key detail. The focal points of the new online world -- "influencers" -- rely on TikTok for the lion's share of their income. Taking away a fun toy might not radicalize someone but taking away their livelihood might.
And even if these users are a tiny fraction of a percent, they wield outsized influence (obviously). They are the new media. Risking losing these people, many of whom have been largely apolitical, seems like a huge tactical error in retrospect, and one that Trump would predictably take advantage of if given the chance.
Absurd that when Trump initially proposed this it was considered a stupid and racist idea. Now they’re for it.
Do you care what a cattle or a sheep thinks? Some may, but the majority don't give it a shit.
I don't think I've seen anything like it in a long time. I also don't think an American company would ever do that as it seems "unprofessional." Ironically, it probably got them huge bonus points so they know what they're doing.
Have you been paying attention the last few weeks?
NVIDIA: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/ai-policy/ "As the first Trump Administration demonstrated, America wins through innovation, competition and by sharing our technologies with the world — not by retreating behind a wall of government overreach."
Companies aren't stupid. They know that in order to be successful in today's world, you have to personally fellate Trump. Thanks to the American voters for bringing us this reality.
And then there’s the fact that the conditions for an extension aren’t met as written in the law. There’s no way he can certify to Congress that the conditions are met, which is why he’s trying to use an executive order. But that’s illegal.
This was literally nothing but a political play intended to give Trump a boost.
> We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office.
Additionally, an extract from TikTok's later statement [1]:
> In agreement with our service providers, TikTok is in the process of restoring service. We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive.
What the fuck? That's some incredible bootlicking by TikTok. They've done a great job making Biden seem like the bad guy for banning TikTok, while Trump saves the day by rescuing them. This is especially ironic considering Trump was the one who wanted to introduce the ban in the first place until he gained 15M followers on the platform.
[1] https://xcancel.com/TikTokPolicy/status/1881030712188346459
Till now, commenting or criticizing someone was fair game, not anymore. Musk and trump have shown they can petty and vindictive. So no more commenting in public too. Not sure what this does to the press. Over time people will be trained to think free press is bad too.
Certainly he is petty and vindictive. But there have always been petty and vindictive people in power, and people that were too scared of them to speak their mind. But there have always been those who still dare to criticize people in power.
Tons of people criticize both of them. In fact, both Musk and Trump have publicly criticized each other, and have now made up.
This is great. Sociologist tells us that any given person can only have 150 friends maximum, same goes with enemies , it will be very long 4 years for whoever sits in the 150 enemies at any given time, but all things considered they aren't people too dissimilar compared to Musk and Trump.
While petty revenge goes on, policy as always gets ignored and problems emerge (inflation, other pandemic etc) and the whole thing will collapse because at the end of the day even a perfect and experienced captain won't be able to steer perfectly a 400M people strong super tanker such as the US, let alone a vindicative one busy lashing out on his enemies aboard.
It will end up like the Evergreen in the Suez canal.
This is pretty much the exact same setup that US companies get in China. This seems like a pretty decent compromise actually. Free speech advocates win because people still get to use the service, but national security folks also get a win because they can monitor its use by a foreign government and shut things down if it’s being used maliciously.
https://oversight.house.gov/the-bidens-influence-peddling-ti...
However, now I think it's the same infinite scroll we already had in twitter and reddit -- but instead of text and images, now it's just videos.
At the beginning the content was really dumb and bad, but after some time it became way better. Now my feed is basically cooking recipes, chemistry experiments, interesting physics facts, bits from my favorite comedians, etc. Maybe Youtube learned my tastes, or maybe the content creators learned how to exploit better the platform. Either way I'd say I'm happy with the result now.
I still think some people are getting brainwashed by certain content, but in the same way as they were getting brainwashed in twitter and reddit.
its very telling how, while youtube (classic) also has these same ingredients, the ux of looking through a menu is far less addicting than the slot machine mechanism from swiping up
Then again, we lost that battle with misogynistic, language-rotting, and violent rap music because we were too worried about being called racists, so there might not be hope we'll do better this time around.
It is so easy to find reports and evidence of how Tiktok could be of great value to people.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/dining/tiktok-ban-cooking...
https://www.today.com/popculture/books/what-is-booktok-meani...
It is not clear if it would have passed if not that procedural trick... So one has to take this into account when considering 'bipartisan support' of the thing.
90% of Republicans in the House voted for the TikTok ban alone. 73% of Democrats.
https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/202486
It is very clear that it would have passed without that procedural trick, because it already did.
I do not. I can hold a person accountable to their vote on this legislation. Their vote on this legislation caused the Supreme Court to release an opinion that affects every citizens 1st amendment rights. Now if they released a statement at the time condemning this while also talking about the importance of the aid they might have some leeway.
I don’t agree with the widespread usage of such “tricks”, but I do understand the harsh reality and limitations of representative democracy.
I don't know why these kinds of shenanigans are still possible. It makes a complete joke of politics and legislation (and by extension: law).
I know I'm shouting at clouds here, and I know the reason is: the sheeple don't care enough to change this thing for the better. But I still feel the need to point it out.
As a former Google employee, during my employment I found plenty of internal blog posts from the China team at that time about this arrangement. It was amazing to me that a lot of these internal blogs simply weren't deleted because people forgot about it and storage was so cheap.
How you see his position as different from ours is an astounding result driven by American imperialist propaganda.
None of these entities are on your side. Highlighting a false dichotomy does nothing.
You're welcome.
For those who haven’t seen it yet, go watch Idiocracy from Mike Judge. It’s a preview of the years to come.
> Come on, scro! Don't be a pussy! Besides, you do a kick-ass job and you get a full pardon.
It's a film that was intended as a joke, and uses Eugenics as its premise. Yes, the Internet has made idiots louder, but it has also helped intelligent people become smarter. The next 4 years will be like the last 8, minus the pandemic.
First I've seen this theory and it makes a ton of sense in light of the new discrepancies between what US and non-US accounts can see and search for.
There are lots of conspiracy theories online. However, I think it is just that the process of bringing the stack back up may be difficult. They also have a huge shopping network, that has also been down, and there are emails/communications to shops saying they are working on fixing it. Also, when I take a link from TikTok and post it in a downloader app, it no longer works since the URL is broken.
Maybe some microservices did not come back up (outage), or maybe they were knowingly compromised as part of the extension deal. While I can see that Lives can not be censored, I do not know the reason for shopping to be disabled, so I suspect it is an outage.
[ Actually shopping is also "live", so maybe that's why ]
We will probably find out over the coming days.
Wonder which companies will be assured by TikTok's assurances there will be no consequences for helping them break the law.
I just hope this causes congress to dig their heels in again. Almost can't believe what I'm seeing.
Defying the literal law on a matter of national security certainly qualifies as treason, or at least a vague "high crime and misdemeanor."
Now that he's done his job for the Republicans (delivered a red wave), is there any benefit to keeping a kleptocratic monster in power?
Should Congress just remove him from office and let JD Vance be president?
Edit: Not sure why being downvoted. China bots?
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/speaker-johnson-2-...
A handful of very prominent creators critical of the US (or other) governments have had their accounts just disappear. The algorithm is also showing decidedly different type of content.
TikTok goes dark in the US - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42753396 - Jan 2025 (2187 comments)
“panem et circenses“, Juvenal 100AD
It's true that this means all similar US-based things should be banned as well, but banning them isn't a matter of suppressing the speech and letting TikTok continue isn't a victory for free speech. It's just a victory for a gross sort of psychological pollution.
The way most of our biggest companies and wealthiest are just lining up to do Trump's bidding is what I would expect from unstable 3rd world countries but never from the US (I know cause I came from one).
Exhibit 1. https://www.capitoltrades.com/issuers/431610?page=2
By now -- people have used their free speech to make reels for every possibly viewpoint convincing any possible demography about anything. The trail of reels needed to convert a mountain biker to a racist, or a Lego builder to an LBTQ ally, is out there. Making the free speech isn't the issue in 2025.
The question is: Who sees what, and whose opinions are shifted in what direction.
The big social networks controls the algorithms. Controlling who sees what is the new "speak", where you directly influence peoples minds simply by showing the right reels at the right moments.
We have always had propaganda and media leaning in different directions. But people would know they are looking at Fox News or The Daily Show or Pravda. With TikTo... you find that people's opinion change very gradually and without perception over the course of half a year. Never seeing "TikTok" -- only seeing "people like you" (which can be a function of time, and evolve) sharing their heartfelt opinions.
Not anything blatant of course. Blatant stuff does not change peoples opinions anyway. Just subtly bump some reels that has been proven to shift a demography in a certain direction.
TikTok has the means to do it -- all the data about what reels cause what effect on what demographic, if they just wanted to.
If TikTok is doing propaganda by subtly promoting some reels over others -- who would know? Why would they not be doing it and how can anyone know they are not already doing it?
I am not saying this is definitely happening. But any discussion that isn't treating all the social networks as weapons of mass propaganda that CAN be used is awfully naive.
And focusing on the "speech" thing seems so misplaced. It's all about who is heard and seen, and that is today all about power and algorithms.
I can maybe understand ByteDance breaking the rules on a promise from the president elect that it will be alright.
I would, however, never expect Apple or Google to take that liability (while not getting much out of it).
edit: It seems that the TikTok app has indeed not been reinstated in the stores yet.
People love being on the in circle of something "naughty".
Just staggering incompetence.
But in all seriousness, there's 3 branches of government and 2 of spoken. Trump's voice should be moot. Hopefully he's put in his place by our institutions and shamed for attempting to subvert the system of checks and balances described by our constitution.
Is it back on the stores or not? Because if not, nothing about the ban has changed, it's only that TikTok undid the decision that THEY took to shut down.
>yeah, let's just ignore that. Dance videos on tiktok are more important than security
That's so f-in absurd. I can't even wrap my head around why anyone would literally protest against the ban. I just hope that germany, or rather europe, will have such a ban, too, and that it get enforced properly.
GOP in the US has constantly been fear mongering about social media bias, but what they really mean is they want their own ideas / bias and nobody else.
The Caesars of Rome often played these public games to make themselves look magnanimous, while at the same time consolidating power and control.
Julius Caesar's rise to power is one example.
Ed: to be clear, the original title specifically mentioned an executive order.
Now they know to make own OS
Facebook and Instagram, via Mark Zuckerberg, and X/Twitter via Elon Musk, are already in Trump's camp and are helping him.
This law gives Trump leverage over TikTok - their access to the US market will likely depend on serving Trump's interests. Like X and Meta (and other SV companies) operating in other countries, they will comply with local oppression. It's incredible that the Democrats keep handing victory after victory to their opponents.
(Trump also is gaining extreme influence over professional news media, including Fox News and the WSJ, of course, but also ABC News, possibly CBS News, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, the LA Times, and many more. It may be time to stop the lazy criticism of the NY Times and start taking them seriously; they could be the only island left in the storm, and will be subject to extreme attacks.)
We found a compromise. TikTok will remain, all of its national security risks will remain. Also, the law that tramples free speech is upheld by the court, but will be blantently ignored and unenforced.
Everybody loses. This outcome is worse than anyone could have conceived.
It's only for 90 days though, unless Trump decides to completely ignore his duty to enforce the law (a distinct possibility).
But yet morons will be like "trump saved tiktok!!!"
Biden admin wasn’t going to enforce ban but TT soft shutdown yesterday with message pandering to incoming admin (broadcasted to hundred millions of users).
High suspicion of political theater.
I wish ppl would see through this and realize this is yet another distraction to divide us via culture war.
That hit's different from Chinese company. lol
Fear disseminated by politicians and social media (pick whatever we are supposed to be afraid of this week.) Paired with an addictive desire to be relieved and distracted from this fear, in part from the same politicians/social media.
These are literally just promises from Trump that these companies are relying on, not an actual change to the law, just a promise that he won't enforce it against them? Sounds like an utterly insane business decision that they'll regret as soon as they fall out with him. Each to their own I suppose.
> The app was still unavailable for download from Apple’s and Google’s app stores.
I guess I wonder if that's going to change specifically. They strike me as the two companies that would be most insane to take Trump at his word here.
[0] https://www.npr.org/2020/08/06/900019185/trump-signs-executi...
Occam's Razor suggests this was due to both a matter of national security from the perspective of the intelligence community and pressure from US companies who have struggled to outcompete TikTok. Basically an "everybody wins" move for the powers that be.[1]
China understandably didn't want to lose its influence, and ByteDance didn't want to give up this incredibly valuable asset, so they said "We'll call your bluff and fight you on the basis of the freedom of speech".
The US government then moved to get a law signed that carves out a very specific way to force ByteDance's hand. I'm sure there were lots of lawyers involved and maybe some back channel with the SCOTUS to make sure this was done in a constitutional manner so that it would survive a suit from TikTok which was all but guaranteed.[2]
That plan worked, so now ByteDance/TikTok/CCP are again forced to sell, except they come to this round of negotiations in a much worse position than they were originally. This makes it better for the many, many buyers that have come out of the woodwork and made public and private bids for the asset.
But these buyers don't want the actual value of TikTok to drop to zero, so they must also be pressuring president-elect Trump to reinstate the app so that it can continue to be used by Americans and therefore remain valuable, so that when they actually get their money's worth when it inevitably changes hands.
Trump isn't restoring TikTok so that it can continue to operate as in the "status quo ante bellum negotii". He's restoring it so that {insert buyer} can claim the spoils in a few weeks.
---
[1]: We can debate whether "everybody wins" includes the US population, but I think they do, because Chinese influence over US culture is strictly worse than US influence over US culture, seeing as incentives are by definition irreconcilable and therefore always worse if under control of the CCP.
[2]: It stands to reason that all of the US government and the top echelons of business and finance is operating in concert here to drive the outcome they want, which is to remove the influence of the CCP over young American minds and to benefit from forcing the asset to be controlled by a US entity.
So while there is some irony with Trump having previously supported the ban, the practical reality is that he and Susquehanna and the Republicans all are winning big on this one, from a political/financial lens.
The Trump administration (back in 2020) were the ones that set this in motion.
"Executive Order on Addressing the Threat Posed by TikTok"
August 6, 2020
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/ex...
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1138556168486...
It's not just Trump though. Neither the Republicans nor Democrats are taking the China threat seriously enough. The CCP must be destroyed.
Republicans will see this as a political stunt that glorifies Donald Trump
Democrats will see this as a political stunt that glorifies Donald Trump.
China will see this as proof they have some control over the US citizenry.
Some thoughts from Donald Trump: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1138556168486...
It is still a Law.
TikTok is still banned, the Supreme Court upheld it.
https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/banning-tiktok-i... https://action.aclu.org/send-message/tell-congress-no-tiktok...
TikTok is coming back online after Trump pledged to restore it https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/19/tech/tiktok-ban/index.htm...
AFAI-remember years ago Trump was "fired" out of presidency before end of mandate, AND banned in biggest social networks.
Now he is playing president before officially entering a mandate, AND around that those same social networks bosses are cringeing - just in case?
That's two things, one that the exact boundaries of period of the mandate doesn't seem to matter, and second, the social-media BS-dancing thing..
so who's in charge ?
And then people in this thread apparently unironically don't see why banning foreign propaganda is a bad thing lol
It's quite fascinating to see a nation's televised descent into absurd cronyism and corruption like this. You've got the prez-elect singlehandedly overturning laws that have just been passed a mere 24 hours ago, making shitcoin scams and getting rich off it, aligning all the psychotic techbros into his corner because they fear what kind of insane bullshit he's gonna pull off on them...
This is grotesque. Israel is massively influencing US foreign and domestic policy via AIPAC and other lobby groups. AIPAC pays US politicians significant amounts of money, practically buys them. And they are not even registered as foreign entities, something JFK wanted to enforce before he was assassinated.
So who is really manipulating US policy.
And this is the exact group that put pressure on US universities to suppress free speech and on US policy makers to sent Israel weapons worth billions to kill thousands of Palestinian civilians.
Now start your downvotes.
The series of Trump indictments all fizzling out, because judges didn't want to indict an on coming president.
And on this particular matter, Supreme Court 'unsigned' opinion felt confused even though it is termed unanimous.
At places it seemed to complain of the paucity of time/scope to consider all parts of the matter more seriously, and at the end even expressed ambivalence about what is going to happen next even.
Frankly bit of shoddy-ness/confused signalling from Judiciary and Supreme Court.
Perhaps it would have been better to just delay the matter by issuing an interim extension and reconsider the issue taking into account the views of the new administration.
This was no urgent matter that a few days delay would have mattered.
If there comes a day in the future where the header of every major website starts says "Long Live Donald Trump", we will all be worse off for it.
I've been extremely surprised how eagerly people have accepted this as a new normal. I can't imagine it's in the long term interest of billionaires to be labeled as oligarchs by half the country.
Let's see what the zoomers and millenials will say for next elections
Never mind that it was him who initially trued to ban it.
Nevertheless a positive development.
It's simply unbelievable to me that a sophisticated community like HN is against a ban in the context of all of the meddling our biggest rival, China, has done in our country to our direct disadvantage. Russia and China's main M.O. has been to divide us; to sow discontent. And they've been pretty successful. Who knows if Trump would have been elected without the Russian election interference. Trump has been a divisive figure who has reveled in destroying social order and he has done so successfully; the amount of hate and distrust for one's opposing political party is at an all-time high in the US, and it shows. This is to say that China and Russia have already been very successful in their attempts. In China Xi likes to say that "The East is rising, the West is falling". This is completely his M.O. and part of his plan.
And now Trump, aware of all of this, is attempting to bring Tiktok back. Knowing everything he knows about it's use and potential future use of a propaganda machine. And knowing full-well that this is good for the East, and bad for domestic civil peace of mind and social order. And in the most Trumpian way possible, he doesn't care. And he's doing it for the most selfish reason possible--to feed his hero complex. Full. Fucking. Stop. This is such a glaring advertisement that he will do whatever he can to put his interests and reputation first over our country's and it's absolutely sickening.
And the fact that there is actual debate and discussion around this issue on HN is just such a shocker. Again, this community should know better about how dangerous propaganda is, amplified by the fact that it's propaganda from our most rapacious, unethical and conniving enemy. An enemy that is planning wars of conquest, who's starving and torturing parts of its population. You want that enemy deciding what your kid spends an hour a day watching on their phone, while you're not paying attention? Yeah, good luck with that.
https://networkcontagion.us/reports/the-ccps-digital-charm-o...
“It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be REDUCED to twenty grammes a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it.”
BUT, Trump wants Gen Z to like him and that’s all there is to it. So he’s just going to come in on a white horse and “Save TikTok” — handing President Xi a gift on a silver platter. Because he doesn’t actually give a fuck about anything besides being popular.
If Biden or Harris won the election, TikTok would have been completely banned with zero intervention at all as you have seen with how it went and Biden whilst still being president would have done nothing and it took Trump to stop it.
Seriously the Democrats made themselves look very bad with this situation.
