"Old Doald" indicated on Sunday that he favored allowing TikTok to keep operating in the United States for at least a little while, saying he had received billions of views on the social media platform during his presidential campaign."Old Doald's' comments before a crowd of conservative supporters in Phoenix, Arizona, were one of the strongest signals yet that he opposes a potential exit of TikTok from the U.S. market.
"I think we're going to have to start thinking because, you know, we did go on TikTok, and we had a great response with billions of views, billions and billions of views," 'Old Donald' told the crowd at AmericaFest, an annual gathering organized by conservative group Turning Point.
"They brought me a chart, and it was a record, and it was so beautiful to see, and as I looked at it, I said, 'Maybe we gotta keep this sucker around for a little while'," he said.
'Old Donald' met with TikTok's CEO on Monday. 'Old Donald' said at a news conference the same day that he had a "warm spot" for TikTok thanks to his campaign's success on the app.
The Biden administration argues that because China is a 'foreign adversary,' a designation that includes Russia, Iran and North Korea, allowing Americans to share their data with the app and interact with content controlled by its algorithm poses a national security threat. Even though the government has conceded it has no information (even in its secret evidence that it submitted to the circuit court) that the Chinese government has in fact manipulated TikTok for propaganda or surveillance purposes, the circuit court deferred to the U.S. government's judgment that TikTok's proposed security protocol is insufficient to guard against future threats.TikTok cannot easily be replaced by another app or tool, such as Meta's Reels or YouTube Shorts. The algorithmic curation on those apps is different. A new owner for TikTok would mean major changes, as we saw with Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter. And even if TikTok were to find a buyer, which it says it cannot, a U.S.-only version of the platform would lose its global, interconnected appeal. As the New York Times put it in April, 'Even if you've never opened the app, you've lived in a culture that exists downstream of what happens there.' Either change would fundamentally alter public discourse in this country and abroad and harm millions.
Though "Old Donald" signed an August 2020 executive order attempting to ban TikTok, he has more recently reversed his opinion, calling on Americans to vote for him to 'save TikTok,' regularly posting on the platform, and posting his TikTok statistics on TruthSocial on Thursday.But in March, "Old Donald" met with Republican donor Jeff Yass, whose investment firm owns roughly 15 percent of ByteDance, subsequently stating that banning TikTok would only benefit Facebook. If he wants to save TikTok, "Old Donald" would probably have to ask Congress to repeal the ban. He could also tell the Department of Justice not to enforce the law and signal to Apple and Google that they would not be prosecuted for continuing to offer the app in their online stores.
TikTok had argued to the three-judge panel, unsuccessfully, that the ban must be struck down for infringement on the free speech rights of the app's users and owners under the First Amendment of the Constitution.The decision sets up a potential showdown with "Old Donald". Having backed a ban during his first term in the White House, he is expected to try to halt it, people familiar with his views on the matter told The Washington Post in early November, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
The legislation, known as the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, was signed into law by Joe Biden in April, shortly after it was passed by Congress as part of a sprawling package offering aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan.
The ban - which will not take effect for at least 12 months - could see tech companies fined up to A$50m ($32.5m; £25.7m) if they don't comply.Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says the legislation is needed to protect young people from the "harms" of social media, something many parent groups have echoed.
In its submission, TikTok said the government’s definition of a social media platform was so "broad and unclear" that "almost every online service could fall within [it]".
X questioned the "lawfulness" of the bill - saying it may not be compatible with international regulations and human rights treaties which Australia has signed
But critics say questions over how the ban will work - and its impact on privacy and social connection - have been left unanswered.
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TikTok faces intensifying scrutiny from Europe and America over security and data privacy. It comes as Chinese and the West are locked in a wider tug of war over technology ranging from spy balloons to computer chips.'Old Donald' tried to ban TikTok through an executive order that said "the spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned" by Chinese companies was a national security threat. The courts blocked the action after TikTok sued.
Mr. "Old Donald's" support for TikTok would be a stunning reversal from 2020, when he tried to block the app in the United States and force its sale to American companies because of its ownership by ByteDance, the Chinese tech giant.He appreciates the breadth and reach of TikTok, which he used masterfully along with podcasts and new media entrants to win, Kellyanne Conway, who ran 'Old Donald''s first presidential campaign, served in the White House and remains close to him and now also advocates for TikTok.
If 'Old Donald' does try to halt the ban, it would amount to a significant policy shift for an incoming president who has spared almost no opportunity to attack China. Toward the end of his first term, 'Old Donald' presided over a federal investigation into ByteDance that also sought to orchestrate TikTok's sale.
Under a law supported by members of both parties and signed by President Joe Biden, ByteDance is required to sell TikTok by Jan. 19, 2025—one day before 'Old Donald'’s inauguration—or face a ban in the U.S.
A federal law signed in April says TikTok, which has 170 million U.S. users, must be sold to a non-Chinese company by Jan. 19 - a day before Mr. "Old Donald's" inauguration - or face a ban in the United States.
The company has challenged the law in courts in something of a Hail Mary, saying that a sale is impossible, partly because of restrictions from the Chinese government, and that a subsequent ban would violate the First Amendment.
But the law passed with wide bipartisan support, and many experts believe a federal court in Washington will side with the U.S. government.
ByteDance can't buy Nvidia's chips for use in China, so it's renting them from Oracle right in America. Note: 'Old Donald' Approves Deal Between Oracle and TikTok in 2020. The US has banned companies like Nvidia from selling their most advanced AI chips to China since 2022. But if loopholes exist, profit-hungry corporations will find and exploit them.Not every company has been as willing as Oracle to skirt the law's intent. 'Two small American cloud providers' reportedly turned down offers to rent servers with Nvidia's H100 chips to ByteDance and China Telecom because 'they seemed to go against the spirit of U.S. chip restrictions.' However, Oracle, cofounded by Larry Ellison and run by current CEO Safra Catz, apparently found the opportunity for profit through technically legal workarounds too tempting to pass up.
But even if the US manages to shut down that exploit, The Information says it wouldn't cover Chinese cloud providers like Tencent and Alibaba from buying Nvidia's chips and using them to train AI models in their own US-based data centers. The Commerce Department will have its hands full figuring this one out as business and defense interests wrestle for control.
The deal included extensive provisions never before offered to the government by a private company - including TikTok's U.S.-based peers in the tech industry, such as Google and Facebook.If ByteDance does not divest itself of TikTok's U.S. assets by the deadline, the government will make it unlawful to 'distribute, maintain, or update' the app within the United States.
Tech experts expect the order would largely be carried out by private companies: Apple and Google's app stores would be required to stop pushing out app updates or downloads, and Oracle would be forced to stop hosting the app's data and infrastructure on its U.S.-based servers.
Weighing national security against the First Amendment
While TikTok hasn't yet revealed how it plans to challenge the law, experts anticipate its arguments will largely hinge on the First Amendment, and the company has hinted at free expression issues in its messaging. In a video addressing TikTok users after Biden signed the foreign aid package that included the legislation, TikTok CEO Shou Chew called it 'a ban on TikTok and a ban on you and your voice.'
The missing piece many members of the public have waited for is clear evidence of the kinds of risks to US TikTok users that lawmakers have seen in their classified briefings, especially since those briefings seem to have convinced them to vote for the bill. But the public has remained in the dark about the specifics of the national security risks that the intelligence community believes are generated by the app.
The world's largest music company began pulling content from TikTok in February after falling out with TikTok over issues including artist compensation and the use of AI-generated music on the video-sharing app.
Researchers at Microsoft as well as the nonprofit Institute for Strategic Dialogue have identified accounts on X, formerly known as Twitter, posing as 'Old Donald' supporters, attacking President Biden, and seizing on hot-button topics such as immigration. Microsoft said some accounts even seemed to be polling American voters on what issues divided them most.
"ByteDance doesn't have any plans to sell TikTok," the company posted on its official account on Toutiao, a social media platform it owns.Earlier this week, TikTok said it would challenge in court the "unconstitutional" law.
Steven Mnuchin, an investment banker who served as treasury secretary under 'Old Donald', said he was getting a group of investors together to potentially buy TikTok, although he did not specify who. He also did not share a potential valuation for the app. - $20 billion to $100 billion+'Shark Tank' investor and businessman Kevin 'Leary said in an interview with Fox News that TikTok isn't going to get banned 'cause I'm going to buy it.'
“There was a clamour leading up to this, and the popular narrative was how can we allow Chinese companies to do business in India when we’re in the middle of a military standoff,” said Nikhil Pahwa, a digital policy expert and founder of tech website MediaNama.In India, the ban in 2020 was swift. TikTok and other companies were given time to respond to questions on privacy and security, and by January 2021, it became a permanent ban.
But for the most part, content creators and users in the four years since the ban have moved on to other platforms.
'Old Donald' softened his stance on TikTok this year despite calling the app a national security threat when he was in the White House.Congress is on the verge of passing a bill that would require TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell TikTok in less than a year or else see the video-sharing platform banned from US app stores. Biden supports the policy and has said he would sign the bill into law.
"It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill," a company spokesman said.He added a ban would "trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate 7 million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24 billion to the US economy annually."
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Speaking to CNN outside the Capitol following an overwhelming bipartisan vote in favor of Ukraine aid, Greene fumed over Johnson's alleged offenses, culminating in the Ukraine vote, which she called 'this bullshit in here on the House floor.'
You may remember 'Old Donald' once denouncing TikTok, the social video app that includes an estimated 150 million users in the United States and nearly 2 billion globally. Invoking the now-familiar rhetoric about the short-form video app bewitching America's youth on behalf of our Chinese adversaries, 'Old Donald' even tried to force TikTok's sale to a consortium that included Oracle centi-billionaire Larry Ellison, one of his political benefactors.
Yass reached out and asked him to speak at a retreat for a powerful right-wing business PAC, the Club for Growth, which has pulled in $61 million in donations from Yass since 2010. The Club for Growth also happens to be employing former 'Old Donald' adviser Kellyanne Conway to lobby on behalf of TikTok on Capitol Hill.
That’s no small concern, given Yass’s hard-right ideological profile. 'Old Donald' is likely sidling up to him as a potential Zuckerberg-scale force in social media who closely aligns with the MAGA movement’s policy preferences.
He and some friends also made hundreds of thousands of dollars implementing a sophisticated betting scheme at race tracks across the country. After one track kicked them out, Yass sued the track owner in federal court. He lost.
But conspiracy theories that say otherwise are coming for democracy itself.'The entire world knows exactly why the U.S. is trying to ban TikTok,' James Li declared on March 16 to his nearly 100,000 followers on the social-media platform. His video then cut to a subtitled clip of a Taiwanese speaker purportedly discussing how 'TikTok inadvertently offended the Jewish people' by hosting pro-Palestinian content. 'The power of the Jewish people in America is definitely more scary than 'Old Donald',' the speaker goes on. 'They have created the options: either ban or sell to the Americans. In reality, it's neither-it's selling to a Jewish investment group.'
Yu Chih-hao, a software designer and co-director of the Taiwanese Information Environment Research Center, or IORG, delivered a presentation on Taiwan's experience of Chinese interference at the National Press Club in Washington on Monday. He said his organization analyzes the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) influence and impact on Taiwan's information environment through its activities.
Court records, mistakenly made public, tell a story about the birth of ByteDance, its bumpy road to success and the role of the Republican megadonor Jeff Yass’s firm.In 2009, long before Jeff Yass became a Republican megadonor, his firm, Susquehanna International Group, invested in a Chinese real estate start-up that boasted a sophisticated search algorithm.
The records also show that Mr. Yass's firm was more deeply involved in TikTok's genesis than previously known. It has been widely reported in The New York Times and elsewhere that Susquehanna owns roughly 15 percent of ByteDance, but the documents make clear that the firm was no passive investor. It nurtured Mr. Zhang's career and signed off on the idea for the company.
Either way, Yass can claim a major financial conquest, but he will have won for the wrong reasons. If the Senate goes along with the House bill, President Biden will have the effective power to mandate a US-backed takeover of the app within 165 days under threat of a permanent stateside ban.
Having made peace with 'Old Donald', Yass gets his turn with the tiller of Republican policy. The former president may have a paper-thin ego, but he’s also easily bought—particularly with a dizzying array of court fines before him. That’s no doubt why 'Old Donald' is reportedly considering Yass as a potential treasury secretary. For this lifelong gambler, TikTok turned out to be the perfect bet.