The sequence of events as far as I can recall:
- Trump promised to ban TikTok
- TikTok was slated to be “banned” in the twilight of Biden’s term
- Trump says he’d give it 90 days to make a decision
- Biden decides not to ban it, handing it off to Trump
- TikTok goes dark
- It returns, but if you search for something anti-Trump in the United States, you can’t find it
- Using a VPN will give you that content
- Various news outlets are now calling it Trump’s “Propaganda Arm”
What the fuck is going on? From a political or technological standpoint.
Fascism from a technological and political perspective
One thing I’m convinced of is that the blackout was not the result of some technical requirement such as people’s speculation that it was for an algorithm change or to switch over to meta’s servers. It was either a messy result of their compliance department playing it safe or it was a political stunt. Likely a bit of both given how much money it must have cost. Regardless of what you believe about TikTok’s “true” nature, they’re playing ball with the Trump administration.
The narrative about TikTok being Trump’s propaganda wing may just be the newest tactic to paint leftists as fascists, though. Always be critical when legacy media is in lockstep.
So tiktok is censoring criticism of Trump?
I kinda wanna check that for myself, cuz I find it hard to believe
I’ve certainly had no dearth of anti-Trump content rolling through my feed. Sounds to me like people who don’t use TikTok are just making stuff up that fits their worldview.
I don’t have TikTok, but if you do, isn’t this easily verifiable? Just go try searching one of the relevant terms.
I guess my previous comment was unclear. There is PLENTY of anti-trump content on my feed that is definitely not getting suppressed. I just searched “pro choice”, “vice president musk”, “antifa”, “black lives matter”, “trans rights”, “felon musk”, “trump sucks”, “trump felonies”, and “vote blue” and found plenty of results for all of them.
The claims I’ve seen are that search results are censored. Like if you search for specific phrases like “Trump fraud” you will get back videos in every country except the US (unless you use a VPN). I haven’t tested this yet, but I have seen videos on TT where liberals and leftists are complaining about it and about the all the Trump dickriding around the ban. The people in my feed are now very distrustful of the app and are looking for alternatives.
You got “foreign influenced” like US has done it for decades to other countries. US used to call it spreading democracy or some sort.
Does that help?
Fascism. That’s what’s going on.
That’s authoritarianism for you! Welcome to the club! (I’m from Venezuela)
i can understand your confusion: actions speak louder than words; so break it down based on what they did (not what they said) to make it make sense:
- trump tries to ban tiktok and fails
- biden, democrats & republicans try to ban tiktok and they succeed
- tiktok goes dark because it is banned
- trump promises to issue an executive order to save tiktok and follows through
- tiktok is back, but now has to depend on trump for its survival so it’ll do whatever trump wants
Except it went dark before the law had a chance to be enforced, and was back up before trump was ever in office and able to use executive orders. So points 3 and 4 have nothing to do with the actual law and are decisions completely from within tiktok
and only one of the app stores brought back tiktok despite trump’s executive order saying that it’s okay now.
when it comes to profits & finance, they’re very easily spooked and will go out of their way to ensure that they don’t lose $$$; points 3 & 4 are in service to $$$ based on how they interpet the law, just like the app stores.
It went dark after the judicial review process found that the law was constitutional.
The important thing to recognize is that the site stopped operating in the us (which it said it would do in reaction to this decision) after it was clear that it would definitely be violating a law with explicit consequences if it continued.
One unremarked-upon aspect of the events between Saturday and Sunday was the arson of a representative’s office in retribution for the ban.
Combined with the crappy algorithm after the shutdown (indicates they gotta actually rebuild all the recommendations), it’s likely that the company shut the site down to be in compliance, intending to go back up if possible once the law was reversed or the new administration was in power, and was offered assurances against legal action and protection against the law after the representatives office was set on fire.
This is key. Trump’s executive order can’t override the law. Executive orders can only interpret the law. With the courts saying the law is valid, TikTok and US hosting companies are understandably hesitant to resume operations just on Trump’s word (which is worthless anyway) that the ban won’t be enforced.
Biden also announced he wasn’t enforcing the law. The TikTok operators saw the writing on the wall and realized they need to bend the knee to Trump.
Don’t get too hung up on specific dates. Laws are not some physical law like gravity that are present and universal. They exist within a fuzzy context of enforcement and interpretation.
Biden made clear he wasn’t going to enforce the law. Trump made clear he was going to make a decision based on how well Tiktok flattered and bribed him. So that’s exactly what they’ve done.
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Uh the Supreme Court approved Biden’s ban that was initiated by Trump. Which is a nice way to make Biden less popular and come out as the saviour, plus TikTok will now lick Donnie’s boots. Someone was very smart, although I don’t think it was Trump himself.
This is exactly the sort of deal making through bullying Trump is known for. He’s crazy, not stupid.
If they let him speech unattended, it goes all gobbledegook in no time, so I suspect he really is not the brightest bulb in the package.
I mean yknow, different kinds of intelligence. Guy’s dumb as a rock in most things, but clearly has a deep unconscious understanding of performance and manipulation
You forgot step 1: Trump promises to ban TikTok.
And that was also step 9, according to his comments yesterday.
Yes that is important!
Uhhh I’m using TikTok with no VPN in the US and still get plenty of anti-Trump, pro-LGBT, left-leaning content. 🤷
TikTok definitely used the news hype to signal to Donald Trump that they will work with him — by giving him “credit” for making the app available again (even though he wasn’t president yet and didn’t do anything). It’s all propaganda from both the US and China.
It’s all propaganda from both the US and China
Well, one large company based in China that saw a PR opportunity anyway, it’s not like TikTok is acting at the direction of the CPC lol
He had to defend TikTok to win over youth votes for the election.
Now that he’s pres again, he knows that in one year it will become very apparent that he can’t lower grocery/gas prices, and isn’t willing to take action on home prices, the deficit, AI, or wage inequality.
So instead he has a list of things that will prop up his approval rating, because that is the only metric that actually matters to him. Right now that seems to mean keeping TikTok, and annexing new territory (even if that just means renaming the Gulf of Mexico).
Chinese citizens still can’t use TikTok. Curious
that’s because douyin is for them
There are rumors of Chinese regulators going after bytedance over unfair business practices in china. I think there is something to the whole affair we are not really seeing.
This is the equivalent of modern day book burning.
One word:
Shenanigans
