The powerful claim that Tiktok supposedly needs to be divested or banned due to both it’s CCP control and it’s effective algorithmic ability to sway US minds.
This seems more like jealousy than security related, as is exampled by the disinterest in actual digital privacy legislation for social media, which would hurt America’s rich. Or alternatively just forcing TikTok to put a big warning not to trust content due to CCP ownership, instead of divest or ban.
They also seem to ignore the fact that US minds (and most everywhere else) seem to be so easy to currently manipulate, and have no interest in improving education to teach how to reduce potential manipulation.
So, after lobbying the government to force a sale of something that can manipulate US voter minds, a former Trump official and stooge wants to buy [edit: at a forced fire sale too] this algorithm that can manipulate US minds.
The divesting push and this purchase push are obviously part of the same effort.
US politicians don’t want the Chinese to control you; but US politicians and businesspeople very much DO want to use this Chinese tech on you for their own purposes. Otherwise, divest would not be an option.
so why aren’t US companies allowed to operate in the same manner in China?
Because the CCP prefers to indoctrinate their population themselves, and puts road blocks to prevent foreign companies from doing so.
America doesn’t, or at least hasn’t, until now.
And American leadership isn’t against foreign governments indoctrinating US citizens via social media. They are against not being able to PROFIT from it.
TikTok is private, controlled by the CCP, and closed sourced.
Trump toadie in this article isn’t trying to shut down the indoctrination. He wants to buy and use it, take the code out and use it everywhere as well as to sell it to the highest bidders, which will likely be more autocrats.
I neither care nor want Facebook et al trying to reshape Chinese minds, though it has no relevance to this point anyway.
And pointing out that the Chinese don’t allow things America does is not the win you think it is here, (ra ra Team America f*ck yeah and what not). If you like how the Chinese do it, go there and enjoy. It’s your life.
yea sadly agreed - oh yea didn’t mean it like ra ra america #1, just hate walled gardens in general.
China is the goal for US progression?
You wanna use China as the example we should aspire to legislate like?
na europe probably
Great. Next can we have X and MnuchTock fight to the death in a Walmart parking lot?
Wait… I can do better: They can merge it with Trump Social™ and have a company worth… One. Billion. Dollars! Mwahahaha!
joins in on evil laughter
Well I bet he knows someone who can come up with 500BN. This timeline seriously
And then they’ll bail out their old boss?
What’s it worth anyway? Guessing $100 - 200b?
Tree fiddy. Final offer.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says he’s going to put together an investor group to buy TikTok, a day after the House of Representatives passed a bill that would ban the popular video app in the U.S. if its China-based owner doesn’t sell its stake.
Mnuchin, the U.S. Treasury secretary under President Donald Trump, didn’t provide details on who else may be included in the investor group he plans on forming or TikTok’s possible valuation.
While some others have voiced an interest in buying TikTok’s U.S. business — among them “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary — there are a number of challenges including a 6-month deadline to get it done.
“Somebody would have to actually be ready to shell out the large amount of money that this product and system is worth,” said Stanford University researcher Graham Webster, who studies Chinese technology policy and U.S.-China relations.
“One of the main effects of the legislation would be to decrease the sale price,” said Matt Perault, director of the University of North Carolina’s Center on Technology Policy, which gets funding from TikTok and other tech companies.
The Trump administration — Mnuchin was Treasury secretary at the time — brokered a deal in 2020 that would have had U.S. corporations Oracle and Walmart take a large stake in TikTok on national security grounds.
The original article contains 641 words, the summary contains 221 words. Saved 66%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
