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Trump opposes TikTok divestiture
We may be seeing the GOP becoming pro-China in real time.
Recently there’s been a bill advancing through Congress that would force a divestiture of TikTok from its Chinese parent to some sort of Western company. Many are abbreviating this as a “TikTok ban”, but that’s not accurate. It’s more of a forced severing of the app from ByteDance in particular, although the precise details following the bills passage remain to be seen.
The TikTok Question
You could list all the typical issues that social media creates and they’d almost certainly be true for TikTok like they are for Facebook or X. But in addition to this, TikTok has two unique issues from being beholden to the CCP.
The first, less pressing issue is data security. China has a law that allows their government to require any Chinese company to give them any personal information they request. ByteDance has been caught a number of times doing bad things with American users’ data. They spied on journalists who criticized the company. The American arm forwarded data to the Chinese arm, which forwarded it to the Chinese government.
The second, bigger issue is of propaganda. Nearly a third of Americans age 18-29 regularly get news from TikTok. This news is subtly and invisibly controlled by a foreign adversary government. Noah Smith summarizes the broader implications:
So why does this matter? Suppressing Americans’ access to videos about Tiananmen Square might or might not sound like that big of a deal, but consider what TikTok would be able to do in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The U.S. would have to make a very rapid, highly consequential decision about whether to come to Taiwan’s aid. Imagine anti-Taiwan videos flooding TikTok, threatening to send the President’s poll numbers plunging. Imagine the U.S. government hesitating in the face of that concerted flood of manipulated public opinion, and thus losing a critical confrontation with its most powerful foreign adversary.
Trump Opposes Divestiture
As a result of the above issues, forcing ByteDance to sell the app to a Western company is one of the few issues that has broad bipartisan support. Well, it did have bipartisan support until Trump did a 180 and suddenly opposed the bill. This was after Trump met a wealthy TikTok investor who promised to support his campaign.
Now, a politician changing his views wouldn’t normally be that much of big deal. After all, voters generally choose people whose views align with theirs, so for a normal issue Trump would usually either be forced back to his initial position or risk a fall in the polls. We recently saw this with his Social Security reform proposals. However, foreign policy is unique in that the public largely takes its cues from trusted partisan elites. This is a broadly replicated finding that basically translates to “the people are sheep”. Most individuals know that foreign policy is really important, but it doesn’t affect their lives that much, so it’s harder for them to get an intuitive understanding of how things are going compared to something like, say, the economy. Thus, they look to people they trust to get their views, and then say they formed their views by “looking at the evidence”.
An example of this is Russia. There has been a pro-Russian undercurrent in the GOP for the past decade or so, but it was mostly limited to a few fringe individuals. It started becoming more mainstream when Trump feted Putin during his presidency, and then it became even more pronounced in 2023 when Trump used Ukraine aid as a cudgel against Biden. Republicans were quite hawkish towards Russia as recently as the 2012 election when Obama told Romney that “the 80’s called, they want their foreign policy back”. Now here we are a decade later, with Tucker Carlson sniffing chocolate cake in a Moscow parking lot to prove the superiority of the Russian political system and how it’s a “bastion of conservative values”. Russian propaganda about the villainy of NATO is repeated as mainstream conservative talking points, and the Republican base largely goes along with it.
Could the same happen vis-à-vis China? I don’t see why not. Granted, it wouldn’t happen all at once, but I believe a gradual shift in that direction is certainly possible. China is an orderly society with a strongman leader. It doesn’t recognize same-sex unions. As an opponent of America, it could be presented as an opponent of vaguely defined “globohomo”. Simply ctrl+c, ctrl+v the standard talking points used for Russia, as most of them fit just as well if not better for China.
Trump has been hot or cold on China just like he was on Russia. He criticized both countries if he thought the democratic president was doing something that “made us look weak”. But then he quickly changed his tune after having a few inconsequential meetings with Putin/Xi. Eventually, the forces of negative partisanship pushed him to become clearly pro-Russia, and presumably it could happen with China as well. Trump’s clout means much of the Republican elites are following him:
• Tucker Carlson has long been against anything that would hurt TikTok, and could very well be where Trump is getting his views.
• Marjorie Taylor Greene is against the bill.
• Elon Musk is against the bill.
• Kim Dotcom is against the bill, and repeats much of the “America is bad” rhetoric previously seen in pro-Russian arguments.
From this, we’re starting to see the base’s opinions change. For instance, a UCLA Republicans group posted a picture of Trump, Xi, and Putin together, praising them as “three conservative patriots”. Something like this being posted unironically would have been a fever dream 10 years ago. The ironic force would have been so strong that it would have reanimated Reagan as a zombie, given him strength to hunt down whoever made it and punch them in the face.
Insane to think that we've been discussing this 4 years ago.
God I was funnier back then.
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The bill should pass, even though I’m generally very pro-China, don’t care about Taiwan and think the CCP are fine for now.
It’s just ridiculous to allow the clear imbalance of rules that American companies have to face in China while allowing the Chinese free rein in all but the most security-critical (and even then…) parts of the US economy.
If TikTok can operate in the US under Chinese ownership, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter must be allowed to operate in China on exactly the same terms.
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I think the bill as written is bad. If the problem is data collection, them change the rules on data collection. If it’s about the things allowed on TikTok, then deal with that. Banning a single platform doesn’t make sense. If that ha, it’s easy to get around and in a years or two we’d be having the same serious discussion about toktik or something.
I do think a debate about how these companies collect data and their moderation policies is warranted. I just think that the rules should be changed rather than individual debates about the scandal du jour as it hits the news.
You're not going to be able to walk into a company office in China and look at the private books of Tiktok to confirm exactly how much data collection they're doing. Changing the rules for data collection and confirming obedience is impossible.
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There's an argument that this divestiture/ban/whatever is bad because we should focus on strong universal data privacy and the like, something that targets all social media and doesn't single out TikTok. I agree with that, but nonetheless, I think I'm on Noah's side with this, that we are in another Cold War and smacking an arm of the CCP on their little pizza hands is worth the questionable struggle presented by the bill.
Edit to add: This all being said, I suppose this will be the first real test of the right-wing theory about the power of the Cathedral. Will Yass's billions and Trump's bluster be able to make the Deep State blink, or will Yass find himself regretting getting on the Trump Train? Will Team Blue get what it wants regarding China, or is the American public too wedded to their social media to take this sitting down?
ETA2: I'm also not unsympathetic to a common thread in the replies here and to Noah: that it seems hypocritical and pointless of us to be so concerned about Chinese surveillance and control, about illiberalism from abroad, when we still have to deal with the same things at home. But I'd argue that it is precisely why we must take a stand against this. If we cannot stand up for ourselves against an outside enemy, we will never be able to stand up for ourselves against an inside enemy. "My brother and I against the clan, my clan and I against the world" and all that.
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Like last year's anti-tiktok bill, this one is a deceptive. Although not as horrible at quick glance.
https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1767525209064558954
It'd allow executive impose incredible civil penalties ($5000 times monthly user) on all websites and apps excepts places like Yelp (primarily reviews) if they have at least a 20% stake owned by someone from an 'adversary country' (at present Russia, China, Iran, N.Korea). (1)
Or if I'm reading it correctly, any company whose management includes someone who is 'controlled' by any entity that falls under (1)
Note that list of 'adversary countries' is determined by secretary of state.
https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20240311/HR%207521%20Updated.pdf
Once again, it's kinda bullshit.
What's wrong with that? All four of those countries are pretty anti-USA.
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Isn't that penalty specifically for failing to release user data to the respective users before the app is banned?
edit: nevermind, there's another one for failing to stop distribution.
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I think your thinking is choked with lazy cliches that prevent me from respecting it seriously.
Trump did what, some diplomatic niceties? Said nice things about Putin personally? This is one of Trump's strengths, actually: he doesn't bloviate party line formulas, instead keeping his options open. This is in fact what forcing a TikTok sale is, a meaningless culture war distraction for the politicians to hage something to yell about to the base. (Who will buy TikTok? Probably another social media franchise that will procede to manipulate our discourse by algorithm.)
I accept that many posters will perhaps laugh at my characterization ofTrump:
Saying nice things about Russia isn't "proving the superiority of the Russian political system" to anybody. This is a low-effort bad-faith slur to avoid having to think about anything Tucker says. Chocolate cake in a parking lot? That's not disqualifying to anybody who can entertain an idea without accepting it. "Bastion of conservative values"? Is that a direct quote?
If you can't refute or even summarize his arguments why are you bringing him up at all?
Right back at you.
It'd be a pretty consequential action in the US-China rivalry given how important tech companies are these days. There's a reason CCP propaganda mouthpieces are trying so hard to stop it: because having an easy way to reach US voters is a tremendous asset in sabotaging an adversary, or otherwise getting them to do what you want.
That's absolutely what Tucker is doing. Going around trying to prove how great Russia is, often with disparaging remarks towards the state of the US. The obvious implicit follow-up is that we should be more like them, i.e. we should emulate their acidic form of conservatism and likely their authoritarianism as well.
Is there not a lot to criticize? Only in a very binary thinking is criticizing the US some nefarious act and proof of bad will. Or maybe it's just bad when Tucker does it, and if you feel like criticizing Russia that's fine. Let's work out the Russell conjugation: I offer good-faith criticisms of the United States, you disparage America as part of a project to prove how great Russia is.
To anyone who can walk and chew gum at the same time, it's possible to say something nice about how Moscow runs the Metro without also calling for American dictatorship. Or whatever exactly you're alleging: you seem to have smuggled in a lot of unstated assumptions about all sorts of things.
This is exactly the kind of lazy logic lazy politicians love to run on, and is why they're all-in on TikTok. Instead of running on anything concrete (why is the Moscow Metro nicer than New York's?), they can bulldoze through lazy speeches about American Values, Democracy Abroad, Standing Up For What We Believe In. China is bad, and I did something about China by [selling TikTok to a consortium of Facebook, Saudi princes, Australian moguls, and a tech CEO from Thailand]. But Donald Trump isn't strong on China, because he said Kung Pao Chicken is delicious. This November, vote for someone who will take the Chinese threat swriously -- see, the best part is that by running on foreign policy, politicians don't have to concede any messy realities to real political actors, although mass immigration is making sure that every tribe in the worls eventually becomes a key American voting bloc.
I feel like you're being deliberately obtuse here. Of course you can criticize the US or the way that things are done here. But you don't have to go to an adversary country to do that, nor hold them up as an example of where it's supposedly done better. Tucker's examples were bad for other reasons, e.g. cherrypicking and just being wrong about basic facts like Russian inflation being less than the US's. But beyond that, Tucker has had a pro-Russian bent for a long time, so it's a motte-and-bailey to say there was nothing else going on there. He could have taken examples from friendly countries like Japan or Europe, but he didn't. He also could have added caveats explaining how he didn't think the US should be like Russia in most ways but that clean subways were an exception, but he didn't. His entire trip was done to delegitimize the West and hold up Russia as a better alternative. It's why he went and asked softball questions to Putin, giving the leader of an enemy country a high-profile platform to say whatever he wanted to Western audiences.
As a thinking adult, I don't actually need public figures to tediously signpost everything they say so I don't assume they mean something they never said. I can actually conclude, by myself, without anybody holding my hand, that when Tucker Carlson is praising the Moscow Metro, he is not simultaneously saying that the US should become exactly like Russia in every way. This is especially tedious on your part because Tucker actually does proffer all of the caveats you're asking for, and then describes how Singapore, Tokyo, Abu Dhabi, etc., are also all nicer than America. For example, check 1:38 in the following:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=hrE3yr4ss8U
If you really want to argue this point, I suggest you quote Tucker specifically and make your case. Because, otherwise, I suspect that you waltzed into some lazy narrative about how "Tucker has had a pro-Russian bent for a long time" without particular basis, don't want to admit you were wrong, and that this in fact characterizes the majority of your post above.
You actually do have to go to Russia if you want to conclude that (some of) Russia is nicer than the US. And this argument doesn't become radically different if you replace "Russia" with "Bosnia" or "France". There's no secret dogwhistle where Tucker visiting Russia to interview Vladimir Putin is the secret additional context that finally unlocks the true meaning that Tucker really wants to impose Russian-style dictatorship on the West.
This is childish thinking. Why is it a bad thing to let Putin speak? When journalists lie and tell you they are safeguarding democracy by not platforming certain ideas, the power fantasy is for the people doing the gatekeeping, not you in the audience! Vladimir Putin is a global figure, he has a "high-profile platform" already. He can say "whatever he wants to Western audiences" all the time. He frequently does!
I could do a response here but:
etc.
Being maximally antagonistic while still staying just within rules to not get modded is still annoying, and my past experience on this site has proven time and again that these discussions are almost always unproductive. For the record, I probably shouldn't have done the "right back at you" or the "you're being obtuse" parts above. I probably should have just not responded at all when you led with "choked with lazy cliches", although to be fair the rest of your first comment was fine and it's only down here in the replies that you have obnoxious stuff in almost every paragraph.
I mean to be antagonistic, within the rules. I think your frame of the issues is infaltalizing, and I want to call that out. It's not personal, I don't want to be simply mean, and I appreciate your graciousness in conceding a few flaws. For my part I thought my first post was phrased in an unnecessary way, especially my opening sentence But I enjoyed the work of putting my later objections down and I was too busy that day to write a nicer head. So if there's any bad-feeling here that's my fault.
Don't.
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Or they might just be concerned about the economical impact this would have on them?
There would be a bidding war for TikTok that would likely approach its current legitimate valuation.
Firstly, this seems to be proving too much - if being forced to sell has no cost, why would anyone hold (especially once you consider risk and concave value functions)? Secondly, there are surely indirect economic impacts too - this sort of measure would open up the Overton window to other protectionist measures against Chinese corporations, including ones that can't be so easily sold or spun out.
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You support the west becoming more authoritarian to combat Russia/China in the neocon/cultural left direction and Tucker opposes that and been critical of western authoritarianism and western cultural far left extremism.
This idea that you represent the less authoritarian option here over Tucker is making black into white.
The reality is that those who are dealing with authoritarians who use permanent war and demonization of other countries abroad to justify their anti conservative, anti-its own people authoritarian empire, are going to show some sympathy to eastasia. They are not going to buy into the narrative of demonizing the foreign empire to justify the repressive rule of their own rulers.
There isn't any moral legitimacy but more in line with the most sinister similiar historical ambitions, of American imperialists desiring to subjucate the whole world.
I would suggest to make America good again in home, worth supporting for conservatives and moderates which would have to mean that neocons are kept out and down and also that isn't to justify an American imperialist agenda. It is legitimate to oppose America as the warmonger/bad actor, contributing to conflict in places like Ukraine or middle east. America as in the people and the empire are not the same, and Americans benefit from some pax americana but not with beligerent american imperialism which comes with imperial overreach, and is directed by people who don't have any loyalty to the American people.
In regards to conservatism, a moderate age that produces good outcomes requires a healthy level of conservatism, and its absence, is precisely an aspect of the many bad outcomes and social disintegration that western world suffers from. What this means is a society of healthy nuclear families as an ideal, promoting the history of its people, and celebrating and continuing the heritage, being patriotic but ideally not disrespectfully imperialist against other people. Now, a mixture between conservative norms and some norms that could be associated with liberalism but the liberal tribe is about a more hardcore ideology than that, is more in line with what Tucker has in mind and personally my preference. Ironically, excessive social liberalism and fanaticism against moderates as you also illustrate goes against having freedom, since it results in bans of platforms that allow valuable speech.
I agree with a poster bellow that part of the reason they are trying to ban ticktock is because it has content that is critical of Israel.
The totalitarian, ironically extremely racist, "anti racist", "our democracies" type of vision is promoting something destructive and incredibly ugly.
The rise of new power block is incredibly dangerous time for the world as the old one often tries to stop this through conflict. Last thing the world needs is going closer to world war situation because certain extremist imperialists can't deal with the fact that countries like Russia and China are going to be influential too, and in fact plenty of countries are very willing to cooperate with them and even trade without using the dollar. Rather than beligerence, coexistence and trading with both China and USA and being more favorable towards USA because dealing with them would be more pleasurable and prefferable in that manner than dealing with the Chinese, should be what USA offers.
I reject the notion that the US is an "empire", at least since the winding down of the Iraq war. US allies are free to end their associations with the US (like NATO) without fear of getting invaded by the US. The same was not true of conventional empires.
I broadly support this, but the best way to do this is by winning the battle for public opinion on things like rejecting blank-slatism, postmodernism, and the corrupt implementation of the Civil Rights Acts. Instead, US conservatives have gone from the party of endless occupations in the Middle East ~20 years ago to rejecting democracy (or at least the results of democratic elections) and allying with America's enemies today.
The issue isn't that Russia and China are going to be influential. That's bad given their repugnant authoritarianism, but it's nothing that would merit more than a Cold War 2 style competition. The main issue is that both have made clear they want to conquer their neighbors by force. That principle has been one of the best things to come out of Pax Americana barring the mistake of the '03 Iraq invasion. Reverting the world to the pre 1945 days where strong nations annexed weaker ones would be terrible for lots of reasons.
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I had to look up Yass again to figure out why he was so involved in Tik-Tok being that I knew he was already rich from SIG. Turns out he has $7 billion from SIG but Tik-Tok is another $21 billion so I can see why he’s fighting for it.
I lean towards banning Tik-Tok but admittedly haven’t made up my mind.
I have an acquaintance who was sued by SIG when he left. I’ve read the lawsuit and it’s basically they put Nasdaq/SP500 on a tablet and used it trading on the floor. Sounds so basic now.
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I recall when the United States would criticize other governments for trying to force-nationalize foreign companies, so this is rather ironic.
Personally I would rather have the Chinese government spy on my data than have the US government spy on it, for the simple reason that because I live in the United States, I have more to worry about from the US government spying on me than from the Chinese spying on me. This might change if I become, say, a rich businessman or politician whom the Chinese wish to influence. But for now it is as I have said.
In general I am against this bill simply because giving the US government more power to censor information is against my interests. China is not my friend, and I would not wish to live there because it is authoritarian. However, given my pro-free-speech attitude, it seems to me that TikTok's political opponents in the US are largely also my political opponents.
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How are Putin and Xi not conservatives and patriots? Putin goes on and on about traditional, religious family life. He outlaws gay propaganda and sends the degen nudist partygoers off to prison.
Xi wants the youth to be manly, vigorous nationalists. He shut down the Beijing LGBT centre.
Trump is the least conservative of all of them! I don't recall Putin waving a rainbow flag spontaneously at a rally.
Seriously, it's not hard to explain why US conservatives are moving towards Russia and China. They see their 'conservative' leaders function as doormats for the progressive left - tax cuts are not sufficient weapons for a culture war. They want to see their views aggressively advanced like how progressives do. They want their enemies at home crushed. They see people who know how to crush - Orban, Putin and Xi as a model for how to really get things done.
Strategically of course, Russia and China are US rivals. Russia plays up its cultural conservatism to appeal to the US right, they want to sow division in their primary adversary. Why wouldn't they want to throw a wrench in the gears of the State department/deep state machine? But for many Americans, the strategic threat is quite distant. I reckon many American conservatives see Taiwan as yet another progressive-occupied country (like Ukraine) whose semiconductor exports are most important for Big Tech polycule enjoyers who are busy erasing white men from history and funding progressive causes with their gigabucks. It makes little sense to hand Tiktok's market share from the distant enemy to the near enemy - Big Tech will quickly take over Tiktok if it's taken from Chinese control.
Why would they want to get vaporized by missiles so some soy-sipping effeminate male can preserve his lavish lifestyle as a Vice Assistant Product Manager? Why would they think that the wars they're expected to fight are for their values when the military and state department goes out of its way to cater to progressivism - DEI, LGBT, walk a mile in her shoes... They spent many years reflexively supporting expensive, useless neocon wars in the Middle East, they're now very suspicious of foreign engagements. This is partially behind the recruiting crisis, some conservatives have started attacking the US military in rhetoric. They don't want to tag along with deep state foreign policy goals anymore.
I'm not saying that what they think is the whole story. Losing Taiwan will put a dent in the lifestyles of all Americans, not just big tech.
Ukraine is not progressive nor progressive occupied. Regardless of US involvement in the coup, it simply isn’t- it’s a dirt poor ex-Soviet mafia state where actual literal Nazis are an important political faction.
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You can be completely annihilated as a principled conservative patriot in a conflict against another principled conservative patriot. Many leaders in Israel and Hamas are principled conservative patriots for their respective nations. Many, perhaps even most major wars in history have been fought between principled, conservative patriots.
And Xi’s occasional gestures to the Chinese equivalent of the online right are as halfhearted and largely ineffective as they seem - just like his policy on birthrates. Putin, meanwhile, single-handedly destroyed the Russian dissident right and even assassinated several of its key figures as Dase documented, so again this is hard to describe as a great victory for reaction.
you think Random meant that they were reactionary conservatives instead of only conservatives?
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I think it's probably more that slotting your favored presidential candidate in alongside a pair of dictators is a weird look, especially when you're also calling your opponents of being hysterical for accusing you of backing a wannabe dictator.
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I guess I shouldn't be surprised that your comment completely ignores the lobbying by Jewish groups to ban the platform due to the presence of anti-semitism and support for Palestine:
If you think bipartisan support for this bill is about hypothetical scenarios involving the invasion of Taiwan and public exposure to TikToks about the Tiananmen Square I have a bridge to sell you...
This is also coming off the heels of a leaked audio of ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt in panic proclaiming "We have a major Tiktok problem" and saying that they have to work together to solve the problem... which they now are doing...
Obviously Musk is going to oppose the bill, because it's half a step beneath banning a social media company for allowing anti-Semitism.
It's about Israel/Palestine, not Tiananmen Square. The Chinese dimension to it makes it an easy target, but it's being targeted because of antisemitism, and X could be next.
I'm cognizant of the fact that the Jewish lobby has a tremendous amount of power in the US, and that it's generally not a good thing considering the US-Israel alliance is pretty lopsided and parasitic, where the US gives lots of aid and spends huge amounts of diplomatic capital for dubious returns.
That said, I don't think an argument that's essentially "the jews want you to do this, therefore you shouldn't do it" is particularly persuasive. The reasons I listed in the first comment are still valid. We shouldn't allow a corporation from an enemy country that's beholden to said country's government to have unrestricted access to the domestic information sphere, especially after they've proven multiple times that they're willing to abuse it.
This is just a slippery slope unless you're willing to go into a lot more detail on how force-divesting a Chinese company for things specifically related to Chinese manipulation in the context of wider geopolitical competition with them, could directly lead to the government using that power randomly on anyone and everyone. The bill specifically mentions control by a hostile foreign power (currently limited to just 4 nations), so the brightline is pretty clear.
Then Israel should be added to the list of hostile nations, and any media apparatus with significant ownership by any Zionist should be forcefully divested. It doesn't even take an act of Congress to do that after this bill is signed into law.
The Jews want to censor criticism of Jews and Israel as they've managed to do on every other major platform except X after Musk's takeover (proving the extreme importance of corporate ownership to bottom-line content that is censored or boosted). That can be opposed in its own right, I don't oppose that simply because Jews are trying to do it.
Israel isn't hostile in the same way that Russia or China are though. I'd argue they're highly overrated, but they're not trying to destroy the influence of the US as an end-goal, they're just getting way more out of the relationship than they're putting in.
So force a TikTok divestiture for censoring anti-China views, then fight against pro-Israel censorship on other platforms.
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You do realize that the very billionaire investor who successfully lobbied Trump into opposing the TikTok ban (and by far his biggest donor in the 2024 cycle so far):
…is noted Jewish Zionist Jeff Yass, right?
One would hope that if there really was a Zionist plot against TikTok that they would manage to avoid a right-wing billionaire who is perhaps the largest donor to pro-settler religious Zionist think tanks in Israel torpedoing that effort to make a few bucks.
Just to add to my other reply:
WSJ:
Economist:
So previous efforts failed, but all of a sudden in a divided Congress we get a consensus on forcing a divestment after this push by the Jewish lobby... and as mentioned in my other reply it seems an investment fund founded by two Jewish Zionists, including the former US Treasury Secretary and former US ambassador to Israel, are angling to purchase it.
But yeah, the real problem is Taiwan and Tiananmen Square and CCP influence in the GOP, right...
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I guess I shouldn't be surprised your comment completely ignores the history of attempted Tik-Tok bans in favor of once again blaming the Jews. There was a measure floated in March 2023 on a Tik-Tok ban. It was banned from all US government devices in 2022. Mike Gallagher was pushing for a complete ban in 2022. Trump tried to ban Tik-Tok in 2021. The Jews probably aren't the deciding factor here.
ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt was heard on leaked call demanding something must be done about TikTok due to declining support for Israel among young people, hundreds of Jewish organizations throw their weight behind a Tik Tok ban, a week ago Time publishes in article by Anthony Goldbloom titled Why TikTok Needs to be Sold or Banned Before the 2024 Election which hardly mentions anything about some national security threat from CCP, and instead under the heading "Why it Matters" complains about the portion of pro-Palestinian hashtags on the platform and the spread of antisemitism...
They want control over the moderation and algo, as ADL has control over the moderation of Reddit and nearly every platform except X only since Musk's takeover.
And still, in a thread where @Ben___Garrison is lobbing accusations of foreign influence against the GOP by CCP and Russia he doesn't even breath a whisper about Zionist influence. It is obvious that Zionist influence is at play here, and the fact you can pontificate about the lack of Tiananmen Square videos while ignoring the planning and lobbying by Zionists to force a divestment on behalf of Israel and to combat antisemitism, despite their explicit plans laying out their objective and motivation, says it all really.
Edit: And news that is now just breaking, looks like Jewish Zionist Steven Mnuchin is angling to buy TikTok after the bill is passed.
From CNBC:
From the JPost article earlier this year about the Liberty Strategic Capital:
It should also be noted that David Friedman, Mnuchin's business partner who co-founded Liberty Strategic Capital which is angling to buy Tik Tok, is also a Jewish Zionist and former US ambassador to Israel.
Yes, I looked at the Twitter post of the Greenblatt phone call the first time you posted it. Who's he on the phone to? What demands is he making? The closest thing to a demand in the excerpt you linked to is "Our community needs to put the same brains...towards this like fast", which is frankly a pretty anodyne call to action.
Goldbloom's editorial was published March 7th. H.R.7521 was introduced March 5th. Mike Gallagher, the sponsoring legislator, is the head of the chair of the House Committee on The Chinese Communist Party. He put a version of this bill forward in 2022. He's been gunning for Tik-Tok and anything CCP-related for a while. This isn't new, he's been pretty vocal about it. I've heard concerns about Tik-Tok from other members of Congress and from national security pundits and think-tanks for a while.
Huh? What's your evidence?
There's a version of your claim in which Jewish support is enough to push things over the line and Gallagher finally gets his bill, then sure, there's probably some truth to that. However, that's a far cry from your original claim that "[Tik-Tok is] being targeted because of antisemitism".
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And yet if the plan to force ByteDance to sell is a "Jewish Zionist" one:
Why did noted right-wing Zionist, Bibi fan, ByteDance investor, settlement supporter and GOP donor Jeff Yass personally convince Donald Trump to completely reverse his position on TikTok, allegedly in advance of a major donation? Was he not informed of the Jewish Zionist position in advance? Would he really screw over his entire tribe just to make a quick buck? If he did defect in such a clear and destructive way, that would be a strong refutation of the Jewish group evolutionary strategy hypothesis advanced by eg. MacDonald and others.
Where's the evidence that TikTok has remained unbowed by eg. the ADL's pressure? A large majority (more than 60%) of TikTok's parent, ByteDance, is owned by global institutional investors. Many of these investors, from Yass (who owns 15% of the company, almost as much as the cofounders), to Yuri Milner, to other large institutional investors like Blackrock, to venture capitalists like Sequioa that have major stakes, are owned, operated or led by prominent Jews, pretty much all of them Zionists, several actual Israelis. If TikTok's investors wanted to pressure TikTok into pro-Israeli positions, why wouldn't they be able to? In addition, TikTok's western moderation is all handled from the US and performed by Americans and their contractors. No policy in China, likely not even any Chinese executives, would need to be involved in such an effort. And indeed TikTok has already thoroughly supported and joined the global pro-woke content policy movement in the US and Western Europe. The only reason this wouldn't work is if the CCP exerted political pressure on TikTok to specifically avoid kowtowing to these prominent investors. But then...
Why would China be opposed to censoring pro-Palestinian views? In addition to China's own troubles with Islamism, China has a long and productive relationship with Israel. Israelis and Jews are generally liked in China, indeed you yourself have accused Israel of repeatedly selling the Chinese 'top secret' American technology. China has resisted any full-throated condemnation of Israel beyond the boilerplate ICJ statement against colonialism, and certainly has resisted the idea of any sanctions or restrictions on trade with Israel. The pan-Islamist sentiment often promoted by Palestinian boosters is itself a threat to Chinese minorities living in Muslim lands like Malaysia and Indonesia, where ethnic Chinese (whom the CCP has previously tried to protect from native depradation) have been arrested for publicly opposing some anti-Israel policies. Radicalizing Muslims populations in an explicitly Islamic fervor for Palestine does not serve Chinese foreign policy goals, especially when Israel is increasingly neutral on the US-China question.
In summary, the argument that this censorship is about Israel-Palestine doesn't really make sense. It misunderstands ByteDance's own corporate structure, TikTok's management and political stance (if any) and China's relationship to Israel, which is largely friendly and no more hostile than that of, say, Macron's France. Israel itself has not protested TikTok's moderation with China, and therefore the support of some American Jewish groups for the ban is more about jumping on a general societal bandwagon and flailing around because they're supposed to be 'opposing antisemitism' and don't really know how.
Obviously, that one Jewish investor opposes it (as far as we know) due to his own bottom line. You are continuing the time-honored tradition of "You can't relate something to Jewish influence unless literally every single Jew is involved" even though that standard is never held in analysis of other group-organized activist behavior.
We have ADL, Jewish Federations of North America, media pieces like Goldbloom's and others advocating for the forced divestment because of antisemitism and not because of CCP security concerns. This includes various stories pointing out that the antisemitism and Israeli concerns are what has united what have been previously failed efforts. But you'll point to one Jew with a financial stake. And the sourcing of that entire story is extremely thin, there is no chance we have any idea what conversations are happening between closed doors with Jeff Yass and potential buyers. The entire basis for your claim is this fact: "According to Politico, Trump praised the investor at a Club for Growth retreat at The Breakers resort in Palm Beach, Florida." That's it.
Did you not listen to the leaked audio of Greenblatt I linked from November? How is that not evidence when it is coming right from the horse's mouth?
How is this not evidence?
Tik-Tok is not censoring pro-Palestinian views. So the ADL wants to change management.
The story broke this morning that Steven Mnuchin is looking to lead a purchase of Tik Tok through his investment group, which has an office in Tel Aviv, and co-founded by the former ambassador to Israel.
It's amazing how this entire constellation of evidence, including a comically on-the-nose detail like Tik Tok being potentially purchased by an investment group with an office in Tel Aviv and co-founded by the former US ambassador to Israel, and you still deny what is happening, all because Yass gave $16 million to the Club for Growth action which is defending Tik Tok.
I'm gonna regret asking this, but when you keep pointing to Jew Conspiracy Theories because Jewish groups are generally against anti-Semitism, is it not possible that this is because... people generally don't like movements that are directed specifically against them? And have rational reasons to oppose them?
Your take is obviously that Jews really are a malignant coordinated network of bad actors acting against non-Jews and that we should Name the Jew whenever possible, and that Jews complaining about this are just Jews upset at being caught being Jews. But for people who don't see Jews as an existential threat, yes, pushing anti-Jewish propaganda does look like a threat to Jews, it should hardly be surprising that rich Jews and Jewish organizations oppose anti-semitism. Even excluding the Holocaust there is plenty of historical evidence of Jews having good reason to consider themselves actually under threat of violence. If there were a large movement of people trying to convince the world that Chinese people are evil bugmen we should view as an existential threat, I would expect Chinese organizations and rich Chinese to have an interest in opposing these groups.
None of this is to say I personally think TikTok should be banned because it allows anti-Semitic content. But you don't need sinister conspiracies of Jews trying to keep the goyim from Noticing to explain why they have a problem with it.
Obviously I accept Jewish neuroticism and paranoia over antisemitism as axiomatic, not something that is a "conspiracy," and I have never related that as a conspiracy. But that neuroticism and paranoia expresses as group-organized behavior in culture, academia, social media.
I have a problem with it, obviously, because it affects me and my nation. That group-organized behavior is used to direct public consensus in a way that is favorable towards Jews and unfavorable towards non-Jews, with stifling criticism of Israel being one example. Another example of course is the question of White identity politics, which has always most vehemently been opposed by organized Jewish behavior precisely because they are afraid of antisemitism.
Jewish groups are at the forefront of fighting any sort of political rhetoric that is oppositional to demographic change, associating "Racism" with antisemitism.
So they get identity politics, White people do not, and Jews use their power in various cultural institutions for their own benefit, often at the expense of White people.
I do not think it's a "Jew Conspiracy Theory" that Jews oppose antisemitism. But their behavior in using their influence to direct public perception and stifle, using increasingly authoritarian tactics, criticism of themselves is what I take issue with. Do you see the distinction?
So the Jewish lobby is trying to ban or force divestment of TikTok to further stifle criticism of their behavior, obviously I don't take issue with that because I think it's illogical for them to oppose antisemitism. I take issue with it because it's hostile to non-Jews by stifling the speech of non-Jews and not allowing them to express their own ethnic interests which is something Jews do vehemetly. I also think the criticisms being made on platforms like TikTok are valid and important for the public to hear.
You think it's understandable for Jews to signal-boost complaints about antisemitism (re: the behavior of non-Jews as it relates to Jews), can't you understand why I believe it's important for non-Jews to be able to express and signal-boost valid, true complaints about Jewish behavior (re: the behavior of Jews as it relates to non-Jews)? And why I would oppose the efforts by Jews to outlaw any expression of the latter in all arenas of the public square while demanding the former is held as sacred in all those spaces? I understand why they are doing it all too well, it doesn't mean I can't oppose it.
Only if I agreed with you that "Jewish behavior" means the same thing as "Anti-white behavior," which I do not. Your argument is basically that antisemitism is rational because Jews are our enemies so we should be "antisemitic." Obviously I don't expect to change your mind on this, but this being the Motte, you should at least entertain the possibility that you are wrong, and that Jews oppose antisemitism because they genuinely would prefer not be targeted for harm as a race, and not because it's a cynical move to control the discourse in an anti-white race war.
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TikTok’s original Western investors were, as I noted, substantially Jewish. Milner, Moritz, Yass and others all were/are. And again, frankly, even if TikTok had nothing whatsoever to do with anything related to Israel, a group of private equity investors looking to buy a media business is probably going to be pretty Jewish anyway, so Mnuchin’s involvement (what, could he not call Trump to support the bill last week?) isn’t surprising.
What annoys me is that in any other case, the fact that Trump happened to speak to a well-known billionaire Jewish Zionist and campaign donor before making a radical policy u-turn would be a big deal to you and you’d no doubt speculate as to what influence the Jews continued to bring to bear over him and US politics in general. But because Yass’ actions are a strong indication that the TikTok sale isn’t solely or primarily the product of organized Zionist activism and that this wouldn’t even be necessary to algorithmically censor anti-Israel content on TikTok, it’s just some minor, barely relevant single-case anecdote.
Yes indeed, look at the quote itself:
Greenblatt is transparently talking about the “TikTok generation” ie Zoomers, which is why he literally clarifies that he means “Gen Z” immediately after saying TikTok. The ADL has criticized all social media since 7/10, and again this entire theory relies on the suggestion that TikTok is actually being less harsh on pro-Palestine content than Instagram, for which there’s no evidence (any discrepancy is most likely just the result of demographic differences in userbase).
No. Yass isn’t just ‘a Jew’; now that Adelson is dead he might well be the most prominent Zionist donors in American politics, perhaps even the most prominent. He’s closely related to the ‘entire constellation’ of Zionist lobbying in the US - including to Mnuchin and Friedman. Why are you even taking this position, when you could just as easily argue that the effort to prevent a TikTok ban is the result of Jewish-Zionist lobbying in concert with the CCP to destabilize American state control over the media its people consume and so Jewish investors and venture capitalists can extract themselves at higher profitability after the inevitable IPO? There is the same volume of evidence in that direction too, and it might even be the argument you’d make if the attacks on Israel hadn’t happened last year.
Why do you assume that powerful Zionists (who are both friends of China and substantial shareholders in TikTok) need it to be banned or transferred to US ownership in order to pressure it into censoring pro-Palestinian views?
The more likely option is that the Palestinian content was just another argument used by China hawks to persuade more congressmen to support the bill, and that a few major Jewish American organizations signed on because its literally a letter and they need to justify their funding.
The whole TikTok ban debate is actually between China hawks and longstanding PE/VC investors who want to cash out on one of the (very) few winning lottery tickets the tech market has printed in the last few years and will be damned if Joe Biden prevents them from doing so. Everything else is kayfabe and/or whatever argument looks good at the time.
I'm sorry, but I just find your response completely absurd. We have leaked audio, we have Jewish journalists putting pen-to-paper identifying why they support the divestment, and it's because of antisemitism and not concern over CCP national security, we have Jewish lobbyists representing hundreds of Jewish groups explicitly saying they support the divestment because of antisemitism, we have other journalists openly admitting that Jewish lobbying over antisemitism concerns which has brought unity and priority to this issue whereas it stalled before Oct. 7, it comes out that two Jewish Zionists including former US Ambassador to Israel are lobbying to purchase it, and you are still trying to cast doubt over the motives that they are completely open about. I don't know what else to say, why don't you believe them when they say what they are lobbying for and why they are doing it? Why don't you believe the journalists who are publishing pieces supporting it because of antisemitism and admitting that this issue has changed the political landscape of the topic?
Yes, the consensus and prioritization of this issue is primarily the product of organized Zionist activism. A single investor who is lobbying based off his financial interests does not change this fact. I will again point out you are engaging in an isolated demand for rigor with your "you can't identify something as group activism unless literally every single member of that group is on board", like we can't attribute BLM to organized black activism because of Candace Owens or something. This is something you and everyone always does when Jewish group activism is identified.
Come on, 2rafa, he is talking about Tik Tok, there he is calling it "Al Jazeera on steroids, amplifying and intensifying antisemitism, anti-Zionism with no reprecussions."
You have the ADL, you have Jews in the media apparatus, you have Jewish Federations of North America, you have Jewish Zionists including former US ambassador to Israel lobbying for a purchase at a discount, don't tell me this is about Taiwan or CCP influence in the GOP.
So when Yass, who isn’t a ‘random Jew’ but an extremely prominent lobbyist (“organized activist” in your language) for Zionist causes, lobbies against the ban, he’s just doing it for the money. But when Friedman and Mnuchin, who has decades of experience as a private equity investor in media, gear up to bid for TikTok’s US operation and lobby for a sale it’s definitely not just about the money and must be about them bravely and nobly sacrificing their own wealth so that they can make adjustments to TikTok moderation policy?
We can attribute the timing of the ban to China hawks in Congress using some neuroticism by some Jewish organizations (often themselves influenced by reports from neocon China hawks in foreign policy and geopolitical lobbying groups) about Chinese gommunists pushing pro-Hamas material on the youth to get enough of their fellow reps on both the right and left to get the previously stalled bill across the line. The Jewish organizations are just happy to be seen doing something in front of their donors that might supposedly reduce antisemitism by whatever convoluted logic. But I don’t think this means that most powerful Zionist lobbyists in the US consider an ownership transfer of TikTok away from the Chinese in any sense a major policy priority for them.
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It's going to be interesting to see which way the culture war swings on this one. On the one hand, I've seen a lot of rumblings because Tiktok is (generally) pro-Palestine. On the other hand, Trump.
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I'm skeptical of anything that requires Trump to stay bought, even if he's getting paid repeatedly, and it's not clear he is or will be.
There are some opposing parades of horribles. It's not hard to imagine a federal government that pressures Western service providers to shove away disliked positions until their best or only remaining choices are foreign-owned, and then make a lot of hay over them being foreign-owned. There's a plausible argument that already happened with ARFCOM.
In practice, TikTok's current security and privacy issues are bad enough (even compared to the already-miserable standard set by western-owned social media corps) that I'm not convinced that's a wrong risk to take here, but the law doesn't just apply here.
The BruinGOP group has been weirdly BAPist as far as I've been aware of it; I'd be very cautious about taking much signal out what may well be intentional trolling.
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We may be seeing the US becoming Brezhnev time Soviet Union in real time.
Remember when American culture ruled supreme, when other countries banned American movies, music and other cultural artefacts, including blue jeans? Remember when other countries tried at enormous expense stop American cultural influence?
And remember when the bans were not respected by anyone and widely disobeyed?
Now the shoe is on the other foot.
What you want is immaterial. Young people want their TikTok and will do what it takes to get it, including installing and configuring VPN. Yes, only minority is going to do it, but active minority is what always mattered.
Leaving aside the apparent assumption that there is a strong correlation between “know how and is willing to pay for and download a vpn” and “politically active”, how is going from from 30% MAUs to (eg) 3% MAUs immaterial?
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Social media platforms are entirely different than fashion. If 1% of kids have black market jeans, they are fashion trendsetters. If 1% of kids install a VPN to watch videos, they are dorks. Think about it. Are 4Chan users considered cool?
The second that installing TikTok isn't as easy as clicking a button on the App Store, usage falls to near zero. Network effects work both ways.
And yet every Russian videoblogger keeps mentioning their Instagram despite Meta being banned in Russia as extremists and available via VPN. Not that their followers access any other info via this VPN.
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4chan isn't cool but it has been influential. A lot of the memes (in a broader sense than just image macros) that end up on Reddit or Facebook started on 4chan.
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It's true. Never underestimate the power of laziness.
Stefan Molyneux's videos get something like, 99% less views on bitchute than they did on youtube? Maybe even 99.9% less. All because his audience couldn't be bothered to type a different url into their browsers. And this was a group of people who were already primed to seek out "controversial" material from alternative sources.
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Again, this isn't a TikTok ban, it's divestiture.
And this isn't quite like US cultural clout in the 80s. This is like if the Soviet Union owned CBS and used it to influence the news Americans received.
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I would just like to note that 30 minutes after this post went up I looked for the UCLA Republican group on Twitter and the account had been canceled. I have no idea what this means but just putting it up for reference.
I should note that the actual Twitter referenced above was posted 28 hours ago but it’s just a image not a retweet.
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I'm somewhat torn on this, but ultimately I'm in favor of the bill as written. My libertarian priors make me nervous about the government having a say in what apps people can install on their phones, but I'm also nervous about the massive soft (or not-so-soft) power that China is able to exert around the world, which is an equal if not greater threat to free speech. I also just think that centralized social media apps are a bad thing anyway, and I'd prefer a return to the more decentralized internet of the 00s, so that's not helping TikTok's case.
If anything, Trump's position pushes me further in the direction of a full ban (not just divestment), because I can use it as evidence that I'm a free thinker and not just a Trump cultist.
Is it not the same bill as the last one ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RESTRICT_Act
That one was basically laying a legal framework for complete state censorship, any platform with 1mm users or even the slightest bit (1 share) of foreigh ownership was deemed okay to be censored.
This bill requires at least 20% ownership by Chinese, Russian, North Korean or Iranian entities.
Or for the company to be subject to the direction of a foreign entity, which is left to the President to determine.
It also bans distribution of source code of banned apps, which in any sane interpretation would violate the first amendment.
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Or anyone in management "controlled" by any adversary country.
Adversary country list can be amended in 30 days.
what count as 'controlled' is up to some D.C. circuit court. Is Elon Musk 'controlled' by Russian if he keeps posting what people call "russian propaganda" on twitter?
US courts could easily argue he is, seems to me.
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