I'll honestly celebrate.

Putting the Zs in Leon Czolgosz

Multiple would be great!

We're quickly going to learn if gizmos and doohickeys are protected by the 2nd amendment

I disagree with adventurism usually but that would be worth it just because it would be funny.

The context is a chef's kiss.

The US isn't just reauthorizing its surveillance laws - it's vastly expanding them | Caitlin Vogus | The Guardian

The US House of Representatives agreed to reauthorize a controversial spying law known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act last Friday without any meaningful reforms, dashing hopes that Congress might finally put a stop to intelligence agencies’ warrantless surveillance of Americans’ emails, text messages and phone calls.

The vote not only reauthorized the act, though; it also vastly expanded the surveillance law enforcement can conduct. In a move that Senator Ron Wyden condemned as “terrifying”, the House also doubled down on a surveillance authority that has been used against American protesters, journalists and political donors in a chilling assault on free speech.

They care about surveillance alright. They just need to be the ones surveilling and reality inventing.

Nobody has ever explained to me why any person in the US should care about a government with no jurisdiction over them might conduct surveillance on them. The government that worries me is the one that has power over me. Maybe I’m stupid, though.

That is what will happen

over 1.7 billion users as of 2023

TikTok has 150 million active monthly users in the United States.

I'm guessing that 1.7 billion number is prolly off due to bots and defunct accounts, but still, you don't sell your platform for 10% of your market lmao. I'm not sure if the US thought they would honestly back down just because they're America, if they wanted to ban it because they honestly think it's spying on Americans, or what exactly the play here was, but the obvious one (force them to sell to Americans) was laughably stupid and unlikely to happen for obvious reasons.

If VPN providers are smart, they'll start advertising that you can use TikTok on them.

ByteDance should start selling VPNs as a side business

Pretty similar to what US corporations do to shed pension liabilities…

Tic Tac Too?

Tok tik

More tankie tik tok

You know it is, our 'leaders' are genocidal ghouls on the brink of going feral and dumping the silos.

Large private companies are effectively the state, so the term nationalisation isn't so far from the truth.

There are a couple of points to consider the biggest one being that Americans as a user base are but a fraction of the global base,less than 10% iirc, and one of the hardest to monetize. Outside of financial considerations it's worth more to keep tiktok just for the global soft power it exerts on the other parts of the world and to send a message as well.

Part of me wants the parent company to cut their losses and immediately dissolve TikTok US just to spite Brandon and the tech ghouls.