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submitted 4 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

There were rumblings about this for a while, but it looks like the Trump TikTok deal is done, and it’s somehow the worst of all possible outcomes, amazingly making all of the biggest criticisms about TikTok significantly worse. Quite an accomplishment.

The Chinese government has signed off on the deal, which involves offloading a large chunk of TikTok to billionaire right wing Trump ally Larry Ellison (fresh off his acquisition of CBS), the private equity firm Silver Lake (which has broad global investments in Chinese and Israeli hyper-surveillance), and MGX (Abu Dhabi’s state investment firm), while still somehow having large investment involvement by the Chinese.

It wasn’t subtle that the goal was always for Trump’s buddies to just basically steal a big ownership chunk of a Chinese short form video company that U.S. tech companies couldn’t out innovate. Offloading the company to his friends at Oracle and Walmart was Trump’s stated goal during the first administration, only thwarted because he lost the 2020 election. Everything else was decorative.

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[-] network_switch@lemmy.ml 25 points 4 months ago

The bill passed to ban TikTok was terrible bill. A bunch of people ate up the marketing for it and it didn't take even 2 years from passing to start getting abused. Easily predictable outcome

[-] treadful@lemmy.zip 22 points 4 months ago

As I’ve spent years arguing, if these folks were all so concerned about U.S. consumer privacy, they should have passed a functional modern internet privacy law applying to all U.S. companies and their executives.

If they cared about propaganda, they could have fought media consolidation, backed creative media literacy reform in schools, or found new ways to fund independent journalism.

If they cared about national security, they wouldn’t have helped elect a New York City real estate conman sex pest President, and they certainly wouldn’t have actively aided his cronyism.

Imagine.

[-] Joeffect@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

Yeah, every time trump says its fake news... and then you know does nothing to try to improve reporting to be more factual... I remember how much of a shit head he is...

[-] Krono@lemmy.today 15 points 4 months ago

I was a TikTok lurker for a couple years. The app is plagued with misinfo and low IQ slop, but this unregulated nature also made it one of the best sources for things that mainstream media ignored.

A good chunk of my algorithm was news about Palestine. Recently, suddenly, it all disappeared. Poof no more Palestine info, here's some Israeli propaganda instead. Their moderation policy changed, so any comments with mild criticism of Israel were deleted. Discussion of Israel's crimes will get your account striked and banned.

I can only assume this trend will be even worse with disgusting Zionist Larry Ellison bankrolling it.

[-] amlor@piefed.social 14 points 4 months ago

Service that was shit to begin with becomes more shitty. In other news, water is wet.

[-] MuskyMelon@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

Trump TikTok => LikKok

They still won't get the exact algorithm which ByteDance will retain.

this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2025
140 points (98.6% liked)

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