Donald Trump says TikTok "worthless," might not save it after all
Donald Trump says TikTok "worthless," might not save it after all
The president had previously said he was looking to save the social media platform.
Summary
Donald Trump called TikTok "worthless" and suggested he might not intervene to lift its nationwide ban, which took effect on January 19 over national security concerns about its Chinese ownership.
Previously, Trump had pledged to save TikTok, citing its role in his campaign's social media success, but his latest remarks hinted at demands for U.S. ownership of the platform.
House Speaker Mike Johnson supported the ban, citing fears of Chinese influence on TikTok's algorithms.
They must not have reached the expected bribe level.
The deal was switched to a subscription based model.
Or meta paid even more to make it go away
Man, I really hope he does the double-flipflop on this and bans it again. Because Tiktok pulled the stunt this weekend to kiss his ass, blocking the app preemptively for the USA and crediting Trump with "saving" it with the popup message. This would be most disruptive to the propaganda pushers on both sides of the globe, and piss off the most people against them.
it amuses me that people expect anything else from his presidency. it will be a "highest bidder wins" war.
It will be especially funny because they have had a lot more conservative type join as well, and based off everyone complaining about their "algorithm" it seems like those types are enjoying themselves...
"Donald Trump says dumb fucking thing after other dumb fucking contradictory thing"
The Onion should just print this headline every day for the next 4 years.
Nah, that's too realistic for The Onion. It needs to be something like, 'Pandemonium Ensues After Trump Utters First Coherent Sentence.'
And this strategy works for him just fine. People who like him will believe the thing they want to hear and some of the people who would have opposed him will be confused and delay action because they think maybe it's just going to work out and they should focus elsewhere.
Bidding war. Zuckerberg paid more.
Your move China.
Check bounced? Nah he got the check and it cleared and the world's tiniest gear spun in his head and he thought "what if 2 checks?!?!!?".
Imagine having your entire business plans hanging on the whims of this orange dickhead.
I suspect it's a share price influencing game with some of his pals.
This is leverage, nothing more. He has every intention of saving it. He's just going to make sure that he gets his cut and assurances that any anti-Trump videos be scrubbed and any searches return no results. And he wants to make sure they continue to do what he wants, when he wants, and the way he wants by literally hanging a potential ban over their heads that he can sign into effect by EO at the stroke of his favorite sharpie.
It is literally a Mafia protection racket on steroids.
The irony of trump saving it only to make it considerably more dangerous for American stability when it was originally banned because it was dangerous for no explained reason. A tiktok that caters to trump should be banned, but doing so is the only way not to be and well "corporations gonna corporate".
I disagree. Trump and Musk own competitors to TokTok.
They are not going to hurt themselves in order to help a Chinese competitor.
Also, they are now in the ones in charge AND the Chinese government is actually using TikTok to spy on THEM.
How does this lower the cost of my eggs?
You missunderstood. This ends the war in Ukraine
free market dynamics.
you see, more people with eggs become financially desparate enough to sell their eggs to survive in this shithole country. this generlaly lowers the market value of those eggs.
the egg extraction process can be painfu... oh. nevermind.
By increasing the price of avocado toast and keeping eggs as they are now, eggs are essentially cheaper. Crisis solved!
You can suck on Trump’s eggs for a million. Dale Huevo!!
That was a strange video to listen to. He wants the US to own half... Like nationalizing the platform?
He wants his cut, like the mafia
To "wet his beak"
I don't think he understands the difference between a government and a corporation. Like, he imagines the US is just his now. Just a big hotel, he can buy and sell bits of it to make money. Buy Greenland and Tiktok, sell Puerto Rico and the USS George Bush. Add a cover charge for Canada and Mexico.
To be fair, at this point there is barely any difference.
Obviously not like that, but wants it privately owned by his "American" cronies... like Elon
Interestingly, there were rumors that during those meetings in the article putin asked the oligarchs for half, but would provide protection, government subsidies,etc. So 50%, but more money then ever possible. Those that balked got thrown out a window.
Trump says US, but might really mean himself.
Did the check not clear?
Meta dropped a bigger check maybe.
Elno reminded him he owns both X and Trump.
Probably did. Could easily be a grifter move to dupe them into writing another check. Suckers.
The stick part of the carrot and stick.
He logged in and instead of seeing people praising him, he saw people continue to mock him and call him a dumb, fascist, piece of shit.
Guess they didn't donate enough to his inauguration fund.
I'm getting whiplash from all the backtracking and it's only day two.
I think it's a threat to ensure that TikTok does what he says. Lots of reports (that I as an Australian can't verify before it works for me) of searches for Trump incriminating videos are returning no results since it came back. It feels like there were conditions on not banning TikTok.
I was sticking with rednote anyway.
spoiler
I was sticking to not joining social media owned by people who want to make profit with my info...
Even if this were psy-ops... this is how you write psy-ops, goddamn
Are we the psy-op going to chinese social media and humanizing Americans or are they the psy-op by acting human when the Americans show up?
If it's the first, where's my check? If it's the second, congrats to my chinese spy on landing the easiest job in the world.
He's talking big so that Tiktok sells their US operations to Elon. Then he gets to take credit as a deal maker.
Did tiktok not offer to kiss his ass or pay him tribute like all the other companies?
i think zuckerberg kissed his ass harder and more affectionately than tiktok did
They're not letting him have a cut of the company cake.
What pisses me off the most is that he blatantly places no consideration about the security implications of this decision. It is just about making a deal for his tech bros.
let me guess? Zuckerberg phoned him up and reminded him of all that lovely lobby money that had been shared around!
A platform that probably helped him a lot becoming the president. How ironic.
He meant that TikTok's gratuities are worth less than Zuckerberg and Musk's.
Old man yells at rock. Old man becomes friend with rock. Old man yells at rock.
Man right back to the flip flopping like a hot dog on a 7 eleven grill.
What a capricious shit.
I wonder how much of this is him realizing that there's nothing he can do to save TikTok...
Lmao is Trump negging them.
Glad someone else sees this for what it is.
He says it like it is
Wasn't that how like half of maga justified voting for him? I see how that one's going
I guess they won't sell to Musk.
Musk supported Trump so Trump would give tiktok to him. Tiktok would rather go out of business then sell.
After the pump, comes the dump.
Lol..
After it filled up with pro-trump propaganda and started blocking hashtags based on who Trump hates, I went back to Rednote for now until our "free" nation bans that to maintain the capitalist oligarch narrative on major social media. We can talk about Luigi there.
I'd rather be propagandized by them than Zuck and Elon and Bezos and Donnie. Their people actually seem to believe they owe one another basic decency and courtesy. It's refreshing.
"Herp derp genocide!"
When there's a non distributed, aka popular and populated, social network that isn't the product and propaganda tool of a genocidal nation, I'll defect to that, but I haven't heard anything about a civilized, admirable nation like Norway launching a competitor.