Trump Backs Elon Musk as Possible TikTok Buyer, Suggests Government Stake
Trump Backs Elon Musk as Possible TikTok Buyer, Suggests Government Stake
Newly inaugurated US President Donald Trump on Tuesday expressed support for Elon Musk potentially acquiring TikTok, and also proposed a joint...
Wow, this is unfolding WAY faster than I thought it would
So if I'm following this correctly. The US government gave TikTok a year to sell their US operations, they did not and were blocked. Trump came in and gave them a 3 month grace period, to allow them the opportunity to sell their US operations again...
Why does he expect this is going to go differently? TikTok already showed they would rather go dark than sell.
He's an idiot.
"Tiktok is a tool for Chinese propaganda, but we'd prefer if it were a tool for American propaganda instead."
The fact that they only targeted Tiktok already shows their motives. They claim that Tiktok is a powerful tool for data collection and propaganda. They claim that's too dangerous to leave in the hands of China.
However, all the other social media companies (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc) are all equally as powerful. There's only one difference between them: who controls the propaganda.
Remember, Zucc was a big sponsor of the TikTok ban!
So...
Members of the government are seizing private companies for themselves?
Isn't that why we can't have universal healthcare or free education?
Because the slippery slope would lead to the government seizing private property?
Why are we skipping the good parts?
Civil forfeiture has existed for decades. Taking property for themselves hasn't been the problem.
Shares are special type of property in this country
Government can seize your house for public good... But never owners shares in his grift!
Oh, but it's fine when the government is made up of corporatists.
I remember when President Obama suggested investing in Solyndra in order to save it and stop China from overtaking the energy market and Republican blew their lid but I guess they'll be ok with wasting billions nationalizing a terrible social media app linked to multiple deaths of kids.
China keeps taxes low by investing directly in businesses instead of shelling out grants and tax breaks. It's been incredibly effective.
past political motives and descisions are dead, now is the Trump era.
The media really moved swiftly back into "Stop the fucking presses, Donald Trump just sneezed twice in a row" status
Did anyone expect anything less? Trump was great for their profits.
boost app for Lemmy has a nice word filter and trump has been added. I'm already exhausted. I wish there was an easy way to word block on the web, since I use that more than my phone. Clearly evident, I'm on 'web' now <sigh>
been asking about this from day one
Some of the different interfaces do have filters. I use Mlmym (like the old reddit interface) usually, but the Voyager interface supports filters. I took a quick look at Photon and Alexandrite but didn't see filters in those. I think I'll switch to usign Voyager for a while.
https://lemmy.world/comment/14608226
Who could have ever seen this coming?
Yup you called it.
You, seemingly
All of this because some dude in the country with more guns per capita in the world, can't shoot for shit.
And because almost 400 million other people didn't even try.
We all saw this coming from a mile off.
Goverment stake, isn't that communism?
No, but they always claimed it was.
This may be going off on a tangent, but it seems appropriate here. I am sick and tired of hearing about every little minutia of clickbait bullshit related to Trump. If Musk wants to buy and tank TikTok, great. I don't give a fuck one way or another. Trump isn't buying TikTok, and I truly don't give a shit what his opinion is on it.
I want to stay aware of current events in my country. If the president signs an executive order, I want to hear about it. I don't want to hear about what his friends are doing. I couldn't care less who made his wife's hat. I'd rather watch paint dry than a video of him and his wife dancing. I hate that I know he consumes McDonald's slop and Diet Coke in the oval office.
People argue about how news outlets are biased right or left. The real problem is that news outlets are just entertainment outlets, and not legitimate journalism. I don't care if you're reading Fox News or CNN; you're still going to wade through a river of worthless celebrity worship before you actually find something of substance. Scroll down far enough, and you won't be reading about Trump any more. Instead, you'll be reading about which actors are fucking each other and the latest and "this year's hottest budget-friendly Temu styles that are now made of only slightly toxic synthetic fibers." If you're lucky, you might find an article about how some random nobody met another random nobody on vacation and got married. Good for them. I'm glad they're happy. I still don't give a shit.
While I agree with the sentiment, I'd say this qualifies as news. Elons not buying shake shack, he's buying a social media platform with a very opaque algorithm that has the power to influence a large chunk of the American public. Even if he tanks it, twitter has shown that through network and data ownership combined with sheer inertia many people will remain on an app even after its been revealed to have its thumb on the scale for one side.
In addition to that, they're suggesting a government stake, which likely means using taxpayer money to help him subsidize it. Hmm. Where have we seen that before?
Great. Don't engage then. But somewhere between 30 and 50 percent of Americans use the app. It's fate is national news.
Why would China want to sell the lucrative secret TikTok algorithm to the US government?
I mean, this was probably the point from the beginning. I'm sure this has been their plan since they saw that he could turn a place like Twitter into a propaganda machine in just under a year. I'm probably just grasping at straws here, but it seems pretty sus that the TikTok ban only started gaining traction around the time Elmo turned Twitter into a shit hole.
Oh so they do wanna kill TikTok.
They want to enrich the in-crowd and cement complete media control of the US.
Pretty sure they already did. Turning it into a right wing boomer platform is going to chase all the kids away and with it whatever broader cultural relevance it might have had.
It's a Good Thing we don't have People who can MASSIVELY PROFIT OFF THIS making Decisions in Government!
Don't think he realizes how problematic it would be for the government to have a stake in any company that actively removes posts. Suddenly they're forced to allow far more speech than they previously did.
Yeah, but who's going to enforce that?
The same guy who has toddler level temper tantrums when people call him out for being a man child.
I'd love to see TiXToX
Government stake in TikTok! You think he can't be dumber. And yet, he surprises you every day.
All of this falls in dead waters as soon as people realize, Bytedance has already let tiktok die in the states once due to it's refusal to sell under the ruling. I don't see how them learning that the US government and a third party /also/ want to buy it will change anything. I think the outcome will be the same.
Bytedance has made it clear, they would rather have the app offline in the states and leave it online for the rest of the world, then to lose their product, and even if they wanted to sell, which they have currently stated they don't, that type of deal would need to be OK'd by the Chinese government first, and there's no way that would happen with a third party, let alone if it means the US government would get half the company.
I respect Trumps hustle for wanting to give one of the worlds largest social media platforms onto American Soil(more explicitly/likely one of his advisors/business partners), but I really don't think it's going to work.
TikTok put up a banner saying that the app was unavailable until incoming President Trump can do something about it despite Biden saying he would not enforce the ban. And then when Trump said he would not enforce the ban they put up a welcome back banner thanking Trump.
They signaled loud and clear they're ready to play ball. They'll get a lot behind the scenes because they kissed the ring. I could see Bytedance selling TikTok but Trump lets them continue to collect data or some shit.
If they nationalize it, even partially, they’re not gonna be able claim any loopholes on government censorship by letting third party platforms do the dirty work.
Two great manipulators in concert - Ouverture:
because he did such a great job with twitter
LOL
Lol they already know tic tok would rather pull out of the market over giving it to America. But Ya now they'll sale to Musk
I don't care about TikTok, but this smells like expropriation of the nazi kind.
