What's the point of the TikTok ban if they're not actually going to ban it?

It is political theatre, to pretend they are doing something against the “evil chinese communists” (who are actually hyper-capitalist, but whatever).
First proposed by the Orangutan as part of his trade war against “CHY-NAH”, he now does not want to ban it because he is becoming more popular on the platform (and because one republican megadonor is a major investor in tiktok’s parent company, as well as the orangutan’s own “truth social”)

We know why they wanted to ban it. But now, things are getting complicated.

The bipartisan attempt to do what the US has used as reasons to demonize other countries (ban media, limit speech, etc) is radicalizing a whole new generation. The Biden admin might have wanted to shield themselves from the truth of the war crimes they have been committing. But doing so is admission of such crimes and complicity in a rot that goes well beyond our participation in this genocide.

The rush of people to Xiaohongshu in the past week or so due to the TikTok ban has been hilarious. A whole new generation of people interacting directly with people in China and learning some Mandarin, which is also shattering some of the mythology surrounding the “China is evil” narrative the US media pushes.

Anyway, Biden punted, in what appears to be the one time that the administration has decided that not alienating people and doing things that they perceive as evil might be a good thing for the whatever future the Dem party hopes to have.

Will the Trump admin proceed and ban it? Who knows. But it’s a lot more challenging now that people have woken up.

It is pretty complicated. It’s a way for people to make money, which includes Republicans.

But it’s also a way to spread awareness about how bad people are, so it’s natural you want to ban something that would cause the American people to come together against the rich.

@hat It’s been quite remarkable seeing decades of anti-China propaganda undone by Americans and Chinese people interacting on these TikTok alternatives (nothing more dangerous than cross-cultural interpersonal communication). Though I’ve also heard that now they want to ban Xiaohongshu as well, framing it as an even bigger “security threat” than TikTok.

Clearly the solution is for Elon Musk to own all social media.

Who is not going to enforce the ban?

“Clearly the solution is for Elon Musk to own all social media.”
Now that is what I call a security threat.

Seems like a lot of pointless dick swinging, if you ask me.

I like TikTok. Follow a bunch of very cool artists and musicians on there.

”. . . but then they say it won’t actually be banned and you can still use it.”
– Who’s “they”?
– I just saw a story on Bloomberg saying TikTok was saying they’ll “go dark” on January 19 unless someone tells them otherwise.

Political theatre and the US or US corporation with influence want the data.

I never signed up for TikTok because of the Chinese connection, but I actually don’t think it’s that big of a deal, because what data is being collected? Leisure time and spending habits? As far as influencing people, getting rid of TikTok won’t cure the problem that we have with propaganda across social media. China sends messages across Facebook, X, and other platforms.

I don’t like to enrich China. For many years I try to curb how much I buy from China.

@Zaku yes, that was as of Friday night as you can see on the article headline. As of Thursday to Friday, the news was reporting that the ban wouldn’t be endorced. I asked the question Friday around noon.

I thought that WAS the idea, at least since Musk bought Trump a few months ago.
To force China, to sell it to Musk.
I was never a fan of Zuckerberg, but I am disappointed that he is selling out, to Trump too.

I know that Musk, is trying to also change America’s currency to bitcoin. A bitcoin, Musk is heavily invested in.

More luck for Musk, when Chinese EVs, were made illegal for sake in the US…

I do think Trump is coming around to a platform, he sees as beneficial for himself. But how do they resist controlling the content billions of people view?..
AND no fact checking? How convenient!

I just saw a clip of Trump saying he changed his mind about TikTok because he is a star on TikTok. Something like that. Now it makes sense.

It’s shut down.

And we’re back. “Thanks to Trump.”

Good job guys. Hand Republicans/Trump the ability to save free speech in the US, and he does it (for now). It doesn’t matter that he wanted to do it before, or that the TikTok ban was bipartisan – now Dems are seen as the ones limiting free speech and killing media critical of the administration.

Are more people actually seeing this political theater for what it is? Unfortunately I think not, based on the amount of “China bad” and “security threats” rhetoric I’m seeing.

^ People seem to be enjoying Xiaohongshu/Rednote, and it’s shattering their image of China that has been fed to them by the US propaganda system. My apolitical 16-year-old and his friends are all on Xiaohongshu now and really enjoying it. They also have been asking really uncomfortable questions about the US government, free speech, and capitalism. All good things.

But I suspect this postponement of the US banning media it can’t control is to end in some deal where the US is able to backdoor TikTok data or have it be sold to Zuckerberg or Musk, who will turn it into one of the other right-wing tools that already exist.

My apolitical 19-year-old recently asked me if I watched the “embarrassing” Tom Cotton grilling TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew debacle. He’d been watching clips of it in the final hours of TikTok before the temporary outage. Some of his closest friends parents’ are Chinese immigrants, and he was shocked that Cotton wasn’t dragged out of there, beaten, and left in a dumpster.

Anyway, I hope that this whole thing woke some people up. 170+ million people use TikTok, and they might have just been exposed to the truth about their government.

It’s shocking and disappointing reading here in this community how much distrust and hate US citizens have towards their own goverment.

As if there is no possibility that there are still honest non-political US citizens who are working in national security.

I feel ashamed for you.

It’s no longer shocking, but still VERY disappointing, that the government has worked tirelessly, to throw away trust.

”.... still honest, non-political US citizens working in national security.” Of course.
But. Trump has been attacking American intelligence agencies, and made Pete Hegseth our SoD.
The United States military, is in the hands of an overt racist, drug abuser/alcoholic, sexual predator. I encourage ALL, to look at Hegseth’s tattoos.
Listen to the many times, Pete had to be carried out of places.
Listen to his having at least 4 gin and tonics at 10AM.
Trump will be releasing the white supremacists of J6.
Some, are hardcore leaders of white supremacy groups. Or…Domestic terrorists.

Unfortunately. I could go ON, and ON, about the intentional damage of the US’s national security by this administration.

Trump fully intends to try to use the military, for his mass deportations. Forgive me, if I’m aware enough that once Trump normalizes a constant military presence, it will NEVER leave.

As the people Trump is leaning on the hardest for national security, ARE THEMSELVES THREATS TO NATIONAL SECURITY.

I am ashamed, to be “called” an American.

I pity the entire country.
Mass deportations, starting in Chicago?
So. They are going to attempt this mass deportation (which has never even been tried before,) in the most violent city in America?
Chicago, has been a hub of violence, and organized crime, since Al Capone…
So. Clearly the crime, and illegals, have no fact based correlation.

But. It will be interesting, (and very scary,) watching Trump’s Nazis hunt brown people in Chicago.

I have had the displeasure, of tagging along on high risk warrants with US Marshalls.
It’s about the most dangerous part, of being a LEO.
I stopped doing that crap, and went into private security.

Cabrini-Green is a single apartment complex in Chicago.
Because of the severity of crime there, CPD had to essentially lay siege to the complex.

I encourage ALL, to research how this single complex, has been designed, handled, and repeatedly failed by Chicago’s many efforts.

My point? As Trump has NEVER understood, demanding something, is just an attempt. Not a result.
We will get to see how the deportations go, in Chicago.
It will be of the utmost importance, that the process is fully transparent and has oversight.

I’m just not seeing, a safe, or even productive way of doing this. In 2022, there were an estimated 183,000 illegals in Chicago. Let’s be really stupid and say it hasn’t gotten much larger. I’m still just not able to contemplate how they could possibly round up 180,000 people, in presumably a timely manner so they can prioritize the next metropolis.
It usually takes a team of people weeks, months, years, to hunt down illegals.

Even if the military just went in 300,000 strong, what then, destroy the city?..

Something that I’m personally interested in, is why most of these illegals won’t just cross illegally immediately after they arrive at their place of deportation? It’s VERY common, to find illegals that were supposedly gone, during an investigation. They just come back.
On “Up in Smoke,” the Mexicans deported themselves for a wedding in Mexico. Obviously, because it was not a real problem coming back…

According to MapFight, Chicago is 78 times bigger, than Gaza.
Why does that matter?
Israel went full war mode in Gaza, and it still took them over a year, to suss out Hamas soldiers.
The IDF estimated there were 25,000 Hamas soldiers in Gaza, prior to the invasion.
So…They were trying VERY hard, and with ZERO concerns for innocent casualties, to remove 25,000 people from a place 78 times smaller than Chicago.
How DID that invasion go?
Let’s look at some results.
Hamas soldiers claimed killed, by IDF = 17,000 (keep in mind, there is NO proof they were Hamas.)
Palestinian civilians killed, estimated at 46,000.
With almost 110,000 civilians wounded.
To be fair, these estimates are considered to be likely much higher.

As far as IDF loses. They lost 300 soldiers on the first day, and alledgedly 800 total. Including around 70 police officers.

I’m trying to illustrate, exactly how massive, unrealistic, and likely harmful the mass deportation plan is.

If the IDF couldn’t find 25,000 soldiers in 141 square miles, whilst committing genocide, Trump’s plan of a peaceful mass deportation of 180,000 in a a population of around 2.7 million people seems VERY unlikely to have the desired effect.

It’s far more likely, the deportation efforts, will lead to the deaths of legal citizens, AND we should expect to lose a portion of whomever is going to try to hunt these people down.
A Border Patrol officer, was JUST shot, in Pennsylvania (I think it was.)

^^What I meant to say was mistrust by those that already knew trump and his cabal are bad news for the US goverment and they disapprove…yet when it comes to a popular Chinese owned app they seemingly simply generalize the entire US goverment as systematically anti-free speech or worse, saber-rattling.

Something to note: It is still very much banned.

Those of us who already have the app on our phones experienced a 12-hour outage. But the apps have been removed from the app stores. That means that new people can’t get it. And if you get a new phone, or if you need to restore your phone, etc you are out of luck.

Congress passed the ban, Biden signed it, and the supreme court upheld it. Apple and Google could face huge financial liabilities for violating this law.

My understanding is that it would take an executive order to overturn this, although I could be wrong.

For now, we’re left in limbo – the 170 million people in the US who use TikTok have the service back, but will lose it if they need a new phone, etc. And we await the next step.

I think it’s hilarious, really.
Trump keeps saving the country from himself…and taking credit for championing free speech.

His gullible sheep, eat it up.
No self awareness, no thoughts, just followers….Pathetic…