I haven’t really followed things in great detail, but something that has stood out to be is the apparent linchpin that was pulled in this whole affair. Like it or not, TikTok is an American company with American employees and even running on American infrastructure and oversight that was established years ago now; not somehow the cabal in our government has simply eschewed rule of law and their own ideals, to basically strong-arm this deal because there was too much free speech, a fundamental right of Americans, which the government is legally prohibited from violating and doing so is as much of a capitol offense as it can get, violating not only the law of the Constitution, but also the rights enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
I don’t see how a competent legal team could not shred this whole effort at disowning TikTok and at the very least make it extremely expensive politically and even to the core foundation of legitimacy of the current government in what is for some reason still called the USA in spite of gross patterns of consistent material violations of all the terms.
While technically true, these articles give context about the level of decision-making control and data access from ByteDance, as of the time of their publication.
What's changed in 2025 is that the Trump administration has illegally postponed the ban passed by Congress four times, despite the fact that the law does not allow the President to extend the ban. And, naturally, the fact that this is to facilitate purchase by a coalition of political allies.
This has less to do with anti china hawks and more to do with anti Israel content on TikTok. And information control in the US. They are openly buying out all US mainstream media and from the looks of it will probably take Warner brothers from Netflix as well.
> TikTok is an American company with American employees
Those American employees are required to basically uphold the interests of the CCP. This is done as part of an agreement around their stock grants apparently. From https://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/2025/01/14/exclusive-d... there are details on what executives of TikTok have to agree to in writing:
> “You shall comply with applicable laws and guidelines and abide by public order and good customs, the socialist system, national interests, legal rights of other citizens, and information authenticity requirements,” the purported Douyin agreement reviewed by the DCNF states.
> The document also lists a number of prohibited activities for employees, including “overthrowing the socialist system,” “inciting secession,” “undermining national religious policies, or promoting cults and superstitions,” as well as injunctions against “meaningless information or deliberate use of character combinations to avoid technical censorship.”
And in fact, they’re required to report to a ByteDance management team in China, and acknowledge that they’re employees of ByteDance (and therefore NOT the American company):
> TikTok executives also sign agreements with ByteDance consenting to digital surveillance and report to China-based leadership, according to other documents and audio recordings supporting Puris’ lawsuit.
> Other documents also seem to indicate TikTok ultimately considered Puris to be a ByteDance employee.
> While onboarding in 2019, Puris was allegedly required to sign one hiring document reviewed by the DCNF affirming: “I am a director, executive officer or general partner of ByteDance LTD.”
It is true and documented that the reason TikTok was challenged and censored was because it was exposing too many people to Israeli crimes in the genocide in Gaza. This was stated by high level officials. Of course, it also provides grist for accusing China of interfering in American politics, but of course, doing so would be a voice of morality, and you can't have that.
Edit: As a Jew, I also want to note that there is at least one dead comment mixing this with actual antisemitism, which has been apparently increasingly promoted by the right-wing media. My presumption is this is an attempt to create an actual anti-semitism crisis Israel can point to in order to shut down criticism from the left.
Should American owned or controlled companies be banned in other countries? Should Israel be banned from interfering in American politics? If yes, then I am more open to this concept.
For what it's worth, I am not aware of any evidence that TikTok did anything intentional to promote anti-US narratives. To be honest, I think they accomplished that goal by simply promoting what people wanted to see, which is in large part, simply the truth. The so-called enemies of America do not have to work very hard or lie, they just need to expose our propaganda in a very straightforward fashion.
Since the COVID crisis at least, US owned social media companies have become very censorious and we know they tamper with the algorithms. It may be that simply having a less biased algorithm is too clarifying for American elites.
Given that Trump and Hegseth seem to now be friendly with China and talking about a “G2” (as opposed to G7), I feel the TikTok ban that should have happened months ago is just going to not happen, as long as (my speculation) someone in the Trump family is able to profit off business dealings with China. It makes no sense not to enact the ban that Congress passed.
- November 2023: audio leaked of Apartheid Defense League CEO Jonathon Greenblatt saying they had a Tiktok problem [1] because Tiktok didn't sufficiently censor live broadcast of the genocide, unlike, say, Meta [2]
- 5 March 2024: the bill to ban Tiktok was introduced to the Senate [3];
- 7 March 2024: the bill passes the Senate;
- 13 March 2024: the bill passes the House;
- 24 April 2024: Biden signs the bill into law.
So yes the Tiktok "ban" was about a foreign government, just not the one usually stated.
Larry Ellison is the world's second richest man. His son, David Ellison, now heads Paramount Skydance and are key players in the Tiktok acquisition. David Ellison acquired CBS News and put Bari Weiss in charge of it. Why was CBS News for sale? Because 60 Minutes said one slightly negative thing about Israel's involvement in Gaza so Shari Redstone sold it to Paramount [4].
What I find both funny and depressing is that the US government is doing exactly what they accuse China of doing. It's not even a partisan issue. On foreign policy, America is uniparty, just like China.
For anyone who follows legislative affairs, this rocketed through.
I’m confused. Why are you alleging a link between the first few bullet points? I'm not saying there's no link, but it certainly doesn't seem obvious without some substantiation.
The US government has considered TikTok a national security issue for a long time, and considered banning it even back in 2020 - a full 3 years before October 7th. So it has nothing to do with Israel, or Jews, or Gaza, and everything to do with not following American laws, defending against asymmetric warfare from the Chinese government, and national security.
They are reporting that the US investors set to make the purchase are still waiting on China to finalize a deal.
The thing about Trump saying it was a done deal*, like most other things he says, was true in the sense that the deal to find the US investors to buy the app is done. And having the "blessing" or any other uttering of China's President Xi Jinping is not the same as having the official action of China finalizing the sale. It did allow him to sign an executive order allowing tiktok to continue operating while the deal is being finalized -- and additional executive order 90 day extensions in the mean time.
With the sale going to the usual suspects, Larry Ellison, Abu Dhabi MGX, it makes this look more like Trump is being played at his own game. Or, like the other comment says about ByteDance and China mocking the US in this silly posturing. Maybe they get it done on Monday, or give it another 90 days.
*See paltering.[0][1]. It's the reason you get people saying he lied and others saying he's unfairly being called a liar. A more accurate way to describe what he says is: manipulation. Even news outlets are capable of being manipulated (and some may encourage it), which in turn causes all of them to be called "partisan hacks" and the populace loses trust -- but in the wrong things/people.
The law is quite clear the 90 day extension is a one-time thing and the Trump admin had already violated said law prior to actually invoking that clause.
The thing about Trump saying it’s a done deal is that, like on many other topics, he’s simply lying.
President Xi and Putin aren’t just seasoned politicians, they are experienced and know the rules of the game very well. Trump is not just naive, but he’s utterly stupid as well. Not sure why voters can’t see through his BS.
You think we are going to get to a whole year of Byte Dance operating illegally in the United States?
I don't see why not, I'd expect four years of illegal operation.
I haven’t really followed things in great detail, but something that has stood out to be is the apparent linchpin that was pulled in this whole affair. Like it or not, TikTok is an American company with American employees and even running on American infrastructure and oversight that was established years ago now; not somehow the cabal in our government has simply eschewed rule of law and their own ideals, to basically strong-arm this deal because there was too much free speech, a fundamental right of Americans, which the government is legally prohibited from violating and doing so is as much of a capitol offense as it can get, violating not only the law of the Constitution, but also the rights enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
I don’t see how a competent legal team could not shred this whole effort at disowning TikTok and at the very least make it extremely expensive politically and even to the core foundation of legitimacy of the current government in what is for some reason still called the USA in spite of gross patterns of consistent material violations of all the terms.
> an American company with American employees
While technically true, these articles give context about the level of decision-making control and data access from ByteDance, as of the time of their publication.
https://restofworld.org/2024/tiktok-chinese-us-ban/ (2024)
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-... (2022)
I don't get it, did you miss that this went all the way to the Supreme Court already? It's not "anti free speech", it's "anti Chinese platform".
What's changed in 2025 is that the Trump administration has illegally postponed the ban passed by Congress four times, despite the fact that the law does not allow the President to extend the ban. And, naturally, the fact that this is to facilitate purchase by a coalition of political allies.
This has less to do with anti china hawks and more to do with anti Israel content on TikTok. And information control in the US. They are openly buying out all US mainstream media and from the looks of it will probably take Warner brothers from Netflix as well.
> TikTok is an American company with American employees
Those American employees are required to basically uphold the interests of the CCP. This is done as part of an agreement around their stock grants apparently. From https://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/2025/01/14/exclusive-d... there are details on what executives of TikTok have to agree to in writing:
> “You shall comply with applicable laws and guidelines and abide by public order and good customs, the socialist system, national interests, legal rights of other citizens, and information authenticity requirements,” the purported Douyin agreement reviewed by the DCNF states.
> The document also lists a number of prohibited activities for employees, including “overthrowing the socialist system,” “inciting secession,” “undermining national religious policies, or promoting cults and superstitions,” as well as injunctions against “meaningless information or deliberate use of character combinations to avoid technical censorship.”
And in fact, they’re required to report to a ByteDance management team in China, and acknowledge that they’re employees of ByteDance (and therefore NOT the American company):
> TikTok executives also sign agreements with ByteDance consenting to digital surveillance and report to China-based leadership, according to other documents and audio recordings supporting Puris’ lawsuit.
> Other documents also seem to indicate TikTok ultimately considered Puris to be a ByteDance employee.
> While onboarding in 2019, Puris was allegedly required to sign one hiring document reviewed by the DCNF affirming: “I am a director, executive officer or general partner of ByteDance LTD.”
> TikTok is an American company with American employees
All tiktok code is written by ByteDance engineers in china.
This isn't true. You should ask friends who work at TikTok before you write comments like this.
Don't spread misinfo / disinfo
Whoa, it should be bigger news. I too was under the impression that it was a done deal, with Larry Ellison coming in to mop the floor.
It would be so funny if ByteDance and China continued to successfully mock the US in this silly posturing.
Russia and China have been pretty successful at making these fools look like what they are - gullible suckers.
It is true and documented that the reason TikTok was challenged and censored was because it was exposing too many people to Israeli crimes in the genocide in Gaza. This was stated by high level officials. Of course, it also provides grist for accusing China of interfering in American politics, but of course, doing so would be a voice of morality, and you can't have that.
https://forward.com/culture/688840/tiktok-ban-gaza-palestine...
Edit: As a Jew, I also want to note that there is at least one dead comment mixing this with actual antisemitism, which has been apparently increasingly promoted by the right-wing media. My presumption is this is an attempt to create an actual anti-semitism crisis Israel can point to in order to shut down criticism from the left.
Both can be true, no? TikTok can be a tool that China uses to aid its geopolitical goals. TikTok has lots of criticism of Israel. Both can be true.
Should American owned or controlled companies be banned in other countries? Should Israel be banned from interfering in American politics? If yes, then I am more open to this concept.
For what it's worth, I am not aware of any evidence that TikTok did anything intentional to promote anti-US narratives. To be honest, I think they accomplished that goal by simply promoting what people wanted to see, which is in large part, simply the truth. The so-called enemies of America do not have to work very hard or lie, they just need to expose our propaganda in a very straightforward fashion.
Since the COVID crisis at least, US owned social media companies have become very censorious and we know they tamper with the algorithms. It may be that simply having a less biased algorithm is too clarifying for American elites.
Try using American social media and offerings in China, and lately, Russia.
You're being downvoted but Greenblatt has stated it plainly.
Also the reason behind the 60 minutes fiasco and the CBS acquisition which had Bari Weiss installed there.
Given that Trump and Hegseth seem to now be friendly with China and talking about a “G2” (as opposed to G7), I feel the TikTok ban that should have happened months ago is just going to not happen, as long as (my speculation) someone in the Trump family is able to profit off business dealings with China. It makes no sense not to enact the ban that Congress passed.
As a reminder of the timeline:
- November 2023: audio leaked of Apartheid Defense League CEO Jonathon Greenblatt saying they had a Tiktok problem [1] because Tiktok didn't sufficiently censor live broadcast of the genocide, unlike, say, Meta [2]
- 5 March 2024: the bill to ban Tiktok was introduced to the Senate [3];
- 7 March 2024: the bill passes the Senate;
- 13 March 2024: the bill passes the House;
- 24 April 2024: Biden signs the bill into law.
So yes the Tiktok "ban" was about a foreign government, just not the one usually stated.
Larry Ellison is the world's second richest man. His son, David Ellison, now heads Paramount Skydance and are key players in the Tiktok acquisition. David Ellison acquired CBS News and put Bari Weiss in charge of it. Why was CBS News for sale? Because 60 Minutes said one slightly negative thing about Israel's involvement in Gaza so Shari Redstone sold it to Paramount [4].
What I find both funny and depressing is that the US government is doing exactly what they accuse China of doing. It's not even a partisan issue. On foreign policy, America is uniparty, just like China.
For anyone who follows legislative affairs, this rocketed through.
[1]: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/inside-adl-anti-defa...
[2]: https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/...
[3]: https://nolabels.org/the-latest/tiktok-ban-timeline-how-trum...
[4]: https://www.cjr.org/feature/cbs-news-redstone-ellison-60-min...
> On foreign policy, America is uniparty, just like China.
Oh, do tell of the countries that aren’t uniparties when talking about national security.
Oh, none of them? So just making a bullshit false equivalence?
I’m confused. Why are you alleging a link between the first few bullet points? I'm not saying there's no link, but it certainly doesn't seem obvious without some substantiation.
This is just trying to fit different data points to confirm a conspiratorial narrative around Israel. The reality is that China has a tool to manipulate and influence American politics in TikTok, where there is no transparency around what their algorithm does or what censorship/amplification they perform manually. On top of that, TikTok lied about data collection on kids (https://www.npr.org/2024/08/02/nx-s1-5061604/doj-sues-tiktok...), lied about where data is sent (https://www.techspot.com/news/104032-us-claims-tiktok-collec...), and their CEO literally lied under oath (https://walberg.house.gov/media/press-releases/walberg-urges...). The executives of TikTok should be in jail.
The US government has considered TikTok a national security issue for a long time, and considered banning it even back in 2020 - a full 3 years before October 7th. So it has nothing to do with Israel, or Jews, or Gaza, and everything to do with not following American laws, defending against asymmetric warfare from the Chinese government, and national security.
Are they claiming that the US president lied? Say it ain't so!
They are reporting that the US investors set to make the purchase are still waiting on China to finalize a deal.
The thing about Trump saying it was a done deal*, like most other things he says, was true in the sense that the deal to find the US investors to buy the app is done. And having the "blessing" or any other uttering of China's President Xi Jinping is not the same as having the official action of China finalizing the sale. It did allow him to sign an executive order allowing tiktok to continue operating while the deal is being finalized -- and additional executive order 90 day extensions in the mean time.
With the sale going to the usual suspects, Larry Ellison, Abu Dhabi MGX, it makes this look more like Trump is being played at his own game. Or, like the other comment says about ByteDance and China mocking the US in this silly posturing. Maybe they get it done on Monday, or give it another 90 days.
*See paltering.[0][1]. It's the reason you get people saying he lied and others saying he's unfairly being called a liar. A more accurate way to describe what he says is: manipulation. Even news outlets are capable of being manipulated (and some may encourage it), which in turn causes all of them to be called "partisan hacks" and the populace loses trust -- but in the wrong things/people.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paltering
[1] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20171114-the-disturbing-a...
The law is quite clear the 90 day extension is a one-time thing and the Trump admin had already violated said law prior to actually invoking that clause.
The thing about Trump saying it’s a done deal is that, like on many other topics, he’s simply lying.
The thing about breaking the law is that when you don't suffer any consequences, the strictly optimal thing to do is to keep breaking the law.
President Xi and Putin aren’t just seasoned politicians, they are experienced and know the rules of the game very well. Trump is not just naive, but he’s utterly stupid as well. Not sure why voters can’t see through his BS.
> President Xi and Putin aren’t just seasoned politicians,
True for Xi but Putin hasn't a clue about what he's doing, calling him a politician is a stretch.
Social conservatism is disgust. They don't want to see through simple explanations that let them feel less disgust for themselves.
Honestly. The last people I'm going to feel sorry for is TikTok investors.
why is that? do you stand any other moral ground for investing? apple? google? amazon?