Is TikTok a national security threat or not? Apparently not, and service is being restored.
Trump’s Truth Social Post
I’m asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark! I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security. The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order.
Americans deserve to see our exciting Inauguration on Monday, as well as other events and conversations.
I would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture. By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to say up. Without U.S. approval, there is no Tik Tok. With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars – maybe trillions.
Therefore, my initial thought is a joint venture between the current owners and/or new owners whereby the U.S. gets a 50% ownership in a joint venture set up between the U.S. and whichever purchase we so choose.
Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act
Inquiring minds are diving into the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act to see what’s Trump’s options allegedly are.
Here are the applicable paragraphs
(3) FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATION.—The term “foreign adversary controlled application” means a website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application that is operated, directly or indirectly (including through a parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate), by—
(iii) a subsidiary of or a successor to an entity identified in clause (i) or (ii) that is controlled by a foreign adversary; or
(iv) an entity owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by an entity identified in clause (i), (ii), or (iii); or
(i) is controlled by a foreign adversary; and
(ii) that is determined by the President to present a significant threat to the national security of the United States following the issuance of—
(I) a public notice proposing such determination; and
(II) a public report to Congress, submitted not less than 30 days before such determination, describing the specific national security concern involved and containing a classified annex and a description of what assets would need to be divested to execute a qualified divestiture.
Trumpian Irony
The bill seems ambiguous enough to give Trump latitude to say TikTok is not a national threat despite specific wording about TiKTok.
But who is going to challenge Trump executive order anyway?
The Trumpian irony is that it was Trump who first made the case TikToK was a national security threat.
On March 13, 2024, PAFACA was passed by the House of Representatives. The vote was 352 to 65, with 50 Democrats and 15 Republicans voting against the bill.
Biden signed PAFACA on April 24, 2024, as part of Public Law 118-50. And it is Biden whom TikTok users will blame.
Supreme Court Upholds TikTok Sell or Shut Down Law
The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that the ban was constitutional.
On January 17, I noted Supreme Court Upholds TikTok Sell or Shut Down Law, Sunday Deadline
If Musk does by TikTok, I suspect he would eventually merge it into X bringing more eyes into the total mix.
But I am unsure if China is willing or what the price might be (other than very high).
Regardless, the irony remains that it was Trump who set this ban in motion and now appears to not like the result.
The Supreme Court made the correct ruling. The court rules on constitutionality, not the merits of any legislation.
I disagree with the PAFACA premise. TikTok is not a realistic security threat except perhaps to a select few individuals who should not be on the app in the first place.
Meanwhile, despite Trump being the true source of the bill, millions of millennials and Zoomers who use TikTok will conclude Trump did more for them in a day than Biden did in four years.
Service is now being restored to 170 million users and Trump will get credit.
It’s the last time I get to say “and he isn’t even president yet”. LFG
For those that care, here’s Trump’s EO from August 2020 claiming Tiktok was a national security risk.
“I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, find that additional steps must be taken to deal with the national emergency with respect to the information and communications technology and services supply chain declared in Executive Order 13873 of May 15, 2019 (Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain). Specifically, the spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned by companies in the People’s Republic of China (China) continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. At this time, action must be taken to address the threat posed by one mobile application in particular, TikTok.”
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-tiktok/
I – Is TikTok a national security threat or not? Apparently not, and service is being restored.
> I think that this view is very short sighted. Mostly because it’s obviously not a security threat, or Our Military would have shut it down a long (30M? Viewers Ago) time ago. TikTok could be an issue, while possibly true, so Apparently are “Drones the Size of School Buses” flying all over “Our Country” At least we also see, what they see with TikTok, but not so much with Spy Drones perhaps?
Trump’s Truth Social Post: “Layman Terms Added” by Me.
I’m asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark! (“Shut Down”) I will issue an executive order on Monday (“It’s That Important”) to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security (“Which Also Includes Our Citizens Businesses”, “Of Which Many Rely on TikTok”), as well as others(“We Wish To Look At All Options”). The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order (“So Don’t Worry About Threats Otherwise”).
Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act
Inquiring minds are (“Looking Into”) diving into the Act, to see what’s Trump’s options (“Which We Obviously Don’t Know’) allegedly are.
Here are the (“One That We Hand Picked Out, oh The Irony”) applicable paragraphs (“As We See Them”)…
(3) FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATION.— (“Means in Our Version”), Blah, blah, blah…
– Supreme Court Upholds TikTok Sell or Shut Down Law
> Of course, as it’s the Legal Law!
– The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that the ban was constitutional.
> Of course, as it’s the Legal Law!
– I disagree with the PAFACA premise.
> Your right, and it’s only a premise.
– millions of millennials and Zoomers who use TikTok will conclude Trump did more for them in a day than Biden did in four years.
> Maybe because He has? There’s a theory that pertains to this perfectly!
– Service is now being restored to 170 million users and Trump will get credit.
> As He damn well should, As He Is!!!
MAGA!
Trumpian irony = he’s full of shit and figured out some additional grift.
Trump doesn’t need any damn “Grifts”
LOL. Keep believing that nonsense. Look at the biggest billionaires around. Which one of them is less greedy than they were $100B ago? Rhetorical question.
Article addressing a broader scope of things that will not quite play out as commonly believed is warranted.
25% Tariff on Canada and Mexico if they resist US Border closure plans by not acting is I think going to be one of them.
Once 12 noon 01/20/2025 comes, shortly thereafter US Borders get closed.
Would expect some conciliatory statements from Mexico and Canada about how they have seen the light and will work with Trump administration on illegal Border crossing. Say Hallelujah 🙂
I Would suspect conversations have already been had. Mexico and Canada will save face, by working with the Trump administration on illegal Border crossing’s, amongst other Topics.
Say Hallelujah! I Agree!!!
Melaniacoin just dropped, get in now and show your support, while becoming fabulously wealthy! You deserve this!
President Musk, the almighty and all knowing, when can we expect your meme coin? I really want to put my last $2 into a meme coin of you.
Your humble serf Woodsie Guy
Not yet… but it will be the biggest rug pull in history!
I can’t wait for you to steal my last $2. I wish I had more to give to you my lord.
Donald is deferring to Barron.
I have many a time to my kids too.
Not an authoritarian move.
Just rename it TOKTIC.
So basically he’s going to break the law on day one. No shock there.
Laws are for the serfs.
This is all wildly illegal. Trump has no authority to simply ignore a law passed by Congress. The law does have a provision for a 90-day extension, but only if TikTok’s owners have found a buyer—which they patently haven’t. In fact, they’ve been vocal in their refusal to even consider it.
And then there’s the dealmaker-in-chief’s suggestion that the federal government buy a 50% share in TikTok. I’m at a loss for words here. He thinks the United States—CEO: Donald Trump—should own the most popular social media app on the planet? And be in control of content moderation? Maybe the government should nationalize a bunch of other pesky media sites while it’s at it? The mind boggles.
OMG! impeach impeach! Lol.
You liberals are as dumb as a stump.
You may be back, but did you get your money back? Your TDS is still activated, so more meds will be required…
Trump has good bargaining position though. Congress says I can kill your company, the Court says I can kill your company. The only reason you exist is that I have a merciful side.
would you care to negotiate?
Mish, where’s all the right-wing commenter hatred of anti-law Executive Orders now that it’s not Biden supposedly doing it?
This law (whether you like it or not) was passed by Congress, challenged, and then confirmed by the Supreme Court. But Trump comes in with an expected EO (even giving cover to companies that will be breaking the law to keep TikTok online currently) so that, in part, ” Americans deserve to see our exciting inauguration on Monday”. LOL
How many comedians could even make this stuff up? Where’s the law and order umbrage from your commenters?
EO – ethylene oxide. Both flammable/explosive and carcinogen/mutagen. One of the uses is sterilization of the common newly manufactured codiv masks.
Come on, You are Naive. What “RULE OF LAW?” That was done away with back in the JFK Days, when I was a wee one.
I would think that either the legislation banning TikTok gives the president the right to suspend it or it doesn’t. Color me naive, but if Trump can’t lift the ban then he’s acting illegally. OTOH, Obama ceased enforcing immigration laws – thus “Deferred Action” for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). It’s not like laws or the Constitution actually matter these days.
I don’t care one way or the other about TikTok. I think the ban was just because the American Intelligence Community is pissed that they don’t have the backdoor into TikTok that they have with every other social media platform (and online search).
I think the TikTok ban was the result of pressure from Israel due to the Gaza protests.
As for Executive Orders, they have become a complete farce. Obama — the noted Constitutional Law Expert — stated during his first campaign that they were unconsitutional (b/c the Repubs were using them). Then of course once he was POTUS he used them, and Trump and then Biden took them to the next level of abuse.
What a cartoon country… Obama, Trump, Biden, Kamala… Each of them a clown in his or her way. Don’t get me started on Walz!
But Biden is by far the worst — most autocratic, biggest grifter, biggest liar, most genocidal.
– they don’t have the backdoor into TikTok that they have with every other social media platform.
> Spot On!
This is the natural consequence of ambiguously written law and and an executive that doesn’t believe in the separation of powers. Obama was the one that really started pushing the EO limitations in my view. He would often issue an EO and then dare a challenge against it knowing that the challenge would be tied up in court (with our without a temporary injunction).
Now we have Trump simply following precedent. At this point why even have a legislature? The legislature should guard their authority jealously, but they only do it when the opposing party heads up the executive and even then it’s tepid at best.
Except the Supreme Court affirmed the law 9-0
Not even close to what Obama did.
Favorite part of the post: “The Supreme Court made the correct ruling. The court rules on constitutionality, not the merits of any legislation”.<snip> An amazing percentage of Americans fail to grasp this point. You can have bad law that is constitutional and good law which is unconstitutional. All that matters is whether the constitution prohibits or doesn’t prohibit the action. Still not a fan of Chinese access to young people’s data – eventually it could be leveraged against them later in life. Everyone knows it’s much better for our own intelligence agencies to have this info. <Tongue firmly in cheek>
TikTok is a computer program. Anyone can write a computer program. Give it a few more years and no one will be even talking about TikTok. Something better will replace that mousetrap.
LOL – what kind of “data” does a Tik Tok user have? Besides their parents’ credit card numbers
Just a note, by clicking “accept” after all the legalese, the app has access to your entire phone, exact location, all their contacts (so your niece who has your phone number, maybe address, goes to the CCP or sold for advertising), access to other apps on your phone, and can remotely record from your device.
But hey, the 15 sec videos are funny
Imagine if this were Russia instead of China, and tell me things would be the same.
People might wonder what use all that data has. An example is how many people have Apps to order pizza deliveries. Every time something BIG is going down pizza deliveries to certain agencies in Washington go up. So China will know whenever pizza orders go up that something is happening and by knowing which particular agencies and which particular military bases are getting the pizza they can probably determine the details of whatever BIG is going down including what military assets are being deployed.
I have yet to find a member of Congress that can provide a coherent assessment of the security risks associated with Tik Tok. In most cases the explanation(s) are contorted. If the algorithm
Is the source of concern than most special media is a security threat. This is a bit like the commotion by some members of Congress and the FBI about Chinese gantry crane manufacturer ZPMC and the potential threat that these Chinese built cranes could have to the security of our ports. When interviewed about this, I kindly pointed out that the larger ports and container carriers station staff on-site at the manufacturers assembly site and that you should talk to them about your concerns. They were stunned that the manufacturer had an on-site hotel operation. They were stunned that the location had a large contingent of 3rd party quality control inspectors with unfettered access. They were stunned that the big shipping companies had engineering staff living on site. I asked: didn’t you do your basic homework. My interview came to a sudden stop!
reposted:
Just a note, by clicking “accept” after all the legalese, the app has access to your entire phone, exact location, all their contacts (so your niece who has your phone number, maybe address, goes to the CCP or sold for advertising), access to other apps on your phone, and can remotely record from your device.
But hey, the 15 sec videos are funny
Imagine if this were Russia instead of China, and tell me things would be the same.
Not to mention, foreign control of the news media has ALWAYS been a threat to the US, and TT definitely steers news commentary at the direction of the CCP.
So don’t click “accept.” You can also turn off “location tracking” on any app. Again, not a coherent risk assessment. What if’s can be broadly applied to just about anything, foreign or domestic.
I’m more worried about being tracked by American 3 letter agencies than I am about China.
Not a lawyer, but it looks like Trump keeps breaking the law. The funny thing is that MAGA used to see TikTok as the devil incarnate; now it’s suddenly the holy grail of right wing politics.
They believe what I tell them to .
There is no “MAGA”. Most Trump voters considered the alternative an chose him as the lesser of two evils.
The pertinent question is, who benefits from a TikTok ban? It’s closet competitor is Instagram, that is owned by Meta.
TikTok is controlled INDIRECTLY by the CCP. The CCP quietly told Byte Dance to NOT sell Tik Tok. They don’t care about the users in the USA except as pawns in their global game.
People in the USA see the 300 million Tik Tok users as a huge user base. China has more than a billion people and Tik Tok is not even close to being consequential to the CCP.
People in China were prevented from using Tik Tok by Chinese law. The CCP sees US users as a source of ‘mis-information’ , degeneracy and unrest. (Anything that presented China in less than a positive way is banned from China’s internet.)
Many Tik Tok users have set up accounts on RedNote, another China based site.
For the ramifications of this please view
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjWairkG9lw
Any thoughts on Smithfield Foods, USAs largest pork producer, being owned by a company with ties to the Chinese Government?
Just asking
Should be banned as well. Just like Saudi Arabia growing alfalfa in Arizona for the sole benefit of, well, themselves while pulling water from everyone else. Should be illegal:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/in-drought-stricken-arizona-fresh-scrutiny-of-saudi-arabia-owned-farms-water-use
“People in China were prevented from using Tik Tok by Chinese law.”
Exactly, it’s designed as a weapon that they don’t want their own citizens to fall for.
So, like Facebook.
“… Trump did more for them in a day than Biden did in four years.”
How true this is on so many other fronts.
Biden boosted the stock market by 50%. Trump has yet to do anything.
Control-Alt-Print since Greenspam.
Hopefully Trump will tank the stock market soon.
Then he gave us Trumpcoin, and now Melaniacoin! It is truly an age of wonders.
Right out of the standard political playbook.
1) Create a crisis that didn’t exist (claim TikTok is a threat)
2) Drive the masses into hysteria about it via the media (including social media)
3) Solve the very problem you created (that never existed in the first place) while claiming credit for doing so.
Lets hope Trump is correct and the US Government gets half the shares so it can sell them for a nice profit to reduce the deficit. That’s the best we can hope for.
The guy who owns the majority shares is Singaporean, not Chinese, as the media insists. The government has no backdoor to the platform; therefore, it must go. Yeah, we live in a free society, as long as it confirms to the establishment.
The MSM reported that Speaker Johnson said: “It’s not the platform that members of Congress are concerned about. It’s the Chinese Communist Party and their manipulation of the algorithms — they have been flooding the minds of American children with terrible messages glorifying violence and anti-semitism and even suicide and eating disorders. I mean, crazy kinds of stuff, and they’re mining the data of American citizens. It’s a very dangerous thing,”
My B.S. detector went off on this one. I want to see actual, concrete verifiable proof of exactly what those “algorithms” are and that the Chinese Communist Party is the one manipulating them.
Otherwise I assume this ‘story’ is from the same playbook as “Saddam has weapons of mass destruction”, “Russia hacked the election” and “Hunter Biden’s laptop is a Russian disinformation hoax”.
TikTok is a global company with billions of users, part of it in the USA. So don’t worry brave citizen, you data will be safe with NSA after the US part is sold.
I don’t always buy beer, but when I do I use cash and leave the phone in the car.
When I worked for the Federal Govt, our agency administrative lawyers could not go to court or prosecute anyone — only the DOJ (Dept of Justice) lawyers could. And if all prosecutions must start with the DOJ, and Trump’s people run the DOJ, and no (Federal) prosecutions can be done that Trump doesnt want done, there is no reason for Trump to follow any (Federal) laws or regulations, as no one but the (DOJ) prosecutors can initiate prosecutions. Trump is now one big step toward being a dictator. Only the Congress (fat chance) and (non-Trump) judges can stop him now.
Lots of stuff gets done under dictatorships that otherwise wouldn’t get done because of too many competing interests. Lets home Trump gets plenty done.
Whatever you get, it cost you democracy.
Scary.
What a stupid statement. When someone you don’t like gets into office I’ll guarantee that you’ll be screaming about checks and balances and presidential overreach.
Usurpation of power by any branch of government is bad for the average Joe/Jane.
I’m convinced that many people simply want a dictator, but only if it’s “their” dictator.
I don’t want a dictator.
I simply spoke a truth (that dictators sometimes get stuff done that otherwise wouldn’t)), even if it’s an inconvenient truth. If you don’t believe me just take a look at China which is a quasi dictatorship.
Brain Rot, H1Bs, and trumpcoin… welcome to the golden age!