Was the whole TikTok drama a bait-and-switch to make Trump look good?
Skeptics have highlighted how Trump was the one who initially called for the Chinese-owned social media app to be banned in 2020
I feel like this is an incredibly obvious yes. They were down for 12 hours. They put Trump's name as their savior in the error message... Then the CEO shows up to his inauguration. Trump freely admits that it is because he believes TikTok helped him win the election:
“I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok because I won youth by 34 points,” Trump said in December. “And there are those that say TikTok had something to do with that.”
So. Yeah. Of fucking course it was. Fuck national security and all that nonsense, ME ME ME!
I was thinking the same, I'm 99% certain Trump required his name to be included in the welcome back message as a condition for not implementing the ban.
It's very poorly written theatre
The audience who enjoys this theater isn’t exactly sophisticated. Pro wrestling has more complex plot and believable characters.
And a bribe
And didn't they explicitly state that they went down because "the US government is not working on a solution", 12h before this government changed?
Yes. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyeer3qp12o
It said that unless the government immediately stepped in to assure the video app it would not be punished for violating the looming ban, it would be "forced to go dark on January 19".<<
No, as I said the error message explicitly mentioned him by name
I will argue that so was the Israel cease-fire "strong-man" act. In fact my conspiracy theory is that Israel explicitly delayed the cease-fire so that Trump could look strong by finishing it, then whined a bit in the newspapers to sell it. This is not even the first time they GOP has done this, as per the Iran hostages affair.
Yeah and it's not far-fetched considering how openly Netanyahu endorsed Trump. With Trump in office Netanyahu can do whatever he wants, waging a costly in terms of PR war will be no longer necessary.
Judy Woodruff was forced to publicly apologize because Trump and Bibi said they didn't talk about delaying it, but I still think she was right:
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-accused-crime-benjamin-netanyahu-call-ceasefire-hamas-1942248
I mean, I'd trust unnamed sources over these two guys any day.
because Trump and Bibi said they didn't talk about delaying it
Oh well, if the two known liars said so...
Headline from fox news: "Oliver North: Israel will have to put people on the ground and it will be bloody"
Reality is truly stranger than fiction. If any writer continued to use a character like him for so long in such obvious ways without suffering any consequences, readers' suspension of disbelief would be shattered.
He was there for Iran-Contra. He is still here for Israel-Hamas. The exact same playbook. Place political gain over national interest. Put lives needlessly in danger and extend suffering for an easy win.
I believe it was because under Trump Israel would get better terms as Miriam Adelson paid for that.
The only thing that can make Trump look good is his obituary
Lmao, yes.
He "brought it back" before he was even in office. And since no one looks up anything, I'm sure it did it's job.
How do people not see through this theatre? It wasn’t even subtle. Oh right, the brainrot…
The original idea came from him. To me it just makes trump a hypocrite
How so? It was politically convenient to go after TikTok when he did it, and it's politically convenient to reverse course now. That's a pretty consistent gameplan from Trump, attack something when it's popular, reverse when reversing is popular.
Hypocrisy: The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.
Holding a position when politically convenient and reversing your stance on that position due to political convenience is hypocrisy. It may be typical and expected, but it's still hypocrisy.
It is more in line with a puppet, that has zero understanding of anything, being told what to say as it is convenient.
If we were talking about a sane person, I don't see why a person cannot change his mind.
Trump is just playing the fools.
Trump doesn't have a mind to change. I doubt he even remembers he ever proposed a ban and this is just some advisor telling him that doing the opposite of Biden will get him likes.
Trump's basically a fractal hypocrisy, which is, as I understand it, why and how the grift keeps grifting.
Sort of, yes. It is a counterintelligence/disinformation app, and for that reason it makes MAGA look good. MAGA now controls all 3 of the top disinformation apps: Twitter, Facebook , and Tiktok. This is the war on truth; facts and honesty lost.
Not to mention they've bought out every previously legitimate news source.
Give'em the disease then sell'em the cure.
Trump started the whole thing because he was unpopular on Tiktok. Republicans jumped on board because young people were politically organizing on the platform and they don't like that.
But up to that point, there was no really effort, even as much as they tried to claim "national security".
Then when the real information about Palestine was being spread there the democrats jumped on board because they are the same as republicans when if comes to foreign policy.
That's what started the actual push that gained momentum. They had no actual evidence about the stuff they claimed. Also, if the claim applied to Tiktok, it applies to all the other social media. But they don't actually care about privacy. They only care about a platform that they couldn't control and wasn't catering to them.
If they cared about privacy, they would have pushed general privacy legislation and/or regulation and oversight on all social media.
The reversal was Biden realizing he does not have a good legacy and with Trump, there was a lot more content this time around that was pro-trump (and also tiktok gave him a million dollars). So now he gets to claim he "saved tiktolk" when he was the start of the whole thing.
All CEOs understood how to behave with such an arrogant person: flatter him and he will bow to your every wims.
Bow even harder and you get pardoned for every crime you did..
Who came up with this pardon shit anyway?!
Yes.
Obviously. They see the game. They played the game.
Why did the Democrats fall for it though?
Because they’re very dumb.
It will go on like that for several years now. One shit show, and then the next one, and then the next three ones...
No, this is just what it looks like when evil encoaches. Having no true ethical or moral obligations it decides everything on a case by case basis and if it can't be controlled then it is destroyed.
Given that he was the one that called for it to be banned extremely vocally, and he's not been able to keep it banned for more than a few hours even as the now leader of that country, seemingly caving under pressure to flip his stance on the matter (showing off the bat that he's very politically weak)....
I don't see how this makes him look anything but weak, or inept.
Ahh, but see you're been following this over several months/years, or looked up what actually happened. You're not the target for this dupe.
This tactic works incredibly well as you'll find you are outside the norm. I still remember people ranting about how Obama was late responding to Hurricane Katrina.
Welcome to Politics 2.0 where the information is freely available but the facts don't matter.
"Caving under pressure"? This is a massive win for him, he just got every single major corp app out there to agree to push his agenda and thrawrt his opponents. How many posts today have been showing search results in various apps being fucky?
Bytedance didnt have to block their app yesterday, they did it perfomantly, and virtually everyone bought it hook like and sinker.
You are dreaming if you think the perception of this event to the average person is the weakness of a certain inflated organge hemmoroid.
His cohort of billionare buddys now control discussion and content on a hugely concerning portion of all public communication channels that currently exist.
Humans on average are already disappointingly stupid. Now this administration is actively discoraging free, critical thought and discussion and encouraging the use of algorithmically powered, emotionally draining, knowledge obfuscating, personal data collection software viruses that people willingly install.
On those apps he and his friends look like amazing heroes, and will for the next 4 years, regardless of the events of reality. Then we will have to vote with millions of people who only use these apps for information. Best of luck to us all.
Yeah, the super obvious political stunt was a political stunt. It only fools those that don't pay any attention or don't know how anything works. Biden said he would not enforce the order, that trump signed during his first term, to ban tiktok. Then tiktok chose to shut itself down for a day and chose to turn itself back on with its political pandering notice. It is all to manipulate it's users while also paying fealty to the incoming president (because China knows that is how easy he is to control).
TikTok had to make Trump look good as he presumably saves it so they did that stunt. In the end both sides know TT has to agree to selling majority stake because it isn’t anything China didn’t do to US firms multiple times already.
It likely was, hell it had me fooled. I was honestly about to say "Maybe I was wrong about him? Maybe Kamala losing won't be so bad..."
But then he signed the Transgender order and on the same day Musk did the Nazi salute and I'm like "And this is what I get for questioning my own world view."
At least I voted Harris in the election and spent literally only two or three days (17-20) being fooled, and let's be honest, it was Copium, not truly being swayed
I was honestly about to say “Maybe I was wrong about him? Maybe Kamala losing won’t be so bad…”
And this is why democracy sucks. Voters have the memory of a flea and the emotions of a toddler.
"Democracy is the worst form of govt except for all the other ones that have been tried"
The whole thing? No. The 14 hour temper tantrum? Absolutely.
Yes.
Do you know any dopamine addicts who lost their minds for a week straight? You know the ones. Giving more permissions to shady apps to scratch their itch?
Sad world we live in lolol.
Can someone explain to me how they believe the Trump team convinced Biden to sign the ban?
If you think it was a stunt for the benefit of Trump, you’re implying the Biden admin was in on it. Doesn’t make sense to me. Seems the more likely scenario is Biden just royally fucked up again to the point of somehow making Trump look good.
I thought the stunt was on the part if TikTok. They shut down when they didn't have to and then came back on all chummy with Trump when he announced the 90 day extension. The play was to kiss Trump's ass. Biden signed it and they took advantage of the situation.
Still doesn't look good.
Yes, I also think that was bait, because ban started few days before begin of Trump term and ban was not really working. It had a lot of bugs, simple VPN could byoass it, "YES, user who logged in ONLY from USA and now loggin from Europ REALLY IS NOT AN AMERICAN NOW!!!". That two things make me to think it was a bait.
Tiktok is an app for stupid people so naturally stupid people would be more gullible.
If it's that problematic with propaganda then banning it after an election was a meaningless gesture. It served it's purpose and reversing the ban was simply transactional. They paid money and kissed the ring.
This man will always be a moron.
If so, it didn't work. It made him look dimwitted and easily swayed.
Both of which, he is.
Only to people who aren't complete fucking morons. Which, doesn't seem to be enough.
While the whole situation is shitty, I find it hard to believe a massive company would shut down services for 12 hours, losing millions in revenue and likely millions of users, all as a PR stunt for a foreign leader.
No, and that's an incredibly stupid premise. Trump wasn't the one to push the Ban. He wasn't the one to keep it going to completion, and he sure didn't PLAN on not having a second consecutive term. He's just following his most basic programming of If Biden did(Thing); Undo(Thing)
He was the one who initiated the ban...
I really doubt it. Trump just did the obvious, grabbed the low hanging fruit, and contradicted the Biden administration because that’s all he can do. No conspiracy needed; that would afford trump forethought and cunning he isn’t capable of. He can’t think past his next Big Mac or tweet.
you underestimate too much. trump is just a face, there are plenty of people working with him and planning all kinds of shit. any kid plans some trickeries while playing board games. what makes you think a political group is incapable of forethought?
Why, he had no need of it whatsoever, unfathomably he has won control of everything and owes no one anything. Also the world is just not this well managed, it's all just chaos and carnage and design in hindsight.
Ah, but he does need something... continual attention and praise. Narcissists gonna narcissist.
Then why mention his name at all. It's just like the covid checks, Trump demands/wants the attention.
Nobody except genocide joe thought it was a good idea to censor an extremely popular app because it revealed the truth about his genocide.
Biden reversed Trump's previous executive order banning it and said he would just support whatever Congress decides, and both sides of Congress bipartisanly supported a ban. But sure... Only Genocide Joe. 🙄
That's old news, it's "Genocide Don" now.
He's already truly beloved by most. This really isn't needed to rally further support. This seems like nonsense. To any thoughtful few there are no options for redemption for this dumb shit.
Put down whatever it is that's causing ypu to believe Trump is beloved by most. He has the second lowest approval rating in history.
Give him a chance. He has a big base of hateful bigots and his approval rating is climbing. He's currently at 50%. Are you locked in a big liberal city or something? Where I am at people absolutely rave about him. I've never seen banners for presidents hanging on homes, so many bumper stickers. Even in NYC, every gift shop is full of trump memorabilia. He's wildly popular and while polarizing factors will make approval ratings and averages not get much higher than 50%, the hateful scum that love him really love him.
I don't think there was any grand Machiavellian scheme. Trump just capitalized on historic democrat incompetence to make himself look good.
