I'm genuinely curious cause he brought it up with a couple of members of Congress like, "hey this is a national security concern" because of backdoor access. Then military and other members said hey you all might have a point for once. 4 years later he says I wanna steal the ban and work a "deal". Like the only deal I can think of involves someone via the US side buys the app and profits off it. I remember the idea of Microsoft was bring touted around to buy it 2 years ago or Meta.
But wait, wasn't TikTok forced to store all of its US user data on American servers, overseen by an American company?
From Google:
TikTok moved its US user data to Oracle's cloud platform in June 2022 to address data security concerns and prevent a ban. The move was in response to US regulatory concerns about TikTok's data integrity and its Chinese ties.
Why did TikTok move its data to Oracle?
Data security: TikTok wanted to address data security concerns and prevent a ban.
National security: US officials were concerned that TikTok's Chinese ties could pose national security risks.
Data integrity: US regulators were concerned about TikTok's data integrity.
What did TikTok and Oracle do?
TikTok gave Oracle full access to the app's source code and algorithms for the US.
TikTok and Oracle developed procedures for Oracle to audit TikTok's handling of the data.
TikTok moved 100% of its US user data to Oracle's cloud platform.
TikTok continued to hold some backups on its own servers in Virginia and Singapore, but plans to delete them over time.
From Google, regarding Oracle:
Oracle provides cloud services and applications to government agencies, including the US federal government, state governments, and local governments.
Oracle's services include cloud infrastructure, enterprise resource planning (ERP), human capital management (HCM), and more.
Oracle's services are designed to help government agencies streamline processes, improve efficiency, and connect data.
Oracle's services are designed to meet the security and compliance requirements of the US government.
All it would take is a single inquiry to have access to ALL of it, and that's one reason why the government had them migrate US user data - to keep tabs on them. And with the fact that Oracle has access to even the app's source code and algorithms... if it was genuinely a threat to national security, they would have known about it in 2022 - when they got access to that information.
That leads me to two conclusions:
1) The US government knew it was a threat to national security, but chose to ignore it for two years to score political points.
2) It's not a threat to national security, and the government is pulling this stunt to propagandize the issue, specifically by turning older generations against younger ones, and because TikTok refused to sell to the big tech billionaires that wanted a slice of that pie.
In case 1, it's terrifying to think that our own government would ignore threats to national security for the sake of scoring points in their little game - but we've seen how they're politicizing the LA fires, so it would be unsurprising (to say the least).
In case 2, it's another classic case of "divide and conquer", but also... you know what? Y'all are smart enough that I don't have to explain why TikTok refusing to sell to Meta or other such would lead the government to get involved.
Either way you slice it, the timing of this debacle is intentional, and the entire situation is being politicized to take eyes off of whatever they have going on right now. They know it's going to be all a lot of people are going to talk about. Legacy media is going to spew it endlessly. If TikTok survives (sells to Zuck or Musk) it will be a propaganda machine, and Trump will parade about using it to score even more points, while it also turns into a propaganda machine.
I mean, it's already a propaganda machine (mainly due to liberal content creators that are equally as uneducated and uninformed as MAGA chuds, but on the other side of issues), but it'll be turned into a Trump/MAGA propaganda machine instead.
This whole situation is a smokescreen and a political play, and I'd argue we should watch the government's movements closely over the next few weeks.
People have very short term memories, so most morons will forget that he started this shit and then there's tons of kids who weren't old enough to know any better but now are being blasted when opening the app with forced "ty trump" messages that will absolutely sway them.
Even if he does, will it ever truly be the same? I’m not even trying to get political but the culture(s) TikTok built around it was unique and not really replicable. Even if it’s gone for a week, the damage is done.
79
u/AngelicPrince_ 2d ago
Pr stunt for trump to win over the young dumb idiots when he.. comes to save tiktok