Althouse: "Mr. Trump told CNBC in March that he still considered TikTok a national security threat, but that young people 'will go crazy without it.'"

December 29, 2024

"Mr. Trump told CNBC in March that he still considered TikTok a national security threat, but that young people 'will go crazy without it.'"

"He also said moves against TikTok would benefit Facebook, which he called an 'enemy of the people.' Mr. Trump went on to use TikTok with great success during the campaign, and has said that it was a key vehicle for reaching young people this year. His youngest son, Barron, also encouraged him to lean into the platform to win over young voters, according to two sources familiar with their interactions, who spoke on condition of anonymity.... With Mr. Trump’s brief to the Supreme Court, his position on TikTok has come full circle, and he is now casting himself as the platform’s savior.... 'President Trump opposes banning TikTok in the United States at this juncture,' the brief said, 'and seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office.'"

From "How Donald Trump Went From Backing a TikTok Ban to Backing Off/In 2020, he moved to ban the Chinese-owned app. Now, he is opposing the Biden administration’s effort to do just that" (NYT).

34 comments:

FullMoon said...: So many anonymous sources these days. Anyway..
Tracing the use of the anonymous source .; 12/29/24, 10:23 AM
doctrev said...: Why is no one pointing out that the Biden regime only went full tilt against TikTok when the platform refused to kowtow to its censorship? Same principle.; 12/29/24, 10:24 AM
Dixcus said...: "Young people will go crazy without it" is the primary reason to stop this insane app right now. The very last thing we need is a dopamine delivery system directed at America's young people by a hostile foreign government bent on controlling them with this drug addiction.

How can Trump not see that his job is to PROTECT American children ... not placate them?

Surely he is more intelligent about what his responsibilities are.; 12/29/24, 10:29 AM
FullMoon said...: There is precedent:

"Rock'n'roll music was attacked on all fronts, with records banned and smashed. Radio DJs were ordered not to play certain songs; rock singers (especially Elvis) were condemned; and the career of rock promoter Alan Freed, the man who named the music rock'n'roll, was destroyed by a government investigation."; 12/29/24, 10:36 AM
n.n said...: NYT's infamy in unquotes is a progressive condition. They should get that checked.; 12/29/24, 10:43 AM
Aggie said...: It's gone from Mark Felt gaming the system as a sour-grapes FBI man bent on revenge against Nixon, to the common use of anonymous sources in the Progressive Legacy Mainstream Media today - used to define a story, rather than underpin it. And they've actually moved on from this, to deliberately salting editorial opinion into the news stream now, inserting comments like claims without evidence and falsely said and so on. They probably think they're still staying on the side of angels and on the right side of the True/False line by playing it this way. But the truth is, a journalist desperately needs to get their face slapped in real time when such utterances are made, presenting opinions as if they are facts.; 12/29/24, 10:53 AM
Original Mike said...: How does TikTok physically "get banned"? I see they would remove the app from the App Stores, but everyone who wants it already has it (I don't; I am very conservative when it comes to loading any app on my devices. I consider them a security risk).

And you don't even need the app, you can access it with a browser.; 12/29/24, 11:00 AM
Nihimon said...: "Freedom is scary - deal with it"

We don't need the State to set up guardrails for our lives.

We can handle living in a world where people say things that aren't true, or that are intended to harm us. We can handle living in a world where people use drugs - it's actually helpful to see the truth about what happens to such people.

Why do so few in America actually cherish Other People's Liberty?; 12/29/24, 11:10 AM
reader said...: I'm not very tech savvy and I don't "do" TikTok. But I do have questions. If the US govt is really worried about TikTok why don't they just ban it on any government issued phones/devices and on any personal phone/device employees and subcontractors use to do their job with the US govt? People have the right to use TikTok but they don't have a right to a government job, if they want the job they can give up TikTok (or get a seperate device not used for work to use TikTok on).
Couldn't states and companies do the same thing?
If the government is worried about the destruction of young minds...that is the parent's job to deal with.
It seems simple so I must be missing something.; 12/29/24, 11:11 AM
Wince said...: Trump is triangulating the situation politically.

“President Trump takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute. Instead, he respectfully requests that the Court consider staying the Act’s deadline for divestment of January 19, 2025, while it considers the merits of this case.” Trump’s brief stated that he opposes banning TikTok at this point, emphasizing that he “seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office.”

Aside: Eureka! I notice by adding the word "concrete," evidently you can elide the "without evidence" qualifier.

The Biden administration argued that even though it has no concrete evidence that China has attempted to compel ByteDance to hand over information on TikTok’s US patrons or use the platform to spread or suppress information...; 12/29/24, 11:14 AM
tommyesq said...: The real question that no one has answered is what the underlying reason for the proposed ban actually is Is it (a) because we don't want the content that is being pushed to be received in the US (which obviously poses First Amendment issues) or (b) because we don't like the data mining, or at least don't like that the recipient of our mined data is China rather than Zuckerberg. The second of these would more properly be addressed by platform-neutral legislation that targets data mining itself, or perhaps targets data mining that benefits foreign nations/governments, rather than the ham-fisted approach of targeting Tik Tok and only Tik Tok.; 12/29/24, 11:15 AM
tommyesq said...: Hell, too many people don't even value their own liberty - all the Karen scolds yelling at the unmasked were fine with locking themselves into house arrest and wore their masks when travelling alone in a car.; 12/29/24, 11:16 AM
Dixcus said...: The Federal government controls all the inbound routers that allow foreign internet traffic onto the US internet.

You are only seeing what they want you to see already. If they decide to cut off Tik-Tok's pernicious influence and drug peddling to America's children, it will take mere seconds to accomplish.; 12/29/24, 11:20 AM
Dixcus said...: Happy to answer Tom: Certain internet applications are designed specifically to release dopamine in the human brain. Dopamine has many effects, but it's primary effect is that it is wildly addictive. The purpose of the app is to keep people watching it. A foreign hostile Communist government owns the app. So it is trivial now that they have a literally captive addicted audience to subtly begin to influence that audience with certain messages ... messages that may undermine American freedoms and rights.

Question: Do we allow foreign governments to addict America's children to a pernicious drug and then allow those Communist governments to then use that addiction against the United States?

Or do we not allow that?

This has always been the very public and easily discoverable reason for banning Tik-Tok.; 12/29/24, 11:24 AM
Dixcus said...: The state exists SOLELY to set up guardrails for our lives. Your premise is ridiculous. We have THOUSANDS of laws banning all types of things ... guardrails society has established for our lives and the lives of our children.

And most humans DESPERATELY need to be controlled in this manner, for the benefit of the normal amongst us.; 12/29/24, 11:28 AM
Dixcus said...: What if Tik-Tok isn't just an app? What if it's a drug delivery system? Should we still allow a foreign government to run a drug delivery system in the United States?; 12/29/24, 11:29 AM
tommyesq said...: I agree with your factual analysis, but am less certain that this circumvents the First Amendment concerns - after all, most (if not all) of the Tik Tok videos are not of Chinese origin (Tik Tok is actually banned in China, they have a different and very heavily censored platform instead) and a considerable number are produced by Americans and cover political issues (the very foundation of the right to free speech).; 12/29/24, 11:31 AM
tommyesq said...: Plus, as Wince noted above, the Biden administration acknowledged that it has no concrete evidence that China has attempted to compel ByteDance to hand over information on TikTok’s US patrons or use the platform to spread or suppress information... If the level of judicial scrutiny is elevated, this will likely damn the law.; 12/29/24, 11:32 AM
tommyesq said...: Even the ‘rational basis’ test (the most lenient level of judicial review) considers whether the law at issue is ‘rationally related’ to a ‘legitimate’ government interest. The lack of concrete evidence noted above may render the law to be not rationally related to a desire to protect children.; 12/29/24, 11:35 AM
Dixcus said...: The good news, Aggie is that most people aren't swayed by the media any longer. We're in on the con. CNN has the lowest audience in cable television, just behind MSNBC. The NY Times has only 2 million subscribers in a nation of 350 million people and most of them don't put two cents into anything the NY Times tells us. Remember, they got a Pulitzer for Russia Collusion stories and haven't returned that.; 12/29/24, 11:35 AM
Dixcus said...: "produced by Americans and cover political issues"

Those people have plenty of avenues to express those views. Nobody is stopping them. They can even create a US-based app and distribute them if they wish. And make money doing it.

We're just not going to allow a foreign hostile Communist government to do it.

For what should be very obvious reasons even to a 3-year-old.; 12/29/24, 11:39 AM
mikee said...: Somebody once said that the cure for bad speech is more speech. TikTok is a cesspit in the US, but in China it is a schoolkid educational tool that Sesame Street never imagined being. The Khan Academy is one of the reasons YouTube isn't entirely useless. TikTok could be overwhelmed with good content, in an enterprise of nationwide wholesomeness, were enough people to attempt that.; 12/29/24, 11:50 AM
Stephen A. Meigs said...: What I have noticed about Instagram (now controlled by Facebook's parent company Meta) is that recently if you use their recommendation engine to find pictures of pretty young females, say in bikinis, you very strongly tend to get pictures of young females who look like hookers. No matter how much you only look at the pictures who look less like prostitutes or downvote the pictures of females that look like prostitutes, the recommendation engine still gives mainly pictures of females who mostly look like prostitutes. I have pretty much stopped using their recommendation engine, accordingly. Simplest explanation I think is that Instagram has hired censors/recommenders to check pictures of young females for harmful content, and these employees are paying the sex traffickers who give them access to their favorite hookers by recommending other hookers controlled by the same sex traffickers--payment by likes rather than payment by cash. This would very bad. You can see, too, many girls who don't look like hookers trying to look (probably to get more likes) like the (expensive-looking) hookers who perhaps tend to get most likes merely because the recommenders are causing them to get likes in exchange for cheap or free access to other hookers controlled by same sex traffickers. Admittedly, though, It's hard to tell golddiggers prospecting for expensive husbands from prostitutes in more standard sense. Unfortunately, there is no good alternative to Instagram, so it is still a valuable service, say in checking out recent pictures of beautiful/inspiring females you found on internet ten years ago, before that became especially difficult.; 12/29/24, 11:53 AM
Readering said...: Tik Tok was banned on government phones. Dunno if and how enforced.; 12/29/24, 12:07 PM
Earnest Prole said...: Trump’s right, it’s a tough choice. On the one hand there’s the bratty wrath of youth, on the other hand there’s the very security of the United States of America.

“Your money or your life!” the mugger demands. “I'm thinking it over!” Jack Benny replies.; 12/29/24, 12:23 PM
rehajm said...: They are propaganda now, no matter how desperately the bitter clingers want them to be journalists so habits and routines aren’t disrupted…; 12/29/24, 12:39 PM
rehajm said...: The official pretending is really quite maddening. They crossed the line long ago but still hold White House press credentials and real estate. Why?; 12/29/24, 12:41 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: Money quote:
"The only thing we know for sure is the identity of the article’s author. We are asked to take the facts on trust, without a chance to evaluate the source of the remarks. This over-reliance on the anonymous source gives both the journalist and his/her informant an overwhelming power, and takes away our ability to judge the veracity of what we are being told. I believe it’s one of the most pernicious trends in journalism."; 12/29/24, 12:46 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: The SCOTUS usually rules for the Establishment, and the Uniparty wants Tik-Tok gone. Mostly because Tik-Tok doesn't obey their censorship edicts. Too many attacks on Israeli Genocide in Gaza, too many Trumpists, too much "Misinformation" aka Truth.; 12/29/24, 12:48 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: Mitch the bitch McConnell spoke for the uniparty when he put in a brief against granting a delay to save Tik-tok. Given that Mitch has gotten mucho dinero from communist china and chinese over the years, you can be sure that banning tik tok has little to do with "national security threats from china".; 12/29/24, 12:51 PM
Earnest Prole said...: Trump was against TikTok before he was for it. The true orange flex would be for him to suddenly declare he was against it again just for the sheer filthy pleasure of watching his minions volte-face without the slightest trace of shame on their faces.; 12/29/24, 1:06 PM
Narayanan said...: Happy to answer Tom: Certain internet applications are designed specifically to release dopamine in the human brain.
=================
r u daying non-chinese apps don't?; 12/29/24, 2:50 PM
tommyesq said...: I think we could rationally do this with a ban on all foreign interference, rather than just Tik Tok. But our betters don't want to because they are doing the same in foreign elections. Globalists all.; 12/29/24, 3:46 PM
tommyesq said...: Tik Tok is banned in China, so not educational to them. I don't know, but I suspect anything with foreign created content is banned or heavily censored there.; 12/29/24, 3:48 PM