The Biden administration reportedly rejected an offer from TikTok’s parent company ByteDance in 2022, that would have given it extraordinary influence over the world’s most popular app.
The proposal would have allowed federal officials to pick TikTok’s U.S. operation’s board of directors, given the government veto power over each new hire and seen TikTok pay an American company that contracts with the Defense Department to monitor its source code.
It even offered to give federal officials a “kill switch” that would shut the app down in the United States, if it was determined to be a threat. So why was it declined? The Washington Post has more (may require subscription).
Kanaks (the indigenous peoples of New Caledonia) are revolting against French colonialism, and the French govt is blocking access to tiktok in an attempt to stop them organising and posting about what's happening.
"Why did France ban TikTok?
As we mentioned, France gave an order to block access to TikTok across the island as part of a state of emergency declaration. Other measures also include the deployment of French troops to secure ports and international airports, alongside a national curfew.
This harsh response came as a reaction to three days of violent clashes that left four dead (including a French gendarme) and hundreds wounded. As Politico reported, protests erupted as French lawmakers passed a bill to change the voting system by allowing all citizens residing on the island for more than 10 years to vote in local elections. New Caledonia's indigenous population, the Kanaks, believes this law will ultimately weaken their representation."
Frank McCourt, the billionaire real estate mogul and former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is currently working on a bid to buy TikTok, according to reports.
While it remains to be seen whether TikTok’s parent company ByteDance will agree to a sale to anyone, @Gizmodo reports that “McCourt’s background in utopian tech advocacy makes him an interesting figure to enter the race.” Here’s what we know so far.
No. Just, no. Not #VPN, nor any other technology is a solution, because the problem is much deeper than that. The US banning TikTok is just the beginning, they will simply continue expanding #censorship of any content the government finds objectionable. We may soon find governments like the US passing legislation that running an #ActivityPub server of any kind is illegal "terrorist activity" before long, and all NATO countries will follow suit (they must, or else risk losing NATO membership).
And of course the stated reason for the US blocking whole portions of the Internet is for "cypersecurity" reasons. Anyone with half a brain knows the real reason is to try to prevent sharing knowledge across borders, because that is the real threat to the politicians and their bosses.
It is really no different than what countries like China does with their Great Firewall, or what Iran does whitelisting only certain blocks of the Internet that exists outside of their borders, also for "cybersecurity" reasons. Of course the US government will continue to cite censorship of free speech as a reason that countries like China or Iran are inherently evil. This deranged political double-speak is the norm nowadays, as "antisemitism" is used as a justification to arrest Jewish people who protest war at their universities, but I digress.
A must-read article from Anne Applebaum. It has been obvious for a while that pro-Trump social media is mostly foreign propaganda. The irony of using “America First” to sabotage America is no doubt something foreign trolls find amusing.
Fear, cynicism, nihilism, and apathy, coupled with disgust and disdain for democracy: that is what modern autocrats sell and there are far too many people falling for it.
@TonyStark I thought Applebaum would argue that Chinese owned #TikTok was spreading propaganda to sabotage America, but she doesn't mention it at all. This is surprising since that's the primary argument in support of the #TikTokBan
The calls for a #TikTokBan come from Zionists who have lost the ability to control the narrative and has absolutely nothing to do with China. The majority of Tik Tok is owned by ByteDance a company based in Los Angeles and Singapore.