Fmr #Trump treas sec #Mnuchin is telling investors he has a plan to buy #TikTok
Mnuchin told potential backers he aims to maneuver around its price of >$100B & #China’s ban of the export of recommendation #algorithms.
He indicated he could overcome those hurdles by offering to buy the #app w/o the export-blocked #code, essentially forcing his consortium to remake a service built on billions of lines of code.
Observers, & ≥1 person familiar w/the pitch, have said the idea is so far-fetched that it suggests a lack of familiarity w/how #tech companies work. #TikTok users flocked to the #app bc of its surprising suggestions for videos they might like, & there’s no guarantee any #Mnuchin-driven version could duplicate that success — or beat rivals like #Meta & #Google, who have worked for yrs to mirror the experience w/in their own respective apps, #Instagram & #YouTube. #algorithms#SocialMedia#policy
“Everyone wants to build a #TikTok-level #algorithm. That’s a key element of competition in… #tech …right now,” said Matt Perault, UNC prof & fmr #Facebook dir who studies tech #policy.
“…the biggest cos have thrown a lot of money & #engineering talent at that issue & have struggled to do it. If #Mnuchin thinks he can do that & succeed where…successful cos have struggled, good luck.”
Mnuchin, [is] a fmr hedge fund mngr & Hollywood producer w/no #SocialMedia experience….
The #Smirnov case has generated plenty of headlines and has caused the leading Republican impeachers—namely, Reps. James #Comer and Jim #Jordan—to look foolish.
But it’s important to view the Smirnov affair in this wider context: Republicans and the MAGA right have eagerly participated in Kremlin scheming to undermine Biden
This Moscow plot has been a matter of public record for years. In February 2020, intelligence officials briefed House lawmakers that Moscow was interfering in the election to assist Trump’s reelection.
(This briefing, of course, angered Trump, who had refused to acknowledge that a covert program authorized by Russian leader Vladimir Putin helped him win the White House four years earlier, and he replaced the acting director of national intelligence.)
Months later, William Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, issued a statement declaring that Russia “is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President Biden…Some Kremlin-linked actors are also seeking to boost President Trump’s candidacy on social media and Russian television.”
That was related to #Giuliani’s endeavor.
The NCSC statement noted that a pro-Russia Ukrainian parliamentarian named Andriy #Derkach, the son of a former KGB official, was “spreading claims about corruption…to undermine former Vice President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party.”
In September 2020, Derkach was sanctioned by Trump’s Treasury Department, which called him “an active Russian agent for over a decade” and declared he was one of a group of “Russia-linked election interference actors.”
Treasury said Derkach had maintained “close connections with the Russian Intelligence Services” and had “directly or indirectly engaged in, sponsored, concealed, or otherwise been complicit in foreign interference in an attempt to undermine the upcoming 2020 U.S. presidential election.”
Trump’s own Treasury secretary, Steve #Mnuchin, remarked, “Derkach and other Russian agents employ manipulation and deceit to attempt to influence elections in the United States and elsewhere around the world.”
And who was working with Derkach to spread the false story that Joe Biden had blocked an investigation of Burisma? #Giuliani.
At one point, Derkach staged press conferences in Kyiv and played secretly recorded tapes of Biden speaking by phone with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
Derkach insisted the recordings supported Giuliani’s allegations about Biden.
Yet the tapes revealed no misconduct. This was a disinformation stunt.
Ukrainians critical of Russia speculated that the tapes originated with Russian intelligence.
Giuliani never expressed shame for hooking up with a Russian agent. He publicly admitted he was in touch with Derkach and called him “very helpful.” He said that he and Derkach had spoken about Ukraine many times.
The bottom line: According to Trump administration officials, the Biden-Burisma allegations were in part (if not wholly) the work of Russian operatives.
Yet Trump, the MAGA right, and their media allies have been beating this drum for years, and once the GOP won back the House in 2022, it became impeachment fodder.
Then Comer, Jordan, and the rest of their crew embraced Smirnov’s charges, even though they were not substantiated and even though they were in sync with a known Russian disinformation plot that targeted Biden to aid Trump.
Moreover, it was highly suspicious that Smirnov shared his allegations with his FBI handler in June 2020
—after not mentioning them for years
—just when Giuliani and other Trumpers were striving to tar Joe Biden with this false tale.
But none of that matters for the Party of Trump and its leader.
They seem unconcerned about collaborating—colluding?—with a Kremlin operation.
After all, it worked for Trump in 2016, and since then he and his cult have demonstrated no reluctance to be exploited by Russia or to exploit Russian disinformation, even as Putin wages a horrendous war in Ukraine and intensifies his repressive and murderous reign at home.
The Smirnov case—of which there is much more to learn—shows not only that Trump and the GOP are Putin dupes;
they are willing dupes.