TikTok officially set to be banned in the US on January 19, 2025 pending

[¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

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Trump probably will get one of his rich right-wing cronies to make an offer.

Right-wingers will then control Twitter/X, Facebook, and TikTok.

Also consider most Podcast that are highly popular are right-wing.

These b*stards moving like chess to do a full trifecta on information

 

[Artificial Intelligence]

VPN

 

[AStrangeName]

Trump probably will get one of his rich right-wing cronies to make an offer.

Right-wingers will then control Twitter/X, Facebook, and TikTok.

Also consider most Podcast that are highly popular are right-wing.

These b*stards moving like chess to do a full trifecta on information

ByteDance made it clear that they're not selling as there's no gain on their end to sell. They got the CEO of TikTok to throw money at Trump and we see that it still isn't enough. I honestly don't blame them on taking the ban.

Also, right wingers already got their trifecta on controlling information with Twitter, Facebook/Instagram/Threads and YouTube. Them getting TikTok would just be the icing on the cake.

 

[Traveler]

Nah tik tok has to go. Once it does we will see a more positie shift in American culture. Its a serious national security risk.

 

[AStrangeName]

Nah tik tok has to go. Once it does we will see a more positie shift in American culture. Its a serious national security risk.

No we won't. This country loves selling negativity and the media hates when they have nothing negative to show.

 

[Leasy]

How you feel about social media aside, the government outright banning an app should scare people. This feels like gross overreach and a blow to free speech.

Ughhh this different TikTok is a Chinese government owned app. If this was American based or an app not tied to a communist government than yeah it’s scary

There is real security concerns with this app

 

[Traveler]

No we won't. This country loves selling negativity and the media hates when they have nothing negative to show.

Til tok has intentionally fueld a lot of the craziness going on. Things will slow down a lot. I agree though that the country loves negativity.

 

[UpNext]

I'm actually really sad about this. I finally got around to using TikTok last year, it's a dope app. Even if it did low-key fukk up my attention span a bit like I thought it would.


And I do sometimes be on it when I should be present with my wife watching shytty reality tv

 

[AStrangeName]

Til tok has intentionally fueld a lot of the craziness going on. Things will slow down a lot. I agree though that the country loves negativity.

While the first part is partially correct, things won't slow down. Also, keep in mind that Facebook and Instagram caused far more problems for a solid decade than TikTok has in a few years.

 

[BangBike]

 

[FAH1223]

 

[Ohene]

I'm actually really sad about this. I finally got around to using TikTok last year, it's a dope app. Even if it did low-key fukk up my attention span a bit like I thought it would.


And I do sometimes be on it when I should be present with my wife watching shytty reality tv

You guys are pathetic

 

[bnew]

TikTok Has Officially Gone Dark: Here Are the Best Memes

We're laughing through the pain.

www.teenvogue.com

Politics

TikTok Has Officially Gone Dark in the U.S. Here Are the Best Reactions​

By Ashleigh Carter

January 19, 2025

CFOTO/Getty Images

Well, it's over (for now).

TikTok officially went dark for American users late on Saturday, January 18 — hours before the official ban of the video app took effect in the U.S. Millions of users were affected by the ban as 59% of American adults under 30 use the app, according to the Pew Research Center. The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a law requiring TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell the app or be banned in the U.S. The unanimous decision backed up the Biden administration's “national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary.”

Users were met with two pop-up messages on Saturday night; the first was a simple warning that a U.S. law banning TikTok will render “our services temporarily unavailable.” Shortly after, the app sent another message that named President-Elect Donald Trump specifically.

“A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately that means you can’t use TikTok for now,” the message read, before forcing users to close the app. “We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office.”

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While TikTok's CEO Shou Zi Chew indicated in a video message on Friday that he was working closely with Trump to find a solution to reverse the ban once he takes office on January 20, many have pointed out that it was actually Trump who began the process of banning the app in 2020. While he was in his first term of presidency, Trump signed an executive order that imposed sanctions on TikTok, requiring the app to sell its assets to an American company.

In a phone interview with NBC's Meet the Press on Saturday, Trump said he was likely planning a 90-day extension for TikTok to find a solution.

“I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at. The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate. You know, it’s appropriate. We have to look at it carefully. It’s a very big situation,” he said.

While Trump appears to be swooping in at the eleventh hour to reinstate the app, some people are questioning if his motives are to win over young Americans by “saving” TikTok.



For weeks, TikTok users were discussing where they were headed next, with many flocking to other Chinese video apps including Red Note and Lemon8.

As TikTok went dark, many users flocked to X — formerly Twitter — Instagram, and Threads to share their sadness about the TikTok ban in the only way they know how: memes. Here are some of the best reactions:

Ruby Davies✨ Romantasy Bookstagram 🇦🇺 (@rubycanread) on Threads

This is what is happening on tiktok right now for you American folk 😂

www.threads.net

Ruby Davies✨ Romantasy Bookstagram 🇦🇺 (@rubycanread) on Threads

Okay funny prank America you can come back to TikTok now. America? AMERICA???

www.threads.net

---

Ashleigh Carter is a New York City-based writer, social media editor, and pop culture junkie. She's obsessed with all things Beyoncé, rom-coms, and going down TikTok rabbit holes.

Keywords tiktok Social Media

 

[ReasonableMatic]

Everybody knows them DEVILS behind this and why.

Gen Z not buying US-backed Zionist propaganda and fighting back for Palestine effectively on mass scale.

TikTok Ban Fueled by Israel, Not China

Congressional insiders spill the beans on how the law was passed

www.kenklippenstein.com

TikTok Ban Fueled by Israel, Not China​

Congressional insiders spill the beans on how the law was passed​

KEN KLIPPENSTEIN
FEB 16, 2025

It all started with Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on lsrael and concerns about anti-Semitic content on the social media platform TikTok. It all ended with a classified briefing and a foolish attempt, still alive, to ban the social media platform.

The company’s ownership by China never was the driving force in Congress eventually taking action.

This week at the Munich Security Conference, Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee, played “I’ve got a secret.” It’s a game national security officialdom loves to play, slyly claiming authority ‘if they could only tell you what they know.’

It is in that vein that Warner spilled the beans on what he called the “real story” behind the law that could still ban TikTok.

“I want to see if you're going to tell the real story,” a grinning Warner said, addressing former congressman Mike Gallagher, and now a Palantir executive who, along with Warner, first introduced the bill that claimed that TikTok was a national security threat, a claim still relevant given the app’s uncertain future.

Gallagher described how the national security bill was dead until Hamas’ attack on Israel, which brought the legislation back to life. As Gallagher said:

“So we had a bipartisan consensus. We had the executive branch, but the bill was still dead until October 7th. And people started to see a bunch of anti-Semitic content on the platform and our bill had legs again.”

The account by Gallagher makes explicit something there have been hints of for some time. lsraeli officials and lobbyists told everyone that would listen in Washington that TikTok’s algorithm fueled American youth opposition to the lsrael-Hamas war.

As I reported last year, a State Department source told me that a high-ranking lsraeli diplomat was ranting about the supposed malign role of some Chinese-manufactured algorithm, purposely dismissive of the reality that the college protesters’ outrage was sincere, that it was about lsrael’s military conduct in Gaza and not some “foreign malign influence” campaign hatched in Beijing.

NPR at about the same time reported on a memo written by lsrael Foreign Ministry Deputy Director General Emmanuel Nahshon, which blamed TikTok’s algorithm for “turning young people against lsrael.”

I’ve obtained a similar memo detailing the incident. The memo, produced by the State Department for its Near East Affairs diplomats, describes how Nahshon, the lsraeli official, blamed youth opposition to the war in Gaza on the TikTok algorithm. Nahshon also ignored warnings from the Biden administration’s Assistant Secretary for Global Public Affairs, Bill Russo, “oblivious” to the “possibility generational damage to their reputation” they were facing internationally.

Quoting from the memo directly:

Nahshon disagreed with Russo's assertion that the United States and Israel faced a major credibility problem as a result of the unpopular war on Gaza. The Israelis seemed oblivious to the fact that they are facing major, possibly generational damage to their reputation not just in the region but elsewhere in the world. They made the following three main counterpoints to this argument:

• Israel's main challenge, according to Nahshon, is "power projection."
• Young people have turned against Israel in large part because the Tik-Tok algorithm favors pro-Palestinian content.
• Public opinion polling shows there is a "silent majority" of people who continue to support Israel, especially in Europe and the United States. The "silver lining" of October 7 is that it now allows Israel to see who its real friends are.

lsrael and China merged into the Biden administration’s campaign against TikTok, and in March of last year, a classified intelligence briefingwas provided to Congress on the supposed threat of the social media platform. As Warner describes, the briefing tipped the anti TikTok legislation over the edge, passing through a key committee with a vote of 50-0.

“And he got it out of a committee that is the most diverse in the House from left to right, 50 to zero after a classified —” Warner said, before cutting himself off.

Despite the vote, some members expressed skepticism about the information contained in the briefing.

“Not a single thing we heard in today’s classified briefing was unique to TikTok,” congresswoman Sara Jacobs said at the time. “It was things that happen on every single social media platform.”

Senator Mitt Romney, a supporter of a TikTok ban, linked his support for shutting down the most popular social media platform amongst young Americans to the Palestinian issue. Romney says that TikTok’s frequency of pro-Palestinian posts is “overwhelming” compared to other platforms.

Romney says:

"Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature. If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians, relative to other social media sites — it's overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts."

In Munich, former congressman Gallagher also pointed to what he called “a huge miscalculation” by TikTok in its attempt to head off the ban. When TikTok pushed a notification out to its millions of users, urging them to call members of Congress to oppose the bill, Gallagher said it “proved the point” that the social media company was “brainwashing” American youth.

Per Gallagher:

“And then there was a huge miscalculation by TikTok when it became apparent that we were going to pass it out of committee. They forced sort of a pop up on the app that allowed people to call their members of Congress, and kids were calling into their members of Congress during school hours threatening to commit suicide if TikTok went away. And for those of us who were concerned about the use of this platform for propaganda purposes or brainwashing, it sort of proved the point in the moment.”

In January, right after the TikTok ban took effect, a 19 year old Wisconsin man set fire to the office of a congressman who voted for the legislation. There’s little doubt that young people have an affinity for the app, perhaps even an unhealthy one. What there isn’t evidence for is that any of this is being directed by the Chinese government. As I’ve reported, the U.S. intelligence community’s concerns about the national security threat of China’s ownership of TikTok are entirely hypothetical.

“So it was the threat of espionage, the threat of propaganda, the good work of Senator Warner, and a few other players that all conspired,” Gallagher said this week.

So the “real story” is pretty simple. Congress chose to take action essentially to suppress speech and protect lsrael. The Biden administration hid behind China in its justification as to why a ban was essential. The classified briefing — still secret — did the dirty work. “Conspired” indeed, as Gallagher said. They’ve got a secret. They always do. And that leaves nothing for the public to push back on, which is the true conspiracy.