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Donald to the rescue for TikTok [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-01-19

Donald couldn't let one of his billionaire bribes go unfulfilled. You remember when Trump was visited at Mar-a-Lago by the billionaire who had a large stake in ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, and he changed his stance the next day? Just yesterday, he came up with the idea, written into the law, of a 90-day extension to the ban. That is allowed only one time in the law. Now he's got his mind set on a deal.

If it wasn't going to work before, it isn't going to work now, Donald. American businesses can't come to the rescue to keep TikTok from going "dark." ByteDance doesn't want to sell it.

The law takes effect today. TikTok users were greeted this morning with the message, "Sorry, TikTok isn't available right now."

At least I saw that in reports. I just checked various accounts, and TikTok is still up and running. Just got the news that TikTok restored service after they saw Trump's promise of a 90 day reprieve.

The law is H.R. 7521 Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Applications Act. The Supreme Court ruling is here.

"A deal to protect national security." It's always a transactional deal for you. Or the Art of the Steal. ByteDance had all this time to divest TikTok in America. Why would they do it now, unless our allies follow suit? They may do so anyway because they already see the Chinese collection of data as a threat. TikTok was banned on all Federal devices back in 2022.

What companies were liable for helping TikTok from going dark? You know something we don't? Oh, it was for ISPs and internet backbones from continuing to let data through and clouds hosting the data.

"Americans deserve to see our exciting inauguration..." Somebody planning on livestreaming your inauguration from the Rotunda?" You need this for ratings?

The whole idea in the law Congress passed was for it to be 100% owned by a U.S. company. Either the whole operation, or just the U.S. division with a block to prevent the Chinese from accessing data collection, ever.

The U.S. operations already are handled by TikTok, Inc., and it's headquartered in California. But, there is still the Chinese link that doesn't go away because the Chinese are writing the code for the app.

The Supreme Court issued it's ruling on Jan. 17, 2025, that upheld the law, and said First Amendment protections did not apply in the case of national security, with the way the law was written.

With the data collection, China could "track the location of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage."

Those are good reasons.

The Supreme Court ruling is 27 pages with concurring opinions by Justice Sotomayor and Justice Gorsuch.

Donald, a 50% partnership is still a 50% partnership with China. It's 100% or a 100% ban. It's the law. You were the one that first brought up the data collection problem years ago. You're late to the party, now.

Estimates put TikTok's U.S. operation value at $20 billion, worldwide $250. I don't see a method to keep the U.S. operation completely separate from the rest of the world. A different set of code for the U.S. would create interoperability problem for connecting with the rest of the world.

Donald did one missing letter typo with "and allow it to say up." Missed the "t" in "stay."

Worth trillions of dollars, nope. Already gave value estimates. But it sounds like Trump is proposing the U.S. government would own 50% of the reimagined company. I'm not sure that is a good idea either, with past instances of government overreach.

ACLU did a friend-of-the-court brief on First Amendment grounds. That obviously didn't work.

Speaker Mike Johnson said, "We will enforce the law," this morning on Meet The Press. If Trump does the 90 day reprieve, the enforcement will have to wait.

Then Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) wrote on social media, "Any company that hosts, distributes, services or otherwise facilitates communist-controlled TikTok could could face hundreds of billions of dollars of ruinous liability under the law, not from just DOJ, but also under securities law, shareholder lawsuits, and state AG's." That's some pretty tough words for crossing Donald Trump. Are we starting to see a new fissure between Trump and the Republican Congress? And on the day before he gets sworn in, too. Cotten also said there was no legal basis for giving an extension. But I read the law and it specifically says that the President can give a 90 day extension. One time only.

So, we've got TikTok in limbo. Donald will do a 90 day order to stay the ban while everybody figures out what they should have done 9 months ago.

The clock is ticking. TikTok.

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