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Can somebody educate me on why Trump would be interested in not enforcing the ban at this point, given that he was the first to propose it? That 1.5M followers
by grg0 2y ago
Can somebody educate me on why Trump would be interested in not enforcing the ban at this point, given that he was the first to propose it? That 1.5M followers really worth it?
- brookst 2y agoHe’s working to force a sale to a crony who will kick back cash. Anything that devalues TikTok reduces his cut.
- duxup 2y agoI honestly think Trump always saw this (and most things) as an opportunity to personally profit in some form. I don’t think there’s any real ideology or principle at play. He’s happy to sell out the US if he gets to do it. His first term time and again on some topics he talks big, like repealing Obamacare, china tariffs… and walks away after some small action.
- lubujackson 2y agoBecause TikTok bent the knee. It's really that simple. It's a timeworn "carrot or stick" proposition that up-and-coming dictators always use to buy consent: create a crisis (tariff, banning, etc.) then remove the crisis when they say how great you are. Rinse and repeat and you can get away with anything because everyone, on paper, is backing you.
- knubie 2y agoHow did they bend the knee? I must be out of the loop on this. Aren't they still owned by a Chinese company?
- pockmarked19 2y agoThere were alert messages on the app directly referencing Trump as a savior pre-ban, during the one day they dropped service, and post-ban.
- squigz 2y agoWhat exactly did these messages say?
- patte 2y agoSorry, TikTok isn't available right now A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can't use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned! Jan 19, 2025
- thunky 2y agoThis shows that Trump reversed course on the ban, but it doesn't explain why.
- NekkoDroid 2y agoMost likely that TikTok in some for or another helped him win the election.
- talldayo 2y agoWhich is not unprecedented for TikTok: https://kyivinsider.com/russia-and-china-just-rigged-romanian-elections-using-10-million-fake-tiktok-accounts/ https://kyivinsider.com/russia-and-china-just-rigged-romania...
- wongarsu 2y agoTrump (or more likely Musk) almost certainly made a deal with TikTok. TikTok gets back the US market in exchange for changes to the US feed, and possibly other concessions. TikTok showed a message thanking Trump when restoring service to US users, and users have been commenting on certain topics getting much fewer recommendations by the algorithm since then.
- aaronbrethorst 2y agoJeff Yass: https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-cozy-relationship-billionaire-mega-202303428.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-cozy-relationship-billionai...
- ruilov 2y agoLook up Jeff Yass. Mega donor to Trump and large shareholder in ByteDance.
- afavour 2y agoNot to discount the valid theories other have touted but… there’s a reason he is described as a “popularist”. He has always had a certain level of savvy, I think he knows TikTok is popular and he looks good if he’s the saviour of it. Doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.
- tw1984 2y agotrump won big among young people during the election, the biggest win in republican history, he believes that it has everything to do with his popularity on tiktok. with elon controlling x, he needs a social media platform under his control. the best he can possibly do is to create that US sovereign wealth fund and use it to control tiktok.
- edaemon 2y agoJust to clarify, Trump didn't win young people, he just performed better than expected. In fact, the youth vote was his weakest demographic. https://circle.tufts.edu/2024-election#youth-vote-+4-for-harris,-major-differences-by-race-and-gender https://circle.tufts.edu/2024-election#youth-vote-+4-for-har...
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoTo further clarify, both the above can be true. Trump can do something because he believes an unlikely lie. He might also be intentionally lying to create the impression of support, but he has publicly stated: > I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok, because I won youth by 34 points … Republicans are always 30 points down in youth. I don’t know why. But we ended up finishing. There was one poll that showed us down about 30. We were 35 or 36 points up with young people. So I have a little bit of a warm spot in my heart, I’ll be honest.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago“might” be intentionally lying? Look at Trumps record, there is no “might”.
- ripjaygn 2y agoBecause it's unpopular. Polls show the vast majority don't want TikTok banned.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoIt’s probably because Tesla depends on being able to sell in China. The CCP can control Elon - it’s why he never says anything negative about them and why he signed their pledge to uphold socialist values. Trump in turn is influenced by Elon. China is America’s main adversary so this is a serious issue.
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoNot just selling in China, Tesla makes more than half their cars there and exports some to other countries like Australia.
- grg0 2y agoWhat's wrong with socialist values per (the apparent implication in) your statement? I can understand the rest.
- troupo 2y agoBecause Trump only does things that benefit him or make him look good. If banning TikTok made him look good in the eyes of most people, TikTok would be banned the first day he was in office. And that might still happen.
- ImJamal 2y agoFrom what I can tell, Trump believes, rightly or wrongly, that the reason why he did decent, for a Republican, with young people is because he had a decent number of supporters on tiktok who weren't banned or censored.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoBecause TT very publicly crediting Trump with them getting back online. That fed Trump’s ego (most important) and also put Trump in a position of being seen as saving them (popular). Clever move.