Making ByteDance sell 80% to US companies is a win for the powers that be because then that too can be manipulated by right-wing oligarchs.
I don’t trust Chinese companies all that much either, but Mitt Romney outright said this was about Palestine, you can see another reply of mine below with a link.
I don’t trust either of them, but why would they lie about wanting to suppress support for Palestine? And if you don’t believe me, the State Department has them on record saying as much: https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-at-mccain-institutes-2024-sedona-forum-keynote-conversation-with-senator-mitt-romney/
SENATOR ROMNEY: A small parenthetical point, which is 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. So I’d note that’s of real interest, and the President will get the chance to make action in that regard.
Facebook and YouTube have for years boosted conservative people and posts/videos: this is fine according to the powers that be.
Russia and no doubt countless others run influence operations through all US social media companies: this is also fine according to the powers that be.
China probably runs influence operations through a Chinese social media company: this is a national security problem that needs to be dealt with!!
The reasons TikTok is maybe being banned are because it’s the only major social media that isn’t suppressing pro-Palestine speech and because it’s not owned by a right-wing US oligarch. Musk is the shadow president, Zuckerberg is blatantly sucking up to Trump, etc etc.
I wish people knew that TikTok being banned was more about it not suppressing posts about Palestine than national security or whatever else they say. Antony Blinken and Mitt Romney outright said last year it was about stopping people from seeing the truth about Israel committing genocide. If the government actually cared about foreign influence operations they’d regulate data privacy and social media algorithms in some way (idk how, but I’m sure you could) but they obviously won’t because US companies manipulating people and stealing their data is totally fine.
I get where you’re coming from, but if someone can get away with doing things associated with a group that’s shorthand in the West™ for the worst people in the world, I do think that’s a problem too.