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Biden’s TikTok Flip-Flop: President Rushes To Undo Ban He Championed As Backlash Grows
from the the-dumbest-timeline dept
We’re still waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on the TikTok ban case, which is expected to come today or tomorrow. But things are getting increasingly silly. The Biden administration, which actively pushed for the ban and eagerly signed it into law, is now making a last-ditch effort to… keep the app operating, even as the Supreme Court may side with [checks notes] the administration’s own Solicitor General who last week told the court that the law needed to go into effect.
This is according to NBC reporters who have the scoop:
President Joe Biden’s administration is considering ways to keep TikTok available in the United States if a ban that’s scheduled to go into effect Sunday proceeds, according to three people familiar with the discussions.
“Americans shouldn’t expect to see TikTok suddenly banned on Sunday,” an administration official said, adding that officials are “exploring options” for how to implement the law so TikTok does not go dark Sunday.
That story comes out a few hours after a similar report detailing how President-elect Donald Trump’s team has their own plans to “save TikTok.”
President-elect Donald Trump is considering an executive order once in office that would suspend enforcement of the TikTok ban-or-sale law for 60 to 90 days, buying the administration time to negotiate a sale or alternative solution — a legally questionable effort to win a brief reprieve for the Chinese-owned app now scheduled to be banned on Sunday nationwide.
Trump has been mulling ways to save the day for the wildly popular video app, talking through unconventional dealmaking and legal maneuvers such as an executive order that would unravel the law passed by Congress last year with bipartisan support, according to two people familiar with the deliberations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private talks.
Trump has expressed a keen interest in being seen as rescuing a platform on which he’s been told he’s widely admired…
To recap this utterly stupid situation, let’s review the key facts here. Donald Trump was the first President who tried to ban TikTok during his last administration, only to have that attempt rejected by the courts as unconstitutional.
Subsequently, last year, the Biden administration joined forces with a large bipartisan majority to try a “more legal” way of banning the app, and they all celebrated when they bundled the TikTok ban with funding for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
Trump flipped his position after getting a big donation from a billionaire friend who happens to own a huge chunk of TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance. And, as noted, Trump filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, essentially asking the court to delay enforcement so that he, in his view, the super genius social media deal maker (insert sarcasm font), could swoop in and make a deal to save the app.
So, now both of these Presidents, who have both tried to ban TikTok, are suddenly both claiming they want to save TikTok just as the Supreme Court seems poised to likely allow the ban to go through… and meanwhile the kids on TikTok start embracing even crazier apps from China.
All day yesterday, you could hear various politicians in DC seemingly freak out as they watched kids eagerly embrace other Chinese apps while mocking the TikTok ban. And now it appears that the two Presidents, both of whom insisted on banning the app, are (way too late) realizing just how disconnected from kids this makes them look.
All of this continues to make the political class look like a bunch of absolute dipshits who have no clue what they’re doing.
Filed Under: donald trump, joe biden, tiktok ban
Companies: bytedance, tiktok
Comments on “Biden’s TikTok Flip-Flop: President Rushes To Undo Ban He Championed As Backlash Grows”
At this point, I don’t think one can reasonably say that’s just what it looks like; they are absolute dipshits who have no clue what they’re doing.
It’s almost as if they are a bunch of absolute dipshits who have no clue what they’re doing. Imagine that. 🙃
“All of this continues to make the political class look like a bunch of absolute dipshits who have no clue what they’re doing.”
They are, at least, consistent.
Re:
It’s almost as if you get a bunch of absolute dipshits who have no clue what they’re doing when there are no qualifications for being a politician.
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especially when both sides are this clueless
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One “side” wanted to nuke a hurricane.
The other side was horrified at the thought.
.. juz sayin
Re: Re: Re:2
Sounds like classic Trump. Spits out words before thinking about them, and then attacks everybody saying he’s wrong because he absolutely has to be right, just like many of the trolls here.
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This reminds me that the third circuit case regarding tiktok that could, supposedly, destroy section 230, may be headed for SCOTUS
Guess we’ll see how that one goes.
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It sucks to have a feeling like there’s a double threat from both congress trying to repeal it, but also the courts around the country turning it into useless swiss cheese.
Can only hope SCOTUS rules similairly to how they did the last time, I guess.
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problem is with 230 both sides oppose each other on what should happen democrats want more moderation Republicans want less moderation
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But in the end, don’t both sides want it gone regardless? Or are the people screaming for a repeal just fringe ideas, with the majority wanting a reform instead?
Re: Re: Re:2
It’s sort of like Brexit: everybody coming in with their own ideas of how it will turn out, absolutely none of which reflect the reality that would ensue.
Re: Re: Re:3 Brexit part deux...
Brexit was the act of jumping out of a plane, then debating what we should do about a parachute.
Tik Tok has many of the same qualities
Re: Re: Re:4
This thread’s about 230.
Re: Re: Re:4 Communication
Communication is the transfer of meaning between a sender and recipient(s) through a medium.
Tik-Tok is one of many media through which we humans (and bots) can attempt to transfer meaning.
When that transfer is deemed successful the medium is deemed successful. Monetizing, ads, etc., that’s for others to figure out.
Tik-Tok isn’t inherently evil, nor are “companies run by Chyna”. Neither is Facebook, Meta, Google, or the so-called “Big-Tech” companies. If it’s user generated content (UGC) then the U is the problem, not the medium.
We can teach people to be active viewers/readers/listeners and evaluate and ajudge and verify. Instead WE tell them the medium is bad, or owned or ran by bad actors.
If you live in the US… or if you live in Ukraine… or Israel… or Afghanistan… or Iraq… or Somalia… the next four years will be fractuous. But hey, those of us in the US voted. Mostly because begged questions weren’t addressed. I blame the fourth estate.
Ehud
Tucson
Arizona
US
(I did not vote for orange soda)
Re: Re: Re:5
“If it’s user generated content (UGC) then the U is the problem, not the medium.” ?
Too bad courts and lawmakers don’t seem to believe that, since, supposedly, many of them are eager to dismantle the very laws that allow UGC to exist in the first place..
Re: Re: Re:6
“Too bad courts” so you’re ignoring what stephen keeps telling you
Re: Re: Re:7
The courts can do it if they want to.
Or rather, SCOTUS can. Or if a critical case like the third circuit’s doesn’t get sent up to them for an appeal.
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Re: Re: Re:2
i doubt 230 will be repealed/reformed 100% also your sounding like that doomposter from yesterday that had to be told several times to stop saying it’s guaranteed
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Re: Re: Re:3
fuck off andrea
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Re: Re: Re:4
“fuck off andrea” ok violence advocator from Singapore
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I’d say that both sets of dipshits want more moderation of people who disagree with them and less moderation of people who agree with them.
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“democrats want more moderation Republicans want less moderation”
Democrats desire less incorrect information.
Republicans demand the removal of opinions they dislike.
Re: Re: Re:2
Democrats are the greatest purveyor of “incorrect information” ever! Who started sending tens of thousands of U.S. boys to die for a lie in Vietnam? DEMOCRATS!
Re: Re: Re:3 lol that better be sarcasm
Now tell us the one about Republicans being the party who freed the slaves.
Re: Re: Re:4
Wow, this guy really needs to study some history
Re: Re: Re:5 ...woosh...
Hey guess what?
Time exists in our universe.
The present is not the past.
If grandpa was sincere about using Vietnam to criticize the contemporary Democratic party, he needs to take his meds and go to bed.
Re: Re: Re:3
Republicans were not much better back then…
Re: Re: Re:2
Don’t know what you’ve been watching but you might want to reevaluate where you’re getting your information.
Circus or clown show?
Bannin TikTok has always been a performative thing, but the politicians can’t decide on who the audience is.
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Do you…
…do you not know where clowns work
Re: Re:
In the clown store, duh!
Or the Clownology lab?
Ohh, maybe the Clownerment!
NATIONAL SECURITY
Leslie Nielsen pioneered the type of comedy where you flash a badge and say something stupid and people accept it. (Well, SNL did have “I’m the plumber and I’ve come to fix the sink…)
The US Government and the US DOJ do a creditable job to that legacy. This is one such example.
Trump 2016 – TikTok is a threat to national security. Must sell to my fwent Larry Ellison.
Biden 2023 – Tiktok is a threat to national security. Can sell to any Murkan but no more Chyna.
Trump 2024 – Wait hold on I can fix this. Don’t make them sell it.
Biden 2025 – NO MENTION OF NATIONAL SECURITY.
So I’ll go out there and ask. The are many many public forums out there. IS TIK TOK so special that they form a threat to US national security and so grave a threat they must be forced to divest, sell, or die? And if so, why would Trump and President Biden be clawing back that legislation?
Please someone… can you help me comprehend that? I’d hate for there to be a “grave national security threat from China” hanging over my head. That damn Damocles large knife might fall first.
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First, I’m as baffled and disappointed by all this flip-flopping as any of you. Even allowing for political expediency, it still doesn’t make any sense.
Second, you may safely presume that I’m fully aware of the entire data broker ecosystem, the social media ecosystem, and the IoT ecosystem, and the resulting cascade of security and privacy issues. But, and this brings me to:
Third, I think there are some unique aspects to the threat(s) posed by TikTok et.al. that distinguish them from the ones posed by the three groups I enumerated above. For starters, this was carefully engineered by Chinese intelligence — and they’re very, very good at what they do. Also, their design and implementation goals differ markedly from those of the groups I listed above: they’re not trying to make a profit in the next six months, they’re trying to gain a competitive advantage over the US (and others) by 2050. Third, they have analytical skills are good as anyone else on the planet, and they have truly enormous storage and processing resources at their disposal. The implication of that last sentence is that they can do more with the data they acquire than others — and that should surprise nobody. Fourth, I think it’s more than reasonable to presume that they not only have all the data/metadata they’re gathering, but whatever else they want from the three groups I listed above, either because they bought it, hacked it, or scooped it up when it was left wide open in somebody’s cloud. A data collection like that is almost certainly unmatched by anyone other than other national intelligence agencies.
There’s more, but my point is: this a very different threat model than Facebook or smart fridges or exercise gear or any of the other things we see a constant stream of reports/analysis about. Of course, in a better world, we’d see something meaningful done about those too (like a national privacy law in the US) but if I were making a to-do list and trying to prioritize it, TikTok et.al. would be near the top.
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Playing wack-a-mole with chinese apps threatening national security using a shared code base and data pool would seem a really poor way of handling the threat posed by your claims advanced hardware (can plug into any app) and a vast data trove (that can feed back into what ever replacement app they use.
Very literally, if your concerns are genuine, divestment is security theater, providing the illusion of doing something while doing nothing about your actual concerns.
Also, asserts facts the government refuses to evidence.
Re: Re: Re:
At no point did I recommend playing whack-a-mole with apps or divestment as possible strategies for dealing with this problem set. In fact, I didn’t recommend any strategy for dealing with this problem set, because that’s a much longer and far more nuanced discussion. I did note the lack of federal privacy legislation in the US, and I do support such legislation, but that’s on general grounds, not because of the specific threat posed by TikTok et.al.
As a general rule, fashioning countermeasures to threats requires understanding them, and of course the more accurate and detailed that understanding, the higher the likelihood that countermeasures derived from it will be appropriate and effective. My point in writing what I did was to note that — in my opinion — there is a distinct lack of understanding in play here, because this is a threat qualitatively and quantitatively quite different from the others that are so often discussed here.
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I don’t know, can you get a new catchphrase?
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Thad you’re an idiot. No two ways about it
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Something can be a security threat, while also being extremely politically unpopular.
You see politicians do this all the time with other issues, like climate change. They will avoid doing something prudent if it’s politically unfavorable. (Some of that can be blamed on corruption, but not all of it)
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Sure, but my security clearance doesn’t disallow saying anything unpopular. It just limits what classified information I’m allowed to discuss with those not holding the same level of clearance.
But then I don’t hold a DoD clearance… theirs may be different.
Still assholes are assholes, and republicans are assholes, and politicians are assholes, and you know what comes out of assholes, right?
Maybe they’re worried that without the distraction of TikTok, people might start noticing things like the fucked up healthcare system in the US.
I … don’t know what to say, when the first three comments to this post all quote the same single line from the post.
(Resists urge to invoke the original line in a semi-humorous fashion.)
Frankly, I have no strong feelings one way or the other about tik tok.
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Thanks for letting us all know you’re myopic, I guess.
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myopic what the fuck is that word
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Near-sightedness.
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If only there were a source of information at your fingertips that you could quickly and easily use to find the definition of an unfamiliar word.
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Closest thing we have is the internet, and that’s for obnoxiously not understanding things.
Re: Re: Re:3
lol
Cunningham’s Law states “the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it’s to post the wrong answer.”
Re: Re: Re: What is a word
Word: a single distinct meaningful element of speech or writing, used with others (or sometimes alone) to form a sentence…
Any further questions on the protocols we use to communicate?
Or… are you a disturbed individual unable to phrase a question like “what is myopic” and similarly unable to use a search engine?
Either way, very myopic of you. Are you thad being an AC?
Ehud
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Damn neutrals…
Good job chasing Americans from TikTok to RedNote, US politicians. I hope you feel much better now that folks are migrating to the app whose logo is just a CCP-red square with Chinese writing.
Fucking morons.
Repeating my comments on Bluesky
/1/ There is an entirely lawful way for Trump and his Republican lackeys to “save TikTok,” with only a few hours of its being offline – or maybe none!
Trump formulates a bill that carries out his master plan, repealing the current law and replacing it with something else
/2/ Both House and Senate pass it on Saturday. The lackeys who voted for the bill being repealed explain that, as worried as they were about China acquiring data about American users, the threat from the great god Trump to support primary opponents is much more worrisome.
/3/ Either Biden signs the bill immediately, or Trump signs it immediately after taking the oath of office.
Paul Alan Levy @paulalanlevy.bsky.social
·
Paul Alan Levy @paulalanlevy.bsky.social
Re: Veto power
In general I agree with HOW they COULD undo their bill. However, ignoring that President Biden can veto the bill sending it back to Congress.
This all begs the question:
What is the supposed “national security threat” and why can’t it be reviewed by a nongovernmental party (like a court) to verify it’s real and not Trump’s “Chyna threat” syndrome?
Why is it a begged question? Because it seems everyone assumes it’s just a true thing… that because TikTok is owned by Bytedance and Bytedance is in China that the Chinese government SOMEHOW gains some THREAT over US citizens.
Well, I’m going to suggest that he who asserts must prove, and “National Security” is not a magic challenge coin that renders the question moot.
With all due respect, PAL, longtime fan.
Re: Re: Loopholes for me, but not for thee
“National Security”, “Reckless Driving” and “Disorderly Conduct” all all charges that the authorities use when they don’t have a specific law they can charge an actor under.
Those three are basically, “you’re doing something I don’t like, so I’m going to shut you down.” And thus are vague enough they don’t have to justify their application. National Security has the extra bonus of being unavailable for any of the “little people” to review, being too secret to let the defense see the evidence against them.
Re: Re: Re: Crimes with no definition
Don’t forget “Obstruction of cop”. (under whatever name).
Point still being Tik-Tok has never ever been charged with a crime or proven to do anything other than be a Facebook/Instagram clone but owned by a company not based in the US (regardless of who runs it).
Is Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk any “better” (uh whatever that is) than the Chinese Communist Party? I think they’re all a-holes.
But yes, undefined “criminal behavior” and “must shut it down” and “we won’t tell you why.”
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Courts are part of the government. Courts generally don’t do that type of technical analysis because a) they’re not equipped as experts to do so and b) the Constitution generally does not vest them with that power.
b) happens for a lot of reasons, but one is that they’re less accountable to the people. You’re looking at it in a case where you think the court would get it right, but it could very easily be backwards. See e.g. recent SCOTUS decisions. At least this way, if the government doesn’t something you perceive to be incorrect you can win an election and repeal the law.
Courts will look at whether it is pretextual (which is exactly what is happening here, the law is currently being reviewed up to SCOTUS), but that is fairly limited. The DC Circuit found it to not be “Trump’s “Chyna threat” syndrome”. For this law to go into effect, SCOTUS will have to have agreed.
To quote Justice Kagan on a different issue: These are not, like, the nine greatest experts on the internet. The same logic applies.
Because running code on a device opens you up to vulnerabilities. There are many, many examples of this, including from China specifically.
If you’re running code someone else wrote on your machine, you’re taking a risk. Period. There are things you can do to mitigate that, but it is a risk.
That depends if you’re asking to prove there is a risk, or prove that they’re currently exploiting that risk. Those are two very different things, especially given how hard it is to audit.
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As if “Biden” is doing anything.
What a joke.
The US government blinked
US: Divest or shut down.
tiktok: ok we will shut down
US: Wait, not that!
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You love to see it. Both sides are so used to dealing with pure sociopaths that only care about money and power I guess it never occurred to them that a company might just leave the market rather than sell.
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tbf, Bytedance didn’t really have a choice. China wouldn’t have let them sell, even if they had wanted to.
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Hell were I in the chinese government’s shoes I’d be paying Bytedance not to sell, just to twist the knife in the USG.
Not only did the USG completely demolish any moral standing they might have had to criticize other countries over blocking speech since now all they need to do is utter the magic words ‘National Security’ but by shutting down the platform rather than selling whatever US company that was looking to profit from the extortion gets squat and all the politicians involved get is a bunch of furious TikTok users.
Tech industrial complex
Meanwhile:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-raises-alarm-about-dangerous-concentration-power-among-few-wealthy-people-2025-01-16/
As if he didn’t personally gift a monopoly on government “cybersecurity” products to Microsoft, and cheerfully pass a law whose sole purpose is to confiscate a top 10 internet property and gift it to some other big tech player (be it Oracle or someone else). All in the name of national security, of course, just as with the military-industrial complex.
Too little, too late
If Biden didn’t want this particular skid-mark as the last thing on his presidential legacy then he should have spoken up and pushed back before it reached this point.
It doesnt make sense anyway
Divesting tiktok from China doesnt make sense anyway. China could just sell to someone who for love or money or blackmail will just give or sell them the data anyway. And it would be legal since congress refuses to pass legislation forbidding sale of data.
And the same goes for the propaganda argument. If whoever they sold to turned out to seem friendly to China there would be no way to prove whether they were beholden to China or not. Thats not something you can legislate.
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The same bill technically already forbids selling that data to China. It would technically not be legal under H.R.7520 (The Tiktok bill was H.R.7521, they got bundled when doing appropriations and such). There are enforcement issues, since it’s only blocked to China. Obviously you run into straw buyers etc, the same way that’s happening to hardware like Nvidia GPUs right now. You do need a proper full data protection law to actually stop it. The law also forbids any subsidiaries, spin offs, etc.
However, the concern is not just normal commercially collected data, but data that can gained from exploiting a device directly. They’re not the same thing.
As a practical matter, it’s easier to keep tabs. There’s a reason we don’t worry about this for things like e.g. Facebook/Google, because it would likely leak (either via employees, a breach, or natsec agencies keeping tabs).
It’s not technically impossible for them to set up a front, but it would be harder. Any buyer would be audited at time of sale, as well, similar to how stuff like Grindr got blocked. It’s harder to set up a front that is detailed enough to survive scrutiny but also won’t leak. That sort of thing relies on not being scrutinized too heavily to begin with.
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And the same goes for the propaganda argument. If whoever they sold to turned out to seem friendly to China there would be no way to prove whether they were beholden to China or not. Thats not something you can legislate.
Not to mention that pesky ‘first amendment’ which makes even outright propaganda perfectly constitutional.
Profit
Let’s recap, starting last year.
It’s a great way to make money, if you can pull it off. Much easier than building your own social media company, and much cheaper than buying something at market value.
A huge amount of the younger people massively uses TikTok. If it gets banned the only thing they will remember is who banned it. They wont care if the ban has justifications. If you ban an app they launch several times per day and use, they will remember who did this. And you will never, ever, get their votes for their lifespan.
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He is nothing but a senile old man unable to think logically. It is clear that the democrats lost because Biden selfishly never wanted to resign soon enough.
Re: About that...
Yeah, problem with that is the TikTok ban originated from convicted felon Trump after a bunch of users on the platform punked him by grabbing a bunch of tickets to one of his rallies and then not showing up and the ban has bi-partisan support, so if they really do have long memories then that will include both parties, which means either those voters are worthless for either party or they’ll have to find other reasons to avoid voting for one of the only two viable (on a state and federal level) options.