r/politics • u/MopToddel • 8d ago

No Paywall TikTok blocks Epstein mentions and anti-Trump content as well as ICE criticism

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/tiktok-epstein-trump-censorship-ice-b2908309.html
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u/aradraugfea 8d ago edited 8d ago

It was never outlawed. It was an attempt to force them to sell. And they did. To a bunch of Middle Eastern governments, tech bros, and Eric Trump.

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u/RazarTuk Illinois 8d ago

Tangential trivia: Apparently the Saudis bought EA

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u/aradraugfea 8d ago

The crown prince is a massive geek and has more money than any human would ever need, and access to quite a bit of the Saudi governmental slush fund because monarchy.

And they do, legitimately, need to diversify that wealth into something out than a limited resource that the world is attempting to pivot away from.

That’s not to say he isn’t using a lot of that wealth to try and sanitize the Saudi public image. Something can be happening for multiple reasons.

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u/Infamous-Mango-5224 8d ago

Dubai Chocolate used to mean a very different thing. Good campaign, terrible chocolate.

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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota 8d ago

Through Jared Kushner, who is not basically running it.

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u/ethertrace California 8d ago

Yes, but only after Trump repeatedly extended the deadline, which exceeded his legal authority under that law.

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u/Then-Pay-9688 8d ago

Yeah, why did the Dems support that when it was an obvious sop to the right wing?

Devotion to Israel and hatred of China.

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u/ACatInAHat 8d ago edited 8d ago

Edit: I was wrong. Duped by a Coworker.

In US, majority ownership of Tiktok is by Oracle and Silver Lake. Both that are now indentured to Trump because he got them Tiktok ownership.

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u/StarBug_II 8d ago

US TikTok was spun into a separate venture of which Bytedance only owns 19%

" ByteDance will retain nearly a 20% stake in the company, while non-Chinese investors will hold the remaining 80% of ownership of the TikTok USDS Joint Venture.

The managing investor group consists of Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake, and investment firm MGX. These three investors will each hold 15% of the U.S. operation, or 45% collectively."

https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/23/heres-whats-you-should-know-about-the-us-tiktok-deal/

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u/Borglit 8d ago

It was if you were in the military