Oracle, Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz are part of a consortium that would control an 80% stake.
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Key details:
1. New, US-specific TikTok App, separate from the main TikTok app in content and users.
2. 80% owned by a U.S. investor consortium led by Oracle, Silver Lake, and Andreessen Horowitz, 20% by Bytedance.
3. Board will include one U.S. government–appointed director.
4. All U.S. user data would sit on Oracle infrastructure in the US.
5. Algorithm will be initially licensed, but has to be reengineered to comply with the law.
Not discussed - whether the US tiktok app is allowed to compete with TikTok outside of the US. My guess is NO.
By mullingitover 2025-09-181:256 reply This seems like the microwaved corpse of the original 2020 deal. Bytedance keeps all the IP, sells Oracle the nearly worthless right to operate the US infra. They can't even call their franken-app Tiktok. The US user data already sits in the US but they'll expect everyone to forget about that so they can brag about this token win.
They'll probably get what they really want, which is an admin console for the algorithm that has a 'political slant' slider that they can slide as far to the reich as they wish.
Is the US data accessible to non-US entities? The point right now, as I understood it, is to cut off PRC access to the data completely.
Before: we’re spying on you, but here’s a copy!
After: we’ve moved the spy machine to Ashburn VA, here are the keys.
By nashashmi 2025-09-1814:11 The point was to control the algo to prevent stuff like Palestine showing up.
By BlackjackCF 2025-09-185:19 Wait the US version can’t even be called TikTok?
It will be interesting to see how this plays out though. People follow the money. Investors wouldn't be interested if they didn't see the value. If the new app can snag the network effects, then it will win. What is TikTok worth without the US audience?
By mullingitover 2025-09-185:23 The buyers are so absurdly wealthy that it’s not really wealth anymore, it’s power. They’re simply trading some of their dragon hoard of power for some other form of it. These people are above pedestrian worries about ROI.
By tsimionescu 2025-09-184:561 reply > People follow the money. Investors wouldn't be interested if they didn't see the value.
The value may well be in currying favor with the Trump regime, not in the actual deal for itself. If you can lose a few billion on becoming best friends with an increasingly authoritarian leadership, you may well get much more power and future opportunities from that.
This. Ellison is a Trump+power fanboi. Through a few billion at a project to get multiples in return in other projects.
It might be zionism rather than 'fanboiing' over Trump that motivates him. It seems one has to curry favours with Trump to keep him tolerant of Netanyahu and unconditionally supporting of the state of Israel, and this would likely have such an effect.
Recently the Ellison clan dumped a large amount of money on the infamous genocidaire Bari Weiss and is pushing CBS to accept her as a senior member of their news organisation.
Can someone explain to me why the rich and powerful care about Israel so much? I really don't get it.
By cess11 2025-09-2012:29 There are probably a lot of reasons I haven't encountered.
Among the common ones I have are things like Palestine being like a lawless laboratory where industrialists are trying out new gadgets and systems on human populations, which is an important driver in civil as well as military state power towards both their own populations and foreign.
It's also one of the last surviving colonial projects and some old money dynasties stick by it for nostalgic or geopolitical reasons. Related to this is a common form of racism, where the state of Israel is perceived as a civilised western bulwark against the unshaven barbaric hordes of the east.
Then there are religious convictions, especially common among usians, who are often of the belief that there is a God that has a plan for the cosmos that involves first telling the jews about ethics and then replacing them with christians but keeping the jews around as the first line of defense in the ultimate war to end all wars and history itself. Usually this is expressed as a philosemitic form of antisemitism where they see themselves as kind of stewards of the jewish diaspora communities and take on themselves the purpose of moving all jews close to Jerusalem, where this final war is supposed to begin. It's not uncommon that these people perceive arab and persian muslims as basically an Antichrist entity that needs to be eradicated, either in the short term if they're uppity or kept in some form of economic or political bondage.
While there's a lot of conspiracist beliefs surrounding it I'm also convinced there is some truth to the view that israeli security services keeps a lot of kompromat and similar tools of power involving rich and powerful people. Open assassinations and the like have backfired sometimes, e.g. the Lillehammer scandal, and I suspect that this has pushed israeli security to try to adapt to more shadowy tactics.
And then you have people with Holocaust or related forms of shallowly antiracist anxieties, that have convinced themselves that the jews deserve Palestine due to historic attempts at extermination. This is somewhat related to christian zionist beliefs where jews are considered somehow special, 'a chosen people', which is why they are supposedly deserving of an atrocity-laden settler colonial project but e.g. the cirkassians are not and they don't care about the christians of Artsakh and so on.
Plus the economic opportunities due to huge free-money investments into corporations situated in Israel and more mundane imperial considerations like the geopolitical positioning as a destabilising force between Eurasia and Africa as well as on the edge of Eurasia itself. The Mediterranean is small but imagine if there was high-speed rail and a decent degree of social and economic integration all the way from South Africa and Mauritania up to Europe, that would make this a hugely important economic and political area and North America would look puny and useless beside it, due to being surrounded by oceans and so on. Israel also happens to be a base for nuclear weapons placed really close to some of the largest energy reserves on the planet, and largely dependent on states really far away that in turn are highly dependent on the exploitation of these energy reserves.
Also, some people are plain sadists. They feel pleasure and giddiness when they know there are other people on what they perceive as their team doing the worst of things, just the nastiest possible stuff, the most excruciating forms of hierarchy and power imbalance. Sometimes because that makes the power imbalances that keep them in place look relatively sane and tolerable.
This shit is crazy that it’s really happening. The double whammy is that the youth is not prepared intellectually and will continue contributing their data to this platform.
By bitmasher9 2025-09-183:451 reply Some will. There’s a good chance any modification to the algorithm will make it less sticky and the youth will migrate to another app.
It’s part of a larger trend of the buying platforms for obvious propaganda. It seems to be a successful strategy.
By wyre 2025-09-1817:05 Youth will be on whichever app the creators are on. As long as they can hold the status quo keeping creators on the app the people that will leave will be few.
By marbro 2025-09-1819:26 Adults are pretty stupid, too, especially legislators who voted to ban TikTok.
Reich? You need to check the background of those involved in the deal.
By coldtea 2025-09-2220:24 The Reich analogy is about authoritarian deeds, not about ethnic background. Any race is capable of those, even (or especially) ex-victims of the German reich.
Ah yes, famed billionaire Larry Ellison, 98% owner of the Hawaiian Island of Lānaʻi, who you famously should not anthropomorphisize [1][2] who has proposed using AI on mass surveillance cameras so that ‘citizens will be on their best behavior’[3] is definitely not into authoritarian government. He's totally not known as being an authoritarian CEO, with financhill describing his reign as CEO: > Of these four leadership styles, Larry Ellison’s style is decidedly autocratic. [4]. He may be a Jew, and the holocaust may be the worst thing the Nazis did, but it wasn't the only bad thing about their reign.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15886728 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=1981s [3] https://fortune.com/2024/09/17/oracle-larry-ellison-surveill... [4] https://financhill.com/blog/investing/larry-ellison-leadersh...
I had a good laugh at some of your links. There have been many bad regimes but we only hear about the nazis because the owners of the media like to keep it a hot topic as it benefits them politically. What do you think will happen with Tiktok 2.0?
In the wake of Luigi Mangioni, and Reddit deleting his supporters' threada, it seems the US has learned from the CCP on how to quell resistance. People need to be able to let off steam, but they can't be allowed to organize. TikTok 2.0, as a mouthpiece for the GOP, is mysteriously going to have supporting videos surfaced and takedowns will fail to go viral. Mysteriously. Or course, I look like a lunatic for suggesting that, as I have no proof, but those videos taking down the luxury fashion brands on TikTok didn't get there organically.
Looking at the performance of Facebook in the wake of Cambridge Analytica, and Twitter post purchase, or Reddit post blackout, platforms have a too big to fail quality to them. Even slashdot still gets a pile of comments every day. Yahoo and Myspace are still around. TikTok will never die. The next generation may find a new platform to be on (hopefully obe with the feature of going to the next video automatically) due to fuckery by the GOP, but it might be Truth Social but for videos. ORCL already popped, so it's no good getting in there now, but other than that, however TikTok 2.0 does doesn't really actually affect my life. I'll just end up on whichever app there's better content.
By brikym 2025-09-2011:09 I agree. I'd be surprised if social media was not censored or directed by all actors that can get their hands on it. Media isn't really bought to make profits. It's for control. With the EU and UK pushing for internet licences it's very obvious now that the elites have no interest in an open internet.
By throwoutway 2025-09-183:43 So Bytedance can still access user data going forward?
Board will include one U.S. government–appointed director.
Why?
The nominal reason for all this is that we didn't want a Chinese company controlling an important social media outlet. I don't love that reasoning, but fine, whatever.
So they're forcibly selling it to an American company. Which should solve the problem, right?
Are we going to be putting government-appointed directors on all social media companies? Or just the one that used-to-be-Chinese?
Is there something so overwhelmingly devious about the TikTok format in particular that the government has to supervise it?
By staticautomatic 2025-09-1722:323 reply Seems obvious to me that this is so the government can force the platform to silence users who are critical of the government.
You're right, it seems obvious. Considering the number of self-professed "free speech absolutists" I have encountered on this site over the years, I'm surprised at how much benefit of the doubt others are giving this.
I'm not. The last few years have made it very clear what the actual political goals of the VC-tech world are. I was as disappointed as anybody, but I'm not surprised anymore.
I was trying to be more neutral, but after some thought, this isn't the time for that. My "surprise" was more than a bit sarcastic. Between this and the FCC going after Kimmel, now is the last chance I will give for anyone claiming to care about free speech to prove they weren't lying. There's no plausible deniability anymore, free speech is unambiguously under attack.
By hshdhdhj4444 2025-09-189:371 reply What’s even more hilarious are all the anti cancel culture warriors from the past few years going on about how the Kimmel situation isn’t cancel culture.
Especially since this is probably the only incident in the last couple of decades where the cancelation was a result of the government threatening consequences unless a specific individual was not canceled.
Cancel culture has been firmly adopted by all political sides now. It is simply too powerful and effective a weapon to be not used.
It is a pretty big difference when the left wing cancel culture is a grassroots efforts of the populace trying to enforce moral behavior versus the right wing cancel culture we are seeing today in which the government is the one exerting pressure and not the populace.
By Pxtl 2025-09-1818:14 Yup. It always comes back to "both sides are bad, so vote Republican".
Dril said it best.
By coldtea 2025-09-2220:26 >is a grassroots efforts of the populace
Oh, sweet summer child. It's as "grassroots" as the Cultural Revolution (party elites encouraging and directing mobilized workers and farmers to play out their power plays) was grassroot.
The FBI and others telling Twitter what to censor, the goverment agencies threating companies to comply, academics and prestigious news media on lockstep, nebulous NGOs and "think tanks" suggesting what's fake news and what's not, tech behemoths collaborating, even banks having a go at it.
In other words, it's as top down as the current Republican shit is.
I'm glad you finally agree free speech under attack. Now that the president/party in power has changed, it seems the comments have shifted from being that "I must be left wing" to "I must be right wing".
Is there anything that will make you interested in free speech itself, or is it just an attack towards those you disagree with? People don't want to waste time in an internet debate with someone who starts off with an assumption of the latter, and you've already concluded you were being sarcastic in asking. The lack of interest in responding to you about it will only help drive your belief "the other people" are the only ones who claim to care about free speech.
That is because the complaints about left wing threats to free speech are always incredibly dubious like the government asking social media sites to take down what was widely considered dangerous Covid misinformation or some random college professor saying people should use "Latinx". In comparison, the right wing attacks on free speech are like the FCC threatening people for mild jokes. Can you name anything the left wing has done that approaches what we just saw with Kimmel?
The Biden administration started this whole TikTok thing in the first place, you just liked the platform at the time and are now getting bit in the ass when the group in power has changed. I'm not interested in which side is supposed to be worse than the other so someone can feel better about the speech they are okay with suppressing, I'm interested in free speech all the time.
The Kimmel thing is indeed a stupid and dangerous attack on free speech, but you can't just wait until the speech under attack is about something you care for to declare that. It's already too late at that point, which is what many of the people you eagerly dismiss as just caring about right wing politics were trying to say.
By seanmcdirmid 2025-09-1816:422 reply > Biden started this whole TikTok thing in the first place
No, Trump started it in his first term, Biden just continued it, as did Trump continue what he started.
By zamadatix 2025-09-1817:53 I stand corrected on the claim I made, merging https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45292731
By dragonwriter 2025-09-1816:481 reply > The Biden administration started this whole TikTok thing in the first place
No, it didn't.
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/ex...
By zamadatix 2025-09-1817:53 I stand corrected on the claim I made, merging https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45292731
Others have addressed "this whole TikTok thing" being attributed to Biden. I asked you for a left wing equivalent for Kimmel and you couldn't name one. Somehow this lack of an equivalent left wing attack is evidence of them sharing responsibility for this right wing attack on free speech. That is a perfect illustration of my point. I'm not going to "waste time in an internet debate with someone" who can't see the silliness of the argument you just made.
By zamadatix 2025-09-1817:50 Fair on "starting", I should have said "was perfectly in support of and did not attempt to stop" https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-administration-leave-t... and I'm willing to see it was silly to forget the specifics by claiming a different sequence to the topic - hopefully you are also willing to make the same kinds of considerations instead of only using such questions as assumptions of other people.
There is no lack of "equivalent left wing attack", just shifts on when it's okay to do based on how much the individual agrees with it. I've had this exact conversation with right wing folks but the other way around (where nothing conservative was unreasonable suppression but plenty left wing was unreasonable suppression). Because you agree with the views of whatever the Biden admin supported e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation_Governance_Boar... then you don't consider it a problem (and yes, the Biden administration likes to claim it was just building on something the Trump administration had started... which gets us nowhere in actually doing something positive for free speech instead of using it as a blame game). Because someone else agrees with Trump/Kirk they don't consider it a problem. As a result, there is nothing I can say that will make anyone agree when things are equivalent. The difference is not that I agree with a different agenda, nor do I need to find equivalence, it's that I'm not interested in weighing the speech itself.
I, obviously, don't like Russian misinformation (or human smugglers or whatever thing is obviously malintended), but I don't think trying to have a government body decide what is misinformation is a good way to solve the concerns. That's what a free speech absolutist is after all, not just a way to say only a certain party did something bad. I could go on and on about specific instances, but all that does is rile people up about "why would you put that in a list of bad things" or "that's obviously not as big a deal to worry about" whenever they see something they tend to agree with. Those not in support of free speech have no problem saying other transgressions on free speech are a bigger deal, just in agreeing what "other" is.
Supporting free speech is not about agreeing with the speech, it's about tackling any perceived bad speech with open means instead of power. I don't agree with either the Biden or Trump administrations on the ways either seek to suppress social media, regardless if you think some are justified and others aren't. You think it's okay to suppress things as long as they seem harmless or small to you, I don't. That's the only fair assumption of what a free speech absolutist is.
I will give credit that at least my original comment isn't already flagged dead for saying I'm really about free speech instead of the opposition, which has been the typical result the previous 4 years.
I'd tend to agree (I voted Jill Stein) but in context of U.S. politics he's usually considered as such (at least as center left, not center right or even center), albeit less so than some other figures.
On a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being left and 10 being right, Biden's about a 6, and Trump is like 10.
By zamadatix 2025-09-1917:10 I'd also agree Trump is more conservative than Biden is liberal, but I think we're getting a bit into the weeds here...
The point with Biden and Trump is whenever free speech is mentioned, people conclude the part of a political spectrum they identify with is being attacked by someone they perceive as being on a different part, with no belief there could ever be a person actually worried about free speech itself. It's not at all about whether I agree or disagree with where they perceive that threat to be from on the spectrum, it's just what such people like to claim. I've yet to see a normal political spectrum where 100% of folks agree with free speech absolutism, even when inconvenient.
To folks who actually care about free speech instead of partisan politics, the idea of debating where on a scale of 1 to 10 the source of the threat might be from is in itself absurdly irrelevant. To folks that don't care about free speech, it's convenient to perceive free speech claims as only ever having a hidden partisan agenda instead of allowing the possibility of a free speech absolutist. The only exception I can think to any of this is a political spectrum where one side is "free speech absolutism" itself.
The thing is, self-professed "free speech absolutists" generally believe that only right with and nazi speech are the ones worthy of defense. Anybody else who is criticizing those, disagreeing with those or promoting other ideas is seen as threat to free speech.
Self-professed "free speech absolutists" get really angry when left or anti right people speak or make the right uncomfortable.
By philipallstar 2025-09-1815:444 reply No, this is just in your head. You might still have 40-year-old instincts from when the authoritarian right was in charge, both in institutions and in social norms, but it's been the authoritarian left for 20 years. Any discussion that engages in spreading stereotypes, rather than debating ideas, is just part of the problem.
By watwut 2025-09-1815:57 It is authoritarian right right now destroying democracy in full speed.
And it was like that all along, just a bit more hidden so that moderate right can pretend it is not happening all along.
By CyberDildonics 2025-09-1915:03 What sources of information are you getting that you think the people in charge now are not 'authoritarian right' ?
By Jackpillar 2025-09-1816:181 reply "Authoritarian left" We're cooked
By philipallstar 2025-09-1913:30 Historically this is definitely what's killed the most people, but who knows - maybe this time it'll be different.
You're not making sense. People on the right actively spread stereotypes, racist cliches, and other antisocial, pro-violent opinions that they call the truth and won't budge on their opinion, but as soon as a leftist calls someone with actual authoritarian viewpoints a nazi they are the problem for spreading stereotypes and not debating ideas? lmfao
By philipallstar 2025-09-1913:301 reply > but as soon as a leftist calls someone with actual authoritarian viewpoints a nazi
The left en masse has been doing this for 10 years, and for far less that "authoritarian viewpoints".
Not surprised this is your only argument to my post. It was an easy, yet flawed example on my part.
People say all sorts of stuff, but if your consistently being told by a large cohort of individuals your shit stinks for a decade, it probably stinks.
By philipallstar 2025-09-2215:151 reply > People say all sorts of stuff, but if your consistently being told by a large cohort of individuals your shit stinks for a decade, it probably stinks.
I agree that the authoritarian left has very much tried to recreate the "no smoke without fire" pre-liberal "justice" system, but all it takes is organisational capture of media coupled with a lot of people without any critical thinking skills.
By wyre 2025-09-2818:09 Your mental gymnastics is wild, dude. So many excuses and still won't address my original point that the right actively preaches and spreads stereotypes, racism, and violent rhetoric.
By nielsbot 2025-09-1810:12 Honestly curious how much of this is about stopping people from knowing what Israel (and the US by extension) are doing.
Just in time for them to “finish the job”
EDIT: Found this: https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/tiktok-ban-fueled-by-israe...
By tempodox 2025-09-188:54 That, and boosting the influencers they want to be heard.
>Is there something so overwhelmingly devious about the TikTok format in particular that the government has to supervise it?
Well, yes, for starters. I think there's a pretty strong consensus from people on all sides that there's no more addictive algorithm than the TikTok one.
It's the beneficiary of powerful network effects, it created those effects for itself with a superior app, but nevertheless it is a distinguishing feature. I also would say it's culturally positioned perhaps the best of any major social media app over the present and near term.
And in its current ownership it's required by statute to comply with Chinese national security data requests. And you used to not have to say this, but a culturally dominant app being leveraged by an authoritarian state goes in the not good colunm.
>> Are we going to be putting [US] government-appointed directors on all [US] social media companies?
> And you used to not have to say this, but a culturally dominant app being leveraged by an authoritarian state goes in the not good colunm.
Agreed.
By ericmay 2025-09-1812:39 Great so let’s ban it then and avoid that problem? If you’re upset about the US government having a board seat on the US-specific app then you are even more mad that the CCP does while you munch on Tide pods and get outraged about whatever the algorithm tells you.
Or you can just get rid of this crap and stop lying to yourself about the value and they can rule over an empty kingdom.
Otherwise yes indeed the US will get a board seat and the Trump admin will make content demands and you will take it like a coward because you’re too addicted to give it up.
(Just a note I don’t mean you specifically - I don’t know if you’re addicted to social media or not)
By mullingitover 2025-09-181:382 reply > there's no more addictive algorithm than the TikTok one.
I really have to disagree at this point. Meta has all the money in the world to throw at this, and inference isn't rocket surgery. I think Meta's algorithm caught up a couple years ago, if anything it's even more addictive. Tiktok is simply riding on first mover status, plus it's a Coke/Pepsi thing, a large segment finds Meta properties distasteful for all the obvious reasons.
By 0000000000100 2025-09-181:54 I agree (not OP). The difference in addictiveness between the three big boys (Facebook/Instagram, YouTube, TikTok) grows smaller with every passing year as their back-catalog of content grows.
Pretty much everyone I know consumes TikTok style content these days. I personally have blocked myself from this stuff via deleting the Insta, YouTube and I even wrote a TamperMonkey script to block myself from getting trapped down the rabbit hole.
Self shout out: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/534969-begone-youtube-shor...
By wnc3141 2025-09-182:53 I think it's more the product design is far more distilled for popular (and addictive) short term content. From ad placement to UI to the format of solely being a frictionless video platform with mostly anonymous users.
By oblio 2025-09-184:04 > And you used to not have to say this, but a culturally dominant app being leveraged by an authoritarian state goes in the not good colunm.
At the rate the US is going this will be interesting for Europe and Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc, in probably the near future.
By giancarlostoro 2025-09-182:041 reply I think its pretty obvious how and why, every other platform copied the key parts of Tik tok, youtube has shorts, and others have their own rendition. What they all miss is that this IS Tik Tok its not some additional part of Tik Tok. It's a simple UI that gives you endless content you like, they tag all the content in a meaningful way behind the scenes, and then the recommendation engine works to feed you more of what you like.
By Foobar8568 2025-09-184:361 reply Pinterest but for short videos.
By giancarlostoro 2025-09-1813:43 Turns out short attention bursts is enough for the younger generations, they get condensed news. The big downside I see is they get used to the cut version of things, I am a huge fan of longer videos with raw uncut context, I tire of people telling me what someone said, just give me the video thanks, I can think for myself.
> but a culturally dominant app being leveraged by an authoritarian state goes in the not good colunm.
I think political scholars will debate on what the net effect of this is actually going to be. As in, are we better off with the GOP or the CCP controlling the algorithm? Certainly, the CCP has anti west incentives that the GOP does not, like trying to confuse us as to how we should feel about protecting Taiwan.
But in the past, the CCP has been interested in sewing discontent in the US and the method by which they have done that is by propping up the GOP. And many ways by which both the CCP and GOP would presumably manipulate the algorithm would be similar—owning libs, promoting radical right wing views, etc. But having the GOP control TikTok is a different thing entirely, they are much more incentivized to propagate their own flavor of politics to skew the nations narrative to their liking, in a much more controlled way than I think the CCP would. See twitter for prior art here.
At least if TikTok is owned in the US there might be some oversight into what’s going on. As bankrupt as Mark is as a person it doesn’t seem like hes pushing his own political views into instagrams algorithm, unlike the case at twitter. I think we have yet to see how Ellison will treat the great power of controlling the TikTok algorithm but I’m cynical.
By FranzFerdiNaN 2025-09-185:28 > CCP has anti west incentives that the GOP does not
The GOP wants to destroy the west even more than the CCP, yes.
By fragmede 2025-09-1917:28 Having control of "The Algorithm" is putting it vaguely. The two things are making sure everyone sees a certain video, like how China did with the factory videos taking down luxury brands. The other is filtering out things entirely, eg Epstein or Luigi Mangione. The worst is that they'll learn from the CCP, which is to let people air their frustrations, just don't let them get organized.
By zamadatix 2025-09-1721:31 It's an interesting question, but the information we have so far doesn't seem to be enough to give a meaningful answer yet. E.g. is it something like "one person appointed to oversee the full terms of the transition are kept" or "one person appointed always to make sure TikTok aligns with the government".
I'm not necessarily a fan of either... but to vastly different levels.
Because Trump wants a proxy so he can continue to influence the direction TikTok takes. He wants easier access to data so he can go after his political opponents, as well as get things censored he doesn't like. Of course, this would all be possible without someone on the board, but it can't hurt, and likely will help.
By LadyCailin 2025-09-180:262 reply If TikTok removes something, would the fact that there’s a government representative on the board give standing for a first amendment claim? Normally private companies aren’t required to furnish you with first amendment rights, but if one could argue that, if not for the board representative, they might not have prevented that speech, then perhaps you would have standing.
As soon as the appointee is appointed by a Democratic politician, at least.
That won't help. The count is currently 6 Republicans to 3 Democrats. The party isn't an absolute predictor of how they'll vote, but it's pretty close.
It would take a minimum of two Republicans to retire, and be replaced by Democrats, to change the partisan balance. The oldest justice is Clarence Thomas, but the next two are both Democrats. Everybody else is under 70 and will not retire for a minimum of a decade.
By epistasis 2025-09-1815:07 I'm talking about the appointee to the board of the US-TikTok; I doubt the Supreme Court will have any objection until it is favorable for their partisan politics. (I hope I am wrong, but the past years have made me quite cynical)
By FranzFerdiNaN 2025-09-185:30 When has this government give a single care about free speech or the constitution or even the law in general?
By nujabe 2025-09-182:41 That is a seat reserved for AIPAC.
By Yeul 2025-09-1810:13 Pushing trad wife and Christ is king content to young people is worth it. Propaganda works.
By ivape 2025-09-183:33 They don’t want you scrolling through insert_controversial_topic at break neck pace. The bandwidth on TikTok in terms of getting a visual out is extremely wide and fast.
By Bombthecat 2025-09-183:38 You know the answer lol
Remember though, it's only bad when the other guy does it. We don't want Chinese government involvement in TikTok, but we do want US government involvement. /s
The "Be all you can be" slogan requires more than just a great firewall that China should pay for, it needs a constant vigil to protect it from German nihilists.
Build a [fire]wall and make China pay for it is an amusing — if bleak — joke. Thank you :)
What do you mean though by protection from “German nihilists”? Is that a satirical name you imagine the US government might use for the EU?
By groggler 2025-09-1816:43 The timing of the slogan change is not really ideal for blaming German nihilists but it's all a while ago around when the big Lebowski surfaced that very serious threat..
By mikestew 2025-09-1921:51 Perhaps a sideways reference to old movies? “Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.”[0]
Or maybe just a direct reference to Strauss, I dunno.
[0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118715/quotes?item=qt0464759&r...
I mean I do want the world's most influential social media app to be within the jurisdiction of a non-authoritarian state, yes.
So... we're transferring it to one who requires a government representative on its board?
By glenstein 2025-09-2021:13 Harm reduction accomplished! Sounds like we agree on the underlying principle.
By platevoltage 2025-09-187:071 reply "non-authoritarian" state said completely unironically.
By glenstein 2025-09-2021:16 It's the difference between a house that's on fire, and a house that's been fully burned to the ground and replaced with a maximum security prison. If you can't distinguish between those, I don't think your grasp on objective reality is strong enough for you to be qualified to participate in the conversation.
By seattle_spring 2025-09-184:141 reply So then you agree that putting our current government even partially in charge of the new company would be a bad idea?
By glenstein 2025-09-2021:17 I agree that it is harm reduction relative to the status quo.
By toofy 2025-09-184:09 i want the worlds most influential social media app to be away from the jurisdiction of any powerful people/organization, whether that’s governments, religions, billionaires, etc…
i find it worrisome that some are implying it’s new controllers are somehow less of a threat.
The USA is also an authoritarian State, it just has better marketing.
I live in Taiwan. I'm no fan of the CPC. But if you zoom out a bit, it's kinda hard to distinguish the two beyond Americans winning global cultural victory (CPC propaganda is still goofy and obvious).
Point at tiananmem square, an atrocious massacre of their own citizenry. The USA has done this - it has locked its citizens in concentration camps, supported their enslavement and recaptured the ones that managed to free themselves, bombed wealthy neighborhoods of the wrong race, had soldiers fire upon striking workers and peaceful protesters. America just has no Tank Man photo and much more subtle media relations - ostensibly free media but in reality controlled through the mutual interests of the billionaire owners of the media conglomerates and the multi millionaire politicians.
The CPC did a genocide in Xinjiang. They were very good at information control here, it's almost impossible to find even an image from the inside of one of their concentration camps. The USA funded a genocide in Palestine, but it can maintain a sort of non culpability. At any point in time the USA can turn on its Israeli allies, and my cynical expectation is that when the government becomes flagrantly fascist enough they'll just blame the Jews and call it done. But, until now, they've maintained an extraordinarily effective marketing campaign propping up Israel as a bastion of freedom and democracy in a demonic environment,values it's managed to market across the entire world that isn't the PRC or cuba or Venezuela, to where people in other countries will say "I can do what I want, it's a free country" even in countries where that really isn't the case e.g. for speech in the UK for example. In actuality it's a more racialized pitch - the Israelis are more credibly white, the Muslims are, well, Muslims. Or Brown. Whichever. But they have this massive marketing apparatus (decades of film and TV) smoothing over these racialized concepts into "freedom and democracy vs savagery and chaos," whereas the CPC with their racialized version just had Han and Normal vs Muslim and Kinda Weird (maybe dangerous!). A much more despicable pitch on the surface which is why they didn't get away with a televised genocide the way America and Israel got away with decades of apartheid against Palestine.
Anyway in summary if we take a look at all the bad the CPC vs the USA have done in their lifetimes, idk man at best the scales at balanced, worse case I think America has been worse for the world overall. I would be curious if people that disagree would be willing to do so with the context of American imperialism in mind - interfering in south America and the middle East for example. Is it still better than a country that has one imperialist action (Tibet) and a genocide under its belt?
When did the concept of "a free country" arise, and what did it mean? It seems to have been in use in the 1600s. Here it is in a tract written, apparently, around 1689 in England:
https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-tract-su...
The freedoms in that instance are freedom of religion, and democracy. (Democracy, the franchise, was limited to about 10% of men, under rules that varied locally from "you have to own a house" to "you have to own the entire region".)
But here the concept is again in ancient times:
https://archive.org/details/BiblicalCollectionPrintedBetween...
This is (a translation of) Josephus, writing in the first century about a speech by a Roman senator from the time when Claudius was put on the throne, with lines like "our natural freedom", "breath of liberty", and "the Liberty of former Times, that was dead and gone before ever I came into the World ..." I can't work out what that freedom was all about - Claudius came after Caligula, though, so you can make a good guess - but evidently this kind of concept is much older than the United States.
I also found the phrase "it's a free country" in Uncle Tom's Cabin, where the freedom in question is the freedom to control slaves.
So the concept is:
• Not modern,
• Not well defined,
• But not meaningless, either.
My meaning is more like, St. Nicholas and his flying sleigh and reindeer have existed since at least the 1800s, Father Christmas as well, Sinterklaas even earlier most likely, but Coca-Cola invented Santa Claus as the world knows him in 1930s, and the USA did the same for the modern concept of "free country" or "democracy." A couple decades of radio, television, and film dominance was the method.
By card_zero 2025-09-1813:31 Running with that metaphor, Sinterklaas (freedom and democracy) actually exists, and even when people invoke the Coca-Cola version they're still aspiring to something with a grain of truth to it. It doesn't merely simplify to "us and them" but also contains some actual meaning relating to actual forms of freedom, when people take the trouble to add the depth back in instead of lazily designating outsiders.
By glenstein 2025-09-2021:25 I'll start by recommending you look up whataboutism, and learn about why it's a fallacious form of argumentation. There's definitely a non-fallacious way of making your argument, but that's your job.
I also don't think your assessment of the relative histories is reliable, but for our purposes here, that's all largely beside the point, because the degree of national security alignment of domestic companies in China compared to the United States are at completely different orders of magnitude, which is the pertinent issue when considering harm reduction here.
By _trampeltier 2025-09-1811:29 I guess the US have a kind of Tank Man photo. The girl from Vietnam.
About media. For me, since Trump second term, I just can't watch Superhero movies (DC / Marvel). It just feels strange and wrong for me. Also movies like the Den of Thieves (1), the feel just plain wrong with a brutal police.
By selimthegrim 2025-09-188:171 reply This is your annual reminder that white Muslims do in fact exist.
By komali2 2025-09-1810:26 This is a gentle reminder that it really doesn't matter what the color of a Muslim's skin is to those who care to distinguish someone as Muslim or not-Muslim. To the racist right wing machine, those that are undeniably white (say, a blond haired blue eyed nord), will be called "Muslim" or "Jew" or "Antifa" or "queer" or "trans" and that'll be that, their whiteness is revoked.
Whiteness, like any race, is a purely cultural concept rooted in the shifting reality of day to day sociology.
A man with as-of-yet undefined politics was identified as the alleged assassin of Charlie Kirk. Before he was found, a governor said, "I really hope he's not one of us." When it was discovered that he was a young white male from a Mormon MAGA family, the media machine that had been calling for the elimination of the opposition party in the USA (or various minorities such as LGBT people) went silent for about a day until it was discovered that perhaps the assassin's roommate may have been trans. Immediately he was othered. Calls for prayer for a lost young man turned again into calls for violence against trans people. I imagine Governor Cox breathing a sigh of relief. Whiteness revoked!
> Are we going to be putting government-appointed directors on all social media companies?
That wouldn't be a bad thing. How good has unchecked Zuckerberg been for us, really?
> Or just the one that used-to-be-Chinese?
Or the one where there's some level to force on them, like here. If Zuckerberg starts needing government cash to keep Facebook going, I'd expect a similar deal.
>That wouldn't be a bad thing
The government should be the government, and corporations should be corporations. Nothing good will come of having them bleed together.
Like church and state, you keep them separate for the good of both.
By Vegenoid 2025-09-185:24 > Like church and state, you keep them separate for the good of both.
No, not for the good of both - for the good of the people. It is demonstrably beneficial for those in power in government and megacorps to conspire and consolidate that power, it enables them to further control and extract from the populace. It is the people that should be invested in keeping them separate.
By palmotea 2025-09-1813:39 > The government should be the government, and corporations should be corporations. Nothing good will come of having them bleed together.
> Like church and state, you keep them separate for the good of both.
I'm not convinced of that anymore. The problem is the government is so weak and slow: the corporations can implement some bad decision before the government has a chance to notice and regulate.
There needs to be more stakeholders with power at the corporate decision-making table than just the shareholders and their representatives. You need workers there, you needs someone to speak for the interests of the country as a whole, etc.
By seattle_spring 2025-09-184:11 Unchecked Zuckerberg is still preferable to anyone appointed by the current admin.
> Board will include one U.S. government–appointed director.
In other words, one's data will now be under the scrutiny of amoral radicals who have decided to target people for political speech.
We are slowly becoming Communist China.
Won't be long until all companies will be required to have a party office.
This is such a funny take. In China corporations operate at the behest of the government. In the US the government operates at the behest of corporations.
That's changing, though. They <are> working together, but the balance is tilting towards the US government and worse, towards individuals controlling it.
By pcthrowaway 2025-09-189:251 reply The U.S. is moving to state capitalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism) which is common in fascist regimes (think Nazi Germany or fascist Italy)
By the_gipsy 2025-09-1812:25 Which should also be deemed very inefficient, if I understand correctly. Germany's growth was unsustainable. A realistic example would be Spain, where 36 years of real-world fascism left the country well behind comparable countries.
All that means is an interchange of definitions: Chinese calls "corporations" what US calls "government" and vice versa. But not fundamental different reality.
On planet Floorp, carpets (organic bipedal tetrapods) use people (machines that suck air) to clean vacuums (woolen floor lining). How quaint - no, not really, that's exactly the same as on Earth but with different words.
There are good arguments to be made that the USA's government is corporations, and the entity we call "the US government" doesn't actually meet the definition of being the government of the US.
By athorax 2025-09-1815:59 Its a nice thought, but this is not at all reflective of reality
By motbus3 2025-09-188:58 That's not true. You won't have state care or education
By jimmydoe 2025-09-1722:59 maybe, but i think what I see here is trump is not interested to beat china, just see what he did with s korea and india.
the only thing may indicate that trump is competing with china is how hard he's trying to please putin, but apparently he needs to work harder to get into the organ harvesting club.
By VectorLock 2025-09-184:39 US bought a big stake in Intel; the US is quickly attempting to replicate China's system of State Capitalism. If you can't beat em, join em, I guess.
By amanaplanacanal 2025-09-188:241 reply Weren't they just reporting to Twitter when they saw posts breaker twitters existing policies?
Is it not problematic that the government is bringing up specific things they’d like censored?
As long as it stays to the level of "Hey, doesn't this violate your rules?" I think the government has the same right to press the report button, or even to write an email equivalent to pressing report a bunch of times, as anyone else does.
I'm not aware that a Democrat government arrested anyone for not complying with these emails.
Are you suggesting it's okay for the government to push for censoring specific content only when it also happens to break the rules of a site?
How is the flag button equivalent to the White House writing emails to Twitter and Meta? It seems the latter would have a lot more priority than my personal measly attempts at pressing the flag button on something I didn't like
By amanaplanacanal 2025-09-192:33 Yeah it certainly looked bad. And it gave cover for the new administration to just pretend the first amendment doesn't exist.
By immibis 2025-09-197:45 I'm just as entitled as Joe Biden to write an email to Elon saying he should ban the following rule-breaking posts.
I've written emails to HN moderators like that before.
By platevoltage 2025-09-187:091 reply Key word here is "asking".
By jameslk 2025-09-1817:47 Yes the government asking for content to be censored is censorship. They don’t always ask either, e.g. Julian Assange/Wikileaks
> All U.S. user data would sit on Oracle infrastructure in the US.
Legally required to use the services of a specific company, that's a sweet deal right there.
By rtehfm 2025-09-1719:34 As part of Project Texas[1], they've already been using Oracle's infrastructure.
> The central feature of Project Texas is our work with Oracle to isolate the TikTok services serving U.S. users within Oracle’s U.S. cloud environment as an additional safeguard. Although gateways to the storage infrastructure are strictly monitored and controlled, U.S. users of the TikTok platform can still communicate and interact with global users for a cohesive global experience.
By hamburglar 2025-09-1720:55 TikTok has been on Oracle cloud for years. One of its biggest customers.
By foota 2025-09-1723:27 I suspect the legal requirement is for it to be in the US, the Oracle part is probably just because they're the ones investing.
By justapassenger 2025-09-1721:46 Vendor lock-in, with a heavy legal implications, is Oracle's bread and butter of operation.
That’s very interesting, I wonder if the toxicity of the American culture wars can be contained this way.
Also, I see creators, trying to create US based TikTok accounts because they believe that this way their content will be shown to Americans, which are better monetized. If that’s the case, I wonder if international creator will move to the American TikTok for the better payout.
It the international creators stay with the international TikTok IMHO that will be a huge win for China, practically displacing American culture for the younger demographic in the rest of the world.
By LeafItAlone 2025-09-1722:07 >I wonder if the toxicity of the American culture wars can be contained this way.
Look at recent events: American government officials want to maintain the same level of toxic culture wars that foreign governments want. They just want to control them, not contain them.
By basisword 2025-09-1720:18 >> I wonder if international creator will move to the American TikTok for the better payout.
If I were China I would do this deal and then ensure that the payout is better outside the US. Try to sway US content creators to use VPN's and post outside the US and essentially limit the impact of the deal.
By vehemenz 2025-09-1722:19 Giving power to the radicals that want division wouldn't have that effect, and it's bizarre to even suggest that it would.
> I wonder if the toxicity of the American culture wars can be contained this way.
Huh? Are you not aware of US social media companies?
Everything that's happening on TikTok is also happening on X, Facebook, Friendster, or whatever the kids are using these days. The only difference is that the TikTok algorithm promotes Chinese propaganda and ideology, and enriches the Chinese government and ByteDance. The US can't have that, hence this deal.
This won't affect the American downward spiral a single iota. That would require strong regulation of social media companies and adtech in general, and there would be a nationwide revolt if that were even proposed. This is far from being considered anyway, now that Big Tech is deeply entrenched in the government.
>This won't affect the American downward spiral a single iota.
Broadly speaking, I think you're probably right that the dynamics on tiktok already exist elsewhere in social media. But I do think a practical upshot of it could be a version of Tiktok where you can criticize the Hong Kong takeover or Xinxianj labor camps or harassment of expatriate dissidents or Taiwan indepence openly and not have it soft-deplatformed. Which could cause stronger domestic consciousness of those issues, and stronger solidarity with Europe and the rest of the Western world.
By nebula8804 2025-09-184:062 reply Oh great now Americans get to talk about things the US government could care less about while at the same time losing the ability to criticize Israel or the current administration. Does not sound like a great win. There were plenty of platforms to talk about those topics already. What didn't exist was a platform that expressly talked about things the US does not like. It could be argued that the rise in pro-palestine awareness post Oct 7 is in part to TikTok. Thats likely going away now so Americans on the whole are left worse off.
> losing the ability to criticize Israel or the current administration
When did Americans lose that ability? I didn't hear about this happening.
> could be argued that the rise in pro-palestine awareness post Oct 7 is in part to TikTok. Thats likely going away now so Americans on the whole are left worse off.
The only thing that changed is that China can't choose what you get shown, do you think that the pro-palestine videos are only there due to Chinese influence?
By dpkirchner 2025-09-1815:03 > When did Americans lose that ability? I didn't hear about this happening.
You haven't heard about the government pressuring universities to prevent students protesting Israel? Or about anti-BDS laws?
By nebula8804 2025-09-187:29 >When did Americans lose that ability? I didn't hear about this happening.
It fell in between the razer thin "terms & conditions" of most American service providers and the the main point of this thread: controlling the algorithm to suppress these thoughts. I will concede that Americans can still set up their own online service and yell into an empty room.
>The only thing that changed is that China can't choose what you get shown, do you think that the pro-palestine videos are only there due to Chinese influence?
anything that China does not find offensive is there.
By imiric 2025-09-1810:25 Not being able to openly criticize the US or any other government on social media is hardly important. Free speech never existed on privately run platforms to begin with. It's delusional to think that it does or to demand it, when all users must abide with specific terms and conditions. The only people who think that are those whose views happen to align with the views of companies that run the platform. The moment that changes, as we've seen from the Twitter takeover, the previous user base will denounce censorship and deplatforming, while a new user base will celebrate "free speech". It's all a circus of ignorance and disinformation.
The main problem is that allowing foreign propaganda from a political rival to influence your citizens, while giving them free reign to exploit user data, is undeniably a matter of national security. The issue is that taking over a single platform doesn't stop foreign influence and data mining, which is also happening on all other platforms, courtesy of the adtech machinery that powers all of them. We have concrete evidence of this from the Cambridge Analytica leak, which was just the tip of the iceberg of a multi-billion dollar industry.
So unless US companies are willing to take a severe hit on their revenue and drastically change their business models, which can only happen with regulation that in practice will never be enacted, none of this will change.
If you're a user of these platforms, stop worrying about what you can or cannot say, and start worrying about what you're being manipulated to think, say, and do.
By komali2 2025-09-187:12 Just fwiw, Threads is basically the go-to for Taiwan stuff. It's absurdly popular in Taiwan and people recently used it to help organize one of the largest protests in Taiwan's history.
By immibis 2025-09-1812:33 I don't think they're banning it because it promotes what China wants. I think they're banning it because it doesn't promote what the US wants. The US is not offended that you can't criticize Tiananmen Square. It's fine whether you can or can't criticize Tiananmen Square. Only China cares about that.
The reverse also happens - Gaza being the main one. China couldn't give two shits about what happens in the middle east - it's not involved at all. So it lets footage be played sometimes. But the USA cares deeply about making sure young people don't see footage of Gaza and that's the sort of thing that motivates the US to ban this app.
By dr-detroit 2025-09-1720:19 [dead]
By doctoboggan 2025-09-1719:582 reply > 1. New, US-specific TikTok App, separate from the main TikTok app in content and users.
IMO this significantly impacts the value I would get from TikTok, as much of the content I consume on the app is from outside the US
I guess they are hoping the US market will be big enough so self sustain and even entice some foreigners to join the US only app?
Wait, so for everyone else this means American content will be off the main app and be contained? If this stems the tide of MAGA brain rot seeping north into Canada it's an absolute win.
By raydev 2025-09-1720:57 MAGA content is easily avoidable, because the algo already prioritizes what you engage with. For me in Canada, there's just a lot of funny/insightful US-based content I do watch.
TikTok got significantly less interesting when the US blocked themselves earlier this year, if that happens permanently it'll probably hurt TikTok worldwide.
By UncleOxidant 2025-09-1721:311 reply Will people just stay with the old app out due to inertia? Or will there be annoying "blocked in your country" type messages until you switch? (at which point you won't know what's been blocked in your country)
By aranelsurion 2025-09-1722:18 Will there be an old app and new app available both to US residents? I don't see how that'd help them reach any of their stated goals, as I'd expect overwhelming majority of users to a) simply not care and stay, b) prefer the better international app with more content from all around the world
By rs186 2025-09-181:19 In other words, TikTok US becomes TruthSocial Reels?
I wonder where all the liberal content will go.
> 5. Algorithm will be initially licensed, but has to be reengineered to comply with the law.
The government board director is one thing, but what exactly does this mean?
The law simply requires that the content recommendation algorithm not be shared between the two apps. [0] Thus, it must be rebuilt by the new team, and not maintained or controlled by the old team.
The licensing approach is a temporary solution to keep the app working from day 1. One of ByteDance's complaints during the lawsuit earlier this year was that is was going to be technically infeasible for engineers to rebuild something as complex and essential as the content algorithm in the short window of time they had before the law went into effect.
[0] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521...
"The term “qualified divestiture” means a divestiture or similar transaction that ... would result in the relevant foreign adversary controlled application no longer being controlled by a foreign adversary; and ... precludes the establishment or maintenance of any operational relationship between [the two apps/teams], including any cooperation with respect to the operation of a content recommendation algorithm or an agreement with respect to data sharing."
By roughly 2025-09-1721:16 Gotcha, ok - that’s less alarming.
By doctoboggan 2025-09-1720:331 reply "Hey Claude, please re-write this algorithm"
By downrightmike 2025-09-1721:15 I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
By BatteryMountain 2025-09-186:111 reply All this to "protect the children"... why are US politicians so interested in kids? Politicians being involved in a kids app? Why? Could it be to curate some naughty list for future exploitation (blackmails anyone?) or to get location data about the kids? Mmm wonder when masked """"law enforcement"""" will disappear the parents and traffic the kids somewhere?
Just ban children from the internet, make it the responsibility of the parents. Its that simple. Make it illegal for kids to have access, especially to user generated content (incl chat), same level as firearms, pharma drugs, voting, entering into contracts etc. Internet is and was never a place for children to begin with.
By discordance 2025-09-186:17 This is a land grab under the guise of "protecting the children"
By downrightmike 2025-09-1721:00 10% of intel 80% of TikTok ??% Meta ??% Google ??% Amazon ??% S&P500
By motbus3 2025-09-188:53 N. 2 and 3 concerns me quite a lot. This looks like a thing people would 'mock' China for
By GardenLetter27 2025-09-188:401 reply Won't this separate out the US community on TikTok completely? Almost like the GFW ironically.
By immibis 2025-09-1819:20 The name "Great Firewall of America" is already taken (and refers to Cloudflare), so we'll have to call this one something else.
By basisword 2025-09-1720:17 >> US-specific TikTok App, separate from the main TikTok app in content and users
Very interesting! The separate "in content" bit in particular. Sounds like US TikTok will now be one giant echo chamber. Users outside the US will miss some US content but tbh, I find TikTok content is actually quite localised anyway. Big benefits for users outside the US are:
1. US doesn't get my data.
2. Hopefully less US political BS to swipe past.
3. I am much less concerned with the sway China has on Western Europe than the sway the US has and am therefore much happier using a China-backed version of the app sans US content/users/control/propaganda. The extreme brain rot causing people outside the US to care about 'MAGA' or that recently assassinated man will hopefully start to recede. That can only be a good thing. We have plenty of our own polarising issues without importing irrelevant ones.
By mrkramer 2025-09-1812:03 >New, US-specific TikTok App, separate from the main TikTok app in content and users.
I'm from Europe so if I want to follow US content creators, I need to download separate US specific app?! Kinda silly.
By qingcharles 2025-09-186:411 reply Massive win for Meta as it'll push a lot of folks towards Instagram Reels, which won't be siloed from the rest of the world.
By herbst 2025-09-187:11 The split between the US and the rest of the world maybe never was bigger than today
By jodacola 2025-09-182:24 Disclaimer: I’m not a fan of TikTok and have many critical opinions of Ayn Rand’s philosophies, but…
This gives me vibes of a weird company takeover, a la the kinds of things that happened in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged: government-driven benefits to large corporations and investors with friends in the right places, government involvement, forced licensure of a core aspect of the product (Rearden Metal?).
I’d like to learn more about: what are some other similar instances of such a thing?
By Spooky23 2025-09-183:46 Cool. Chuck Schumer will clutch something and say “this may be a sign of something not good.”
> Oracle... Horowitz
tl;dr: the entire US media is now controlled by men who've bent the knee to Trump and have demonstrated that theyre willing to take an activist editorial role.
By PHGamer 2025-09-187:11 government appointed commissars eh. i see were bringing it back eh. bet they will make sure it wont criticize a certain group of people lol
id like to see a similiar setup done in canada for each of the US big tech companies.
owned by canadian oligarchs, with one CBC appointed director
By herbst 2025-09-187:12 I could see local variants of American data dealers for Europe as well. Facebook without all the privacy issues would be borderline useable, maybe.
Of all the tech companies, Oracle seems to be making the most and a killing due to Larry's cosy relations with Trump.
Last week's announcement that they have a 500 B deal with Open AI, and now this.
Elon really fucked up!
By the_gipsy 2025-09-1812:33 Who would have thunk, that a favor would evaporate soon! Isn't this like negotiating 101?
By fluidcruft 2025-09-1719:24 Key details:
1. DOA app nobody wants
2. whocares
3. see 2
Good luck to the administration while trying to roll this out.
> one member designated by the US government.
Why does the board of TikTok need a gov member? Is Meta going to get a gov chaperone too? And Oracle surely needs one as well.
Is the gov putting out a call for board member civil servants? Like where does this person even come from?
Same reason they put a guy at CBS as a "bias monitor":
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-fcc-cbs-ne...
They want their guy to make sure things go their way / people say the "right" things.
By throw310822 2025-09-1719:152 reply > a guy at CBS as a "bias monitor"
Kenneth Weinstein.
"Mr. Weinstein has had a long career in right-leaning and neoconservative public policy circles. He is a firm and vocal champion of Israel." (NyTimes)
By throw0101d 2025-09-1720:05 By throwawayqqq11 2025-09-189:231 reply We still have (hopefully) a democratic choice how this plays out, so the distinction between left/right is meaningful regarding political overreach (beyond the stereotypes propagandists like to attach).
If you are arguing that the left is identical to the right in that regard, you truly deserve your downvotes. I mean ... leftist censorship-cancelation for no good reason.
You are not understanding that the whole left/right distinction you see is just you seeing what is put before you so you will be engaged in a meaningless feud that is just as meaningless as the sport you watch and that team you really care about. It was long ago figured out that "democracy" is a far more effective tool for managing the mindless masses through "choice" and participation ... in choices they are provided, both more or less being acceptable to the ruling cabal. Trump was clearly a kind of upset of that system for reasons and causes that are too big to go into right now, but it is precisely why the same left/right leaders were perfectly fine with uniting in their opposition to Trump, demonstrating momentarily how fake and meaningless their opposition to each other is.
I could not care less what peasants vote on some website simply because they don't like hearing the truth and it conflicts with their programming. That sounds like a you problem that you get some kind of impotent satisfaction from seeing the peasant mob down voting my comment as if that would change anything about reality.
By throwawayqqq11 2025-09-1910:12 How do you know my perception of politics? Have i put some pronouns somewhere in my bio?
> left/right distinction you see, as meaningless as sport
> managing the mindless through "choice" and participation
I dont really know where to start to tackle this mess. To me, it appears to be a wild mix of delusion and cluelesness ... so, what to adress first.
Lets start with the basics. A left leaning ideology revolves around wealth distribution and not some identity politics (IP) of LGBTQ-whatev. The IP part on both sides is what you rightfully call political theater, but again, only caring about some minority does not make one a leftist. Reducing the left to only that is dumb but necessary for the right. This IP label is the propaganda vehicle used to distract from very important, system shaking, actual political issues. Gullible people get caught by emotions to hook them on simple answers. Like the "degenerates" teaching kids or "gangs" migrating to the US. Its always the same fascistic playbook, construct a dislikable enemy -- bc disgust is a strong emotion and source of bias to blur your reasoning, exclude all contradicting complexities -- like migrants being statistically less criminal, agitate the masses based on that and then take out any (reasonable) opposition by crying around that you are the actual victim here, to obscure your retaliation. Does this sound like trump to you?
When soft power (propaganda) fails, you can turn to any history book how much uncle sam disagrees with you about the "meaningless left", because leftist wealth distribution challenges power structures beyond the political stage, where the players reside, that had been corrupting US politics for longer then the US fucked up latin america. You can see it in real time today, how the democrats turn on NY mayor candidate Mamdani because of his "communist" NY rent freeze. Calling such leftist central, decades old, factual and non-IP ambition meaningless is a strong indicator of political cluelessness and i bet, the right will use some form of force to stop the islamo-communist (please tell me you got the IP-labeling here). Trump already talked about cooperating with democrats and even deporting Mamdani but i think that openly fascistic demasking is reserved for the trump 2028 campaign.
Besides actual political ideals beyond IP, there is also the existing power structures, you called cabal, that you didnt get.
> the same left/right leaders were perfectly fine with uniting in their opposition to Trump
How many right wingers turned on trump exactly? If id compare them side by side, i think there are more conservatives that called trump hitler/alike but boot licked their way back into the cabal later (vance, RFK!) then there are conservatives that turned on trump today. This indicator of opportunistic politicians is also a good sign for political shallowness, aka political theater performed by well paid actors.
The power structure you somehow missed is where the F that money comes from, that corrupts politics and is needed to keep the gullible pondering about their forced uppon pronouns (also IP, just in case you missed that too).
The very first thing trump did in both terms where tax cuts esp. for the wealthy, which is a strong signal for the parasites to throw more monet at him but a big nono from a leftist position bc the system favored the rich and sucked on the working class for even longer than US politics got corrupted by big capital and even longer then the US fucked up latin america. The results of all that societal development is a shrinking and increasingly desperate middle class and billionares buying big media to cure the "woke mind virus". For these dipshits, thats the biggest concern while ordinary people cannot live off of two jobs, let alone support a family.
And here you are, calling the left meaningless bc you cant think outside of / see through the IP.
> I could not care less what peasants vote on
is a very fitting intro to conclude your bullshit ... until you realize that working peasants are the ones keeping us all afloat.
Maybe the reason you turn away from the right too is, that you developed a tolerance for the current, digust driven out-group the tribalistic right also revolves around -- you had been disappointed by shallow right leaning politics too often. But dont worry, theyll push out an update eventually and it all begins anew, bc you might be turned off by the right atm, but you are propably turned away even further from anything meaningful.
I've been wondering if enough people would be single issue voters on the Israel question that we could actually get some sort of candidate who attracts a ton of voters from both traditional parties.
It's ironic because (IMO) people like Ben Shapiro and other pro-Israel people deliberately divide us to prevent us from uniting against them, but the genocide has actually united us[1]. Just the other day I saw a Twitter post from one Cenk Ugyur reaching across the aisle and saying "good job" to right wingers who objected to hate speech laws against people who celebrated Kirk's assassination.
Admittedly, if 68% of Americans are opposed to Israel that doesn't necessarily mean all of them are single issue voters... but I think this is the first issue I've seen in my lifetime that gets this close to uniting Americans.
[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/692948/u.s.-back-israel-militar...
By seattle_spring 2025-09-184:24 Cenk Ugyur agreeing with right wing talking points is not "reaching across the aisle." Not even a little bit.
By cmrdporcupine 2025-09-1811:40 The US political party system has no "right" and "left" -- it has "right" and "righter right."
At the grassroots level there is a bit of a "left" in the Democratic party, but it has no power anywhere.
EDIT: this is why it's twice as jarring to see Trump and the GOP ranting about the "radical left" in US politics. WTF? Where? Tepid neo-liberalism funded by Soros is... "left wing?" Wow.
By hopelite 2025-09-182:38 So at least 5 accounts not only do see the value in dividing people into “left” and “right”, but they also were compelled to vote it down?
Or was it just abuse of the system?
Didn't expect to see the USA employing press censors in my lifetime but here we are.
In Brazil during the dictatorship it was common for newspapers to print cooking recipes in place of censored articles, now I'm waiting to see if media in the USA has the balls to play the malicious compliance game... I guess I won't see it since money is basically God in America.
By xboxnolifes 2025-09-1717:141 reply One could argue they're not the same, but there has been TV broadcast censors for decades in the US. They were still least following somewhat defined laws though.
By tempodox 2025-09-1720:00 > They were still least following somewhat defined laws though.
I expect them to continue to do so, except that uncle Donald is the law now.
> Is Meta going to get a gov chaperone too?
They already got quite a few, post 2024 election.
https://about.fb.com/news/2025/01/dana-white-john-elkann-cha...
https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/14/tech/robby-starbuck-meta-ai-a...
By Cornbilly 2025-09-1721:49 Ha. I hadn’t seen the news in the latter link.
Washed-up music video director to professional Twitter poster to advisor at Facebook. What a display of the American meritocracy.
> Is Meta going to get a gov chaperone too?
I believe the technical name is "Political Commissar."
Edit: Dana White, of MMA fame, now sits on Meta's board, though it is at Zuckerberg's request.
By overfeed 2025-09-1819:07 Unsurprisingly, investors care more about returns than good governance structures. At least in the short term. I wonder how Page, Brin and Zuckerberg will handle their controlling stakes as they lose their fights against time.
It's the political komissar, here to make sure nothing too critical of the current administration is allowed on the platform.
This goes way beyond this current administration and has nothing to do with China, besides being the foil for the real reason of controlling what people can see and hear because the cabal that controls the USA does not like it.
Why do you assume everyone knows?
List stuff out for all to see and learn.
By hopelite 2025-09-1813:34 Because it's obvious, it's the cabal of ruling class people that are effectively reestablishing a system comparable to the aristocracy that was ended with the US constitution and they have been working on destroying and undermining because it gave power to the people. Unfortunately, it is something that the multitude really have no ability to understand, which is precisely why the founders of the USA tried very hard not to extend power to the uninformed and incompetent multitude, just like how all of us prevent everyone from accessing our source-code for obvious reasons.
By platevoltage 2025-09-187:18 Yeah I want to know who the cabal is too. Release the kraken or whatever.
You can go stuff your "dogwhistle" nonsense and you not comprehending things is not my problem. Why would it be the jews, you nitwit? How do you get the jews out of this? Seems you have the growing up to do, you neurotic narcissist. You are correct, there is no "secret cabal", it is quite overt actually. It is a cabal that is overt, out in the open and it not only spans both of these stupid "left" and "right", "liberal" and "conservative", red team, blue team, deliberate divisions.
It is precisely why both parties have worked to keep the Epstein files suppressed, the DC madam contact book hidden, worked to invade countries and murder millions. Why are you so paranoid about it being "the jews" immediately when a cabal is identified?
By thrance 2025-09-1814:19 > Why are you so paranoid about it being "the jews" immediately when a cabal is identified?
Because that's usually what's implied when people speak of a cabal ruling the world and refuse to elaborate when asked about it. You can't blame me for thinking you a nazi when you use the same language and tactics as they do. Now I know you're not, and I'm sorry for being mistaken but maybe be more explicit about what you mean and refrain from using conspiracy-speak in the future?
Why do you even call that a cabal? Yes, class warfare is a thing and the material conditions are shifting in favor of the owner class, no the left and the right are not the same on this issue, and yes the liberals are completely bought and ineffective on these subjects.
By phs318u 2025-09-172:11 Oracle doesn’t need one.
By bamboozled 2025-09-1810:30 The whole country is turning into a joke, that's why.
By coffeebeqn 2025-09-1716:03 What do you mean - the CCP has always had someone sit on the board of major companies… oh wait which country was this again?
TikTok dealt a serious blow to the Western consensus manufacturing apparatus. We saw that with Gaza especially. This deal is a step towards taking back control.
Taking back control by _checks notes_ handing the Chinese propaganda tool to supporters of the current administration?
Yes exactly. The US government likes propaganda. They just don't like it when other countries do it.
By lenerdenator 2025-09-1720:021 reply That's how all ruling classes and governments throughout history have operated. It's now just mask-off in a country that people mistakenly thought didn't do that sort of thing.
Yea agree. The US used to be good at making the world believe they're all about freedom and rights etc. Now they don't seem to even bother trying anymore.
By 0xDEAFBEAD 2025-09-183:224 reply I read a lot of anti-American comments like this one, mostly on American websites like Hacker News and Youtube.
I'd say the anti-American comments outnumber the pro-American ones something like 10 to 1.
The US may not be preaching about freedom and rights. But it seems to be practicing it, at least in the narrow sense that anti-American content isn't being censored or suppressed.
Can't speak for others.
My "anti-American" comment is due to the difference between what's preached and what's practiced. "Leader of the free world", "greatest country on earth" etc. I also wouldn't characterize my comment as anti-American so much as disappointed in America.
There is of course more freedom in the US than in say China. But I'm also not holding up China as a beacon of freedom. The US on the other hand, the land of the free, freedoms and rights are being eroded.
By 0xDEAFBEAD 2025-09-183:403 reply >"Leader of the free world", "greatest country on earth" etc.
I don't see Americans referring to their country that way anymore. I think you're arguing with an interlocutor who peaked in the Reagan era and has been on a downtrend ever since.
Personally speaking, as an American, I don't want to lead the free world anymore. I don't want to be the "greatest country in the world" either. I'd rather the US just stick to solving its own problems, and let other countries solve theirs. The whole hero act has clearly been a mistake.
Why are so worried, then, whether the world is anti-american or not? Why use that term, if you personally don't want see the world through nationalist optics?
I saw a commenter the other day here claiming that in EU, there are lot of "anti-american" far left sentiments. They weren't able to elaborate, who exactly that is; as someone on the left, I don't see it.
For example, I live in EU, I support DiEM25, and I am against NATO, as well as stopping other military activities. I also agree with Chomsky. Is any of this anti-american? How is then yibg's comment anti-american?
I guess you can't have it both ways - the american soft power (you seem to miss) came with exceptionalism. I agree that Switzerland is nice, but they simply don't have that soft power.
By 0xDEAFBEAD 2025-09-185:353 reply If people outside the US complain about what the US does, we should stop doing it. The fact that everyone complains about US foreign policy means we need to course-correct. No one complains about Swiss foreign policy.
I think we agree, since we're both against NATO. Not sure why you're trying to argue with me.
According to swiss news orange man does in fact complain about swiss foreign policies to the American public.
By 0xDEAFBEAD 2025-09-187:451 reply News to me.
Ex. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/04/swiss-presid...
He literally made a personal point out of it calling the swiss president things in public.
By 0xDEAFBEAD 2025-09-188:14 I don't see any complaints about the Swiss policy of neutrality, which is what I want to adopt in the US.
No, I think we agree, that's why I wonder why you use the word "anti-american". And I think you should consider not using it, as it's inappropriate* to use that word to denote just critics of american government or american foreign policy. I think people abroad who criticize these things recognize that not every American agrees with these policies, and mostly don't have any objection against ordinary Americans or their way of life.
*The issue is in American politics, especially on right-wing, the term "anti-american" is typically implies presumed hatred against ordinary Americans or their way of life. In other words, its meaning is about ethnicity, not a political view.
By 0xDEAFBEAD 2025-09-1818:36 If you look at the Wikipedia page, my usage is fairly typical. It's a vague term which can be applied to critics of US foreign policy who want us to stop being the world police: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Americanism
>people abroad who criticize these things recognize that not every American agrees with these policies
Pretty common nowadays for all of the US to be blamed for Trump's election. See this discussion from the other day. No one outside the US said I shouldn't be blamed for the votes of my neighbors: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45035046
In any case, the original discussion is related to freedom of speech. The US is usually criticized more for this, regardless of how other countries are doing. See e.g. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/08/europe-fre... This represents an anti-American bias, which is due to our foreign policy.
>its meaning is about ethnicity
"American" is not an ethnicity.
By 0xDEAFBEAD 2025-09-1818:39 I'm not sure why people are downvoting this comment. Is it some sort of "beatings will continue until morale improves" thing?
Leaving aside impact to the rest of the world, America being the "leader of the free world" has benefited it immensely. Majority of the global systems were built by Americans. Everything from military power projection to global reserve currency status to pop culture has not only given the US clout and power but also a lot of wealth.
Sticking to solve their own problems is how the Chinese declined into being the "sick man of Asia" hundreds of years ago.
By 0xDEAFBEAD 2025-09-184:181 reply >America being the "leader of the free world" has benefited it immensely.
It doesn't make a difference. See this graph: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/GDP_per_...
GDP growth stayed on the same trend both before and after the US tried to "lead the free world" post-WW2.
>military power projection
That's a cost for us, not a benefit. I don't want my tax dollars to be "projecting power". I want them helping me and my fellow citizens.
>pop culture has not only given the US clout
The internet is awash in anti-American comments. Trying to "lead the free world" has destroyed our soft power.
>Sticking to solve their own problems is how the Chinese declined into being the "sick man of Asia" hundreds of years ago.
My preferred model is Switzerland, not Qing China. I'm not anti-modernization. I'm anti-imperialism. We shouldn't involve ourselves in wars or military alliances on other continents.
By throwawayqqq11 2025-09-1810:072 reply > military power projection
> That's a cost for us, not a benefit.
If id get a cent for every US-american not understanding their hegemonial privilege...
(Sorry, shouldnt be an insult. Its just so prevalent and to me, a sign of lacking self criticism on a worringly massive scale.)
Eg:
https://business.columbia.edu/research-brief/dollars-dominan...
TLDR: The US military backs the dollar as international trade currency, which puts all other nations in a depending position to lend USD. This allowed the US to cheaply amass a gigantic debt that in turn allowed ridiculous (military) budgets.
Please dont answer something like "see, we are in debt for you", since the US got material stuff in return for a fiat currency that can they can devalue on demand but had been accepted on the basis of trust and stability.
Remember when "the market got the yippies" and trump chickened out of broad tarifs? It was also because of long term allies sending a signal by liquidating US bonds:
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-bond-y...
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/15/us-treasurys-selloff-what-ha...
A continuing drop of bond yields could mean a collapse of the US national budgets. Thats the benedit you enjoyed for decades. Something other nations cannot do.
By 0xDEAFBEAD 2025-09-1818:45 Also just FYI, use of sanctions against supposed bad actors like Russia has the effect of undermining the USD as a reserve currency. So it's going to go away eventually anyways. Maybe it's better to do it on our own terms.
By 0xDEAFBEAD 2025-09-1811:01 >lacking self criticism
I really don't think the US has any shortage of self-criticism. I am criticizing US policy at this very moment! It is you who defends current US policy and says it is good (for the US at least). I am the critic here.
But if you really believe what you're saying about self-criticism, that's evidence for my position that the US should not play world police. If we're incapable of self-criticism, we will do a bad job at world policing.
>TLDR: The US military backs the dollar as international trade currency, which puts all other nations in a depending position to lend USD. This allowed the US to cheaply amass a gigantic debt that in turn allowed ridiculous (military) budgets.
"There once was a fisherman relaxing on the beach, catching just enough fish to feed his family. A businessman told him he should work hard, hire employees, catch more fish, and grow a big company—then, after many years, he could retire and live a peaceful fisherman's life. The fisherman smiled and said, ‘But isn’t that what I’m doing right now?’"
Assuming you are right: We need the debt to fund our military. We need our military to borrow for our debt. Why are we playing this game, exactly? It's a cyclone of vice.
Personally, I think the USD would actually be a stronger reserve currency if we reduced international adventurism. This would reduce the incentive of other nations like Russia and Israel to interfere in our politics, and thus improve our institutional stability. Switzerland is very stable, and an attractive investment destination, because it is known to be neutral.
It's also not clear to me if reserve currency status is a good thing. It makes our exports less competitive, and increases our trade deficit. It's like eating cookies for every meal. Sure, you're getting a lot of calories. But it's not good for your health in the long term.
If you look at the GDP trendline, it's been the same regardless of USD reserve status. So I'm additionally just not sure this matters either way.
In any case, if you really believe what you are saying, you should be very happy about my advocacy, since it increases the chance that your nation's currency becomes the new reserve currency. Oh boy, your country might take on a ton of debt and become the new self-appointed world police, hated by all, with constant foreign interference in your politics! Isn't it grand?
By pyrale 2025-09-1915:14 ...But the tithe has to keep coming.
> But it seems to be practicing it
This deal cuts the US off from worldwide content. Just like China does.
The US TikTok will literally be a bubble that the US gov controls. So it's not even pretending to practice 'freedom' here.
By lenerdenator 2025-09-1814:13 The acceptance of China on the world stage shows that this isn't a problem for most.
You can't criticize the US for taking an authoritarian turn while simultaneously doing more and more business with a totalitarian state.
By tw1984 2025-09-1810:04 > Just like China does.
this deal is a direct copy of the one China forced onto Microsoft MSN Messenger's China operation some 15 years ago. almost 100% the same.
By jakelazaroff 2025-09-183:551 reply Have you not been paying attention to what's been happening in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination? The government been foaming at the mouth and clamping down on everyone who dares say anything other than obsequious praise about him. ABC just tonight cancelled Jimmy Kimmel at the behest of the head of the FCC!
And I mean, it's not like this is new. The past two years have seen intense crackdowns on pro-Palestinian speech. Look at what happened to Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk.
By 0xDEAFBEAD 2025-09-184:281 reply I have no particular opinion about those issues. I'm just pointing out the irony of people complaining about "US propaganda" on discussion platforms where the content is overwhelmingly anti-US.
By jakelazaroff 2025-09-1816:12 I am referring to this assertion:
> The US may not be preaching about freedom and rights. But it seems to be practicing it, at least in the narrow sense that anti-American content isn't being censored or suppressed.
By herbst 2025-09-187:19 It's very likely that after a few of these comments you aren't getting a visa anymore. That is far from practiced freedom
By herbst 2025-09-187:18 That has been a long while ago since they stopped trying to portrait this image
You wrote this as a snarky rebuttal but you seem to be agreeing with OP? Confusing post.
I didn't realize I was agreeing with op tbh (and I'm still not certain)
By hopelite 2025-09-1916:03 People don’t seem to realize that none of these issues are a light switch, red or blue, left or right, my team vs your team; a template the system has worked hard to confine people into especially in the core of the empire, America, because it makes management easier.
It starts as early as childhood cartoons/movies. You are/project yourself as the righteous character and they are the zombies, bad guys, evil wizard, etc. Things are never that simple, but that’s why people are trained into this format. It’s easier managing things when you’ve constrained people into a duality and even intentionally set them against each other to distract.
What is confusing to people is that things like TikTok is like ranchers battling over control of the cattle. Most don’t realize they are not ranchers, as they graze and consume what they are fed to think and engage with.
By hopelite 2025-09-1915:46 I’m not a big TikTok user. Can you characterize the nature of the Chinese propaganda everyone keeps citing in reference to TikTok?
By paganel 2025-09-1719:12 Yes, indeed. As the current administration, any US administration in the last 30-40 or years in fact, is for a fact very pro-Israel, so a move like this can only cement that stance.
Maybe these crypto-zealots who scream about decentralization will actually try and build a thriving decentralized media instead of pumping and dumping shitcoins?
The problem is that it's hard to make these things popular.
There are several ActivityPub services that are pretty good and even have decent UXes, but they aren't super active.
A major issue is it's confusing and the funds are limited.
By SketchySeaBeast 2025-09-1719:10 Yeah. I'm on Lemmy and Mastodon, but it ain't exactly jumping, and I'm sure part of it is definitely the confusion around how to get going and what it is. Lemmy at least is also pretty buggy, and I'm not able to find posts I saw a few hours ago, but ultimately I don't really know what the draw is or even could be for the average user.
By anaganisk 2025-09-204:26 TikTok won because it has an algorithm that works, People are crazy for views and likes, and don’t mind the silliest content, not chronologically ordered posts, which none of the services u mentioned have.
By frollogaston 2025-09-182:08 Federated chat/social always goes back to similar usability and technical problems as email, except with a broader scope so it's even harder
By zer00eyz 2025-09-1719:43 > try and build a thriving decentralized media
This exists today, it has always existed, and you never needed technology to find the solution to it.
Im a huge fan of the film Rope, because it is just done well. Its also got a ton of coding in it for "homosexual" themes that were very much banned at the time of filming. Understanding these paints the film in a whole new way...
Shakespeare has a ton of contemporary satire coded into it. Unless you're aware of history or reading a version that illuminates the meta-context you would very much be unaware of its existence.
It happens in modern film: Paul Verhoeven is a master of it.
If you dont think there are coded communities on existing social platforms sharing information among in members I have news for you.
More like walking straight into another form of "consensus manufacturing". You are not more informed than people a decade ago.
By fullshark 2025-09-1719:27 It's not a matter of more or less it's a matter of what information you receive and in what order.
By SilverbeardUnix 2025-09-1718:33 Oracle owned Tiktok with right-wing and Trump friend Larry Ellison at the helm is a step in the right direction? That's crazy.
By throwaway29812 2025-09-1718:10 [dead]
