Oh noes! Whatever shall we do without inane public dancing for the clicks, potentially fatal “challenges,” and pervasive infiltration by China’s intelligence services?
Actually, most of us looked forward to finding out a few months back. Donald Trump has pushed off enforcing the law shutting down TikTok in order to use it as leverage in trade negotiations with China, but to little effect. Fox Business Channel host Charles Gasparino reports this morning that Trump may be ready to let TikTok go dark soon, and doesn’t “give a crap” about the platform any longer:
President Trump is starting “not to give a crap” if TikTok briefly goes dark as the end to the latest ban extension looms, On The Money has learned.
Trump has tired of China dangling TikTok as a carrot to gain an advantage in ongoing trade talks over tariffs, people with knowledge of the discussions said. …
You might be thinking that Trump just might kick the can down the road with another executive order extension, right?
Well not so fast, I am told, including by one person close to the TikTok talks who relayed the lack of “crap” Trump feels if the video-sharing app is briefly yanked.
I wonder when Trump stopped giving a ‘crap’ about TikTok? Was it perhaps when he got a death threat on the platform, one serious enough to get law enforcement involved? Naah, that happened in January, but the resolution of the case coincidentally took place this week:
A Pennsylvania man who the federal authorities said vowed on TikTok before President Trump’s inauguration in January to kill him to stave off a “literal oligarchy” has agreed to plead guilty to making the threats, according to court documents.
The man, Jacob Buckley, 22, of Port Matilda, Pa., is facing a maximum sentence of five years in prison in connection with the remarks, part of a cycle of threats and political violence in the United States punctuated by the July 2024 attempted assassination of Mr. Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa.
In a plea agreement filed on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Williamsport, Pa., Mr. Buckley accepted responsibility for his social media posts, which the authorities said had violated a federal law that makes it illegal to threaten the president, president-elect or vice president.
That’s not a TikTok issue. If TikTok didn’t exist, this perp would still have pushed this out to social media viewers, perhaps on Snapchat, Twitter/X, YouTube, or some other platform for malignant narcissists. The same is true for all of the other forms of malignant narcissism seen on TikTok — the crying confessionals, the “kick doors in and see what happens” challenge stupidities, the “Sydney Sweeney ads are crypto-eugenics” paranoia, and so on. Banning TikTok won’t stop any of that.
What it would stop is the ability of China’s intelligence services to penetrate devices, networks, and personal details affecting millions of Americans. That’s the only reason we give a crap about TikTok’s operations. Given the wide range of options for malignant narcissists to post their Ls online, why are we still allowing the CCP to conduct this penetration? If Bytedance won’t sell it and give up any access and control from Beijing as part of the deal, then cut it off, as Congress concluded was necessary, and as a unanimous Supreme Court cleared for enforcement.
The New York Times editorial board today accuses Trump of using TikTok as leverage not so much against China but as an example of his power over US markets aimed at domestic corporations. Much of their complaint comes late in the day, given the co-opting of Big Tech platforms by the Biden regency, but their conclusion is fair enough:
It is also worth remembering that the law does not shutter TikTok; it can continue operating if ByteDance sells it. As entertaining and informative as TikTok can be, its value does not depend on its parent company answering to the Chinese government.
China policy has been a rare area of bipartisan consensus in recent years. China’s leaders have made clear that they seek to weaken the United States globally and strengthen other authoritarian leaders, most notably Vladimir Putin of Russia. Both Democrats and Republicans have warned about China’s aggressive behavior, including in the South China Sea, its attempts to corner the market on some rare minerals and its widespread theft of intellectual property. To leave TikTok off the list is naïve.
Mr. Trump has shown himself unwilling to confront China on TikTok for selfish reasons. Congress should step up. It should do what the founders intended and act as a bulwark of American democracy. It should insist that Mr. Trump enforce the law.
If Trump has tired of TikTok, that’s good news. Shut its US access down now. If a buyer wants the scraps, Bytedance can sell those at a discount. Time to make clear to Beijing that America and Americans are not for sale, and we are definitely not going to stand by while they infiltrate and penetrate our systems and data any longer.
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