First, could they be any more blatant in kissing up to Trump?
Trump has said he is considering an executive order delaying the TikTok ban to allow a deal to be negotiated. Either this message was part of the agreement, or TikTok is preemptively trying to get on his good side. So TikTok may be back as soon as tomorrow, or possibly sometime this week.
Meanwhile, the Chinese government pushed its own app, RedNote, heavily on TikTok, with the result that many TikTok users have migrated to it despite never having heard of it until a week ago. This highlights the stupidity of the ban, which applies only to TikTok and not foreign social media apps in general. Of course, the new Congress and administration can remedy this oversight very easily. RedNote isn't a TikTok substitute; it's clearly intended for the Chinese market, although there are now many videos from both Chinese people and westerners welcoming "TikTok refugees." RedNote is primarily for fashion and makeup tips; it's much more consumer-oriented, and political content (especially pro-LGBTQ or anything critical of Chinese government policy) will get you banned. My feed has a lot of content where a Chinese person or western expatriate takes the viewer on a tour of cute neighborhoods and shopping malls that look like any you'd see in the US. The overall attitude is positive. The only negative content I've seen is from a former TikToker complaining that the app went down an hour earlier than she thought it would. I don't see former TikTokers sticking around if TikTok goes back online.
One person I follow on TikTok is moving to Clapper, a site I've never heard of that also seems to be short-form videos. I don't know much more as I can't seem to log onto it. I assume whoever runs it didn't think to take advantage of the TikTok exodus and their servers are overwhelmed.
I fully expect a deal to be negotiated in the near future, with an American owner buying TikTok's subscriber base, creator library, and format. The vaunted TikTok algorithm isn't for sale, so the new owner will have to come up with their own. I was never that impressed with it as it doesn't have a downvote button, and it heavily weights time the user spends on videos, either watching or commenting, so if you engage with content you don't like, you end up getting more of it. A downvote button allows you to engage with content while also signaling disapproval, which is why the feed on YouTube and Reddit is so much more relevant.
I understand that Red Note was shut down also. I do know that Clapper was inaccessible for at least an hour and then came back on line. Something scared them.
@Pfuzylogic Let's be honest. It's problematic for an adversarial country like China to have that much data on Americans. They don't allow Facebook or Twitter or other US social media in China for that reason. The law targeted TikTok because it's by far the largest foreign social media platform. However, the law shouldn't have been "sell it or else;" there should have been stages with gradually increasing penalties. The company put all of their faith in the Supreme Court, and when that didn't work they fell back on Trump, who was already in the bag due to having been bribed earlier for his support. The whole thing ended up being a huge distraction, and now all these low-information Gen Z and Gen A are thinking "ha, maybe Trump isn't that bad."
@LeopoldBloom The algorithm that Tik-Tok uses to track its base is very sophisticated. I remember in 1997 when I was going for a second graduate degree…this time in Computer Science at Ball State University that 90% of the class were serious Chinese students. We educated them. Again I wouldn’t put more sophisticated algorithms than the obvious ones in use. We really don’t have a clue but as long as the CEO kisses the ring then they are good.
@jshm2 Have you tried that? It's not that easy because the site still has to go through a US portal, which was shut down. I've tried accessing Paddy Power (an Irish site that allows gambling on US elections, which is legal there but not here) and was still blocked.
What you'd have to do is arrange for someone in another country to access TikTok on their computer, and then set up an internal network where you view it through them. That way, all your provider knows is that you're accessing a foreign terminal.
