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I wrote about the cronyistic TikTok deal, and how it once again shows the U.S. is too corrupt to function in the public interest, despite a whole lot of pretense to the contrary

the TikTok outrage kayfabe was never actually about privacy, propaganda, or national security, it was about hijacking the profits and influence of a foreign short form social media company our clunky tech giants couldn't out innovate.

I think there are legitimate issues, but Congress continues to have an incoherent approach to tech policy and well, the Biden administration just couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

Now over the next few years it will be steadily repurposed to weed out pesky voices right wing billionaires like Larry Ellison don't like, such as folks critical of Netanyahu's industrialized murder of toddlers, Trump's rampant corruption, or trans activists simply asking to be allowed to live

TikTok will also be leveraged for even greater hyper-surveillance, since so many of the ownership partners (including Silver Lake, which has massive surveillance investments across China and Israel) are all about autocratic domination of the plebs It's the biggest tech policy turd ever

I’ve never had a Tik Tok account but if I did I would close it ASAP.

I don't enjoy feeling so helpless and angry all the time. I tried cynicism, but that only works up to a point.

Subscribing to Tech Dirt due to this.