This has been floating around since the end of the first Trump administration, where neither of these interests were accused of being “pro-Israel” but only entrance narrative after the current Palestine debacle:
Therefore I’m only left to conclude this is an entirely unsubstantiated claim, as why wouldn’t it have already been apparent if they were working as shadow brokers of Israeli interests in all this, which the general timeline and verifiable information we know don’t line up with?
The people who have been very vocal about forcing US ownership of TikTok have also been very, very open about their Zionism on social media. A16z has been pushing for this hard since the start of the genocide. Zionists blame "TikTok" for their opposition. They even call the younger people who don't support Israel the "TikTok Generation".
This along with the consolidation of other US media assets under Zionist control, is very much about Israel and attempting to gain a monopoly on the media.
Man, the sheer transactionality that guides these people's lives is pretty disgusting to me. Granted, you probably don't get to be a billionaire unless you are pretty transactional, but I am kind of thankful that the vapid hollowness of these billionaires (despite always cloaking their rapaciousness in some sort of larger societal purpose) has been laid bare over the past few years.
I don’t want either of them, but credit where credit is due. China is doing well as a country and the standard of living has increased even if it’s under an authoritarian regime. I wonder how long that will last. Meanwhile, the USA is becoming Russia. Basically a bunch of misinformed morons living in the past and thinking we are on top of the world while we accelerate towards irrelevance on the global stage if not for a massive stockpile of nukes.
Tariffs are drying up international demand for Chinese goods, and in a bid to keep factories alive, Beijing is urging exporters to turn inward. However, that pivot is compounding the very problem it aims to solve.
Deflation isn’t an abstract threat in China anymore—it’s visible across the economy. After barely holding above zero for much of 2023 and 2024, consumer prices have now dropped for two straight months.
Producer prices have fallen for 29 consecutive months. March’s figures showed the sharpest drop in four months, and forecasts point to an even steeper decline in April.
Yes, I’m fully aware that’s starting so low because of horrible governments in the past and that the current government is far from great, but that’s still moving in the right direction at the time the United States is trying to speed run to a Russian-style oligarchy and most people under 50 think it’s getting worse.
It's really odd how many people on hn are pro china. Why? They are not good guys. At all.
In moral terms they are so far behind the West they are in a different team. (and don't throw in disingenous deflections like gaza and whatever, those are orders of magnitude less bad then China) The West is full of freedom and the pursuit of happiness and wealth. China isn't.
Nobody here is pro Russia or Iran, or even particularly pro India. So why is Communist China different?
What an insane thing to say! But also... how insane is it that I agree with you based on objective reality? Can you imagine seriously saying that 20-30 years ago? 1984's doublethink/doublespeak always seemed over the top, yet we are at a point particularly recently where the anti cancel culture sentiment has lead to... proposals to curb undesirable speech, cancelling people... which in turn is undesirable because it criticises a propagandist's undesirable speech with his own post death quotes in a lot of cases and bristles when accused of sane washing. Or that this won't matter in a few more news cycles as we lurch brokenly into the next phase of dystopia.
I wonder how many historical parallels exist and what the outcomes were; IE https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_colors_(Japan) - which I think lead to a flourishing of clothing design for commoners.
Like will we see massive social change in two or three generations hence as a rejection of the current hysteria? Will history books record the silliest parts that now seem quaint with a little distance, IE War on Christmas? Mission accomplished? WMDs that didn't exist? Etc etc.
The CPC is not attacking the US from within. The Party of Trump has carried out a fascist coup and they are now working to ensure they stay in power permanently.
I loath partisanship and am more than willing to point out failures by the Dems, but this is different. Trump and Co have openly stated that they don't believe in democracy.
If you are not able to see this I'm not sure what I could say to open your eyes.
So incompetent that they control all three branches of the most powerful government on earth. Much of that can be credited to their media ownership strategies.
They are stupid, but also ruthless and willing to ignore the laws they don't like.
They are also surrounded by billionaires that want them to keep it going. Look at how Larry Ellison is buying up Paramount/CBS and soon, Tiktok. They just took Kimmel off the air.
Again, I know this sounds like histrionics on my part but what is happening now is not normal -- the fact that all "old school" republicans have left the GOP and it is now literally the Party of Trump. And they have millions of cult members who are itching to use their second amendment rights against "non-Americans".
I desperately want to be wrong, and would love credible evidence that could demonstrate this.
The firehose of falsehoods is a very successful propaganda technique, rediscovered ( or teached to ) by a guy that needed a fake public image ( see: you're fired) to hide all his public bankruptcies/failures.
Eg. they are very stupid at winning lawsuitts, but he had 4 years of training on who and what to bully and another 4 years to prepare.
A lot of stupid people turned a democracy into an autocracy ( Orban, ... ). It's easy if no one protests and you can give money to the rich and powerful.
It's amazing that this guy/administration grifts so publicly and a lot of people in the US just keep following him blindly.
Really? They are following Putin’s playbook and getting away with it. Controlling media and sharing the spoils with the oligarchs. Together, they are robbing us blind. What about what they are doing makes them incompetent? Evil, yes. But incompetent? They are winning! You think this ends with the next election or when ol’ Agent Orange kicks the bucket? Things are going to be very different here for a very long time unless we collectively get our shit together in a big way and take it back.
It's a page in the conservative playbook going back a long time, from consolidating newspapers to talk radio to TV stations and now a new type of media...
And now we see them getting main stream networks on a leash.
Edit: Not to mention universities. It’s crazy how quickly civil institutions are being consolidated by the right. They have gone all in and there appears to be insufficient appetite to stop them.
Also this only matters if the Fed is independent. If it’s not, the President can direct it to purchase unlimited treasury bonds, effectively printing unlimited money to fund any program it wants.
Paired with this administration’s assertion of impoundment powers and the pocket rescission, the Congress’s power of the purse is completely neutered in both directions. The executive can decline to spend whatever it doesn’t want to, and it can fund anything it does want.
Recklessly funding the government off of the Fed’s balance sheet will of course cause all sorts of nasty economic effects, but that’s exactly why you need to print money! So your massive immigration enforcement apparatus (newly full of ideological minions thanks to the current hiring surge) can go and assert powers of process-free expedited removal throughout the entire country (per DOJ memo from week 1).
So the economic consequences hardly matter: you simply deport whoever complains.
Maybe the best solution is to adopt a parliamentary system of government? With the executive formally subordinated to the legislature, it can’t spend money against the legislative majority’s wishes, because if it upsets the legislature, the legislature votes it out of power (commonly with no supermajority required, just a simple majority vote in the more numerous legislative house)
It said it could be delayed with some pretty specific parameters. Quoting the Congressional Research Service report on the bill:
"The President can grant a one-time extension of up to 90 additional days when a path to a qualified divestiture has been identified, there is evidence of 'significant' progress toward executing the divestiture, and there are legally binding agreements in place to enable the divestiture."
One could argue all day about whether or not there was an identified path or evidence of significant progress, but certainly there weren't legally binding agreements in place at any point, and the deadline has been extended far more than once.
Trump is ignoring the law. The DoJ has asserted that Trump can ignore the law because it would interfere with his duty to "take care of the national security and foreign affairs of the United States." It is unclear what, if any law, could not be ignored under this doctrine.
Seems like it. It seemed kind of inevitable. Biden made a mistake going down this road - of course, Trump started the ball rolling during his first term, but Biden should've just left it alone because it wasn't hard to see that this was the likely outcome.
Biden? You do realize Trump attempted to “ban” TikTok in his first term when the original Oracle “deal” happened, right? Pinning this in Biden takes some serious mental gymnastics.
Yeah, I do realize that and in fact mention it in the comment above: of course, Trump started the ball rolling during his first term. Not "pinning" it on Biden, per se, but he is the one who signed the bill. It would have been much better to leave it alone. https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/23/tech/congress-tiktok-ban-what...
Do you suspect Biden had a little plaque on his desk saying "The buck stops somewhere else"? He signed the bill. If he didn't want to own it, he doesn't have to put his name on it.
It's only a problem for the GOP if Dems do win elections again. Judging by how things are progressing, it may not happen anymore. They have complete control over everything.
first Twitter, now Tiktok, both controlled by conservative interests?