TikTok is the social media sensation that all of Silicon Valley — and a lot of Washington, DC — has their eyes on. The app, created by ByteDance, became famous for rocketing musicians and dancers to stardom. But as its popularity and influence have grown, so has scrutiny of its privacy policies, security, and influence, with legislators voicing concern about its ownership by a Chinese firm. Meanwhile, social media competitors are doing everything they can to knock off TikTok’s features and usurp its short-form video dominance.
During Semafor’s Mixed Signals podcast, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said TikTok is “very much applying lessons they’ve learned in China to the rest of the world:”
Super apps, which are very popular in China, are not popular in the same way outside of China, and I think they’re turning into a Chinese super app — and that may or may not work outside of China.
“Grow up, Mr. President. Grow up, Brendan Carr.”
US-based car reviewers are going gaga over Chinese EVs. Their audiences wonder why they can’t buy them.
Lawmakers who passed the bill that should have banned TikTok by now are staying quiet about how it’s played out.
TikTok is partnering with iHeartMedia to launch a podcast network featuring up to 25 shows hosted by TikTok creators. Additionally, a new TikTok Radio station will pair TikTokers with iHeartRadio hosts, broadcasting shows nationwide “where listeners will feel like they are scrolling on TikTok, but with their ears.”
The convoluted saga of Justin Baldoni, Blake Lively, and It Ends With Us is still raging on social media, thanks to influencers.
The social media giants have agreed to boot users under 16 from their platforms by the December 10th deadline, but are still voicing skepticism about the policy’s enforcement and effectiveness.
Correction: YouTube has also said it disagrees with the law, but has not said it will comply.
Reuters: Their comments represented a shift in the social media industry’s response to the law, which is being watched by lawmakers around the world as concern grows about youth mental health. Under the Australian law, platforms must take “reasonable steps” to block users aged less than 16 or face a fine of up to A$49.5 million ($32.5 million).
From now on, whenever I get an email from a company raising its subscription prices (which happens approximately 40 times a week), I’m just going to reply with a link to this TikTok.
TikTok is just the latest prize in the Silicon Valley billionaire’s second act as a media mogul.
Fun tidbits here, including that if all the proposed acquisitions and mergers go through, “portfolio and power could exceed those of fabled predecessors like Hearst and Pulitzer.” This is to say nothing of the broader family’s holdings.
[nytimes.com]
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News that six of the seven board seats will be held by Americans, ByteDance retain less than a 20-percent stake, and that Americans’ data will be stored in the US with no access give to China.
According to Bloomberg Leavitt said:
“So all of those details have already been agreed upon, now we just need this deal to be signed and that will be happening, I anticipate, in the coming days.”
As he has ever since taking office, Donald Trump again ordered the DOJ to ignore enforcing the TikTok ban law, this time until December 16th.
The president claims a deal is close, which the WSJ reports will hand control to a US consortium of investors including Oracle, Silver Lake, and Andreesen Horowitz.
[The White House]
Congress seemed to think a scrolling video platform was a national security threat. What changed?
The Wall Street Journal interviewed several “clippers,” or the people who dice up longer videos into short, grabby clips that get posted to accounts across Instagram and TikTok. One person, whose clipping business earns $20,000 to $30,000 per month, told the WSJ that “the only way to be famous in today’s internet world is with clips.”
[The Wall Street Journal]
I love this description of falling into the rabbit hole of TikTok Live streams of farm workers and other manual laborers, calmly and quietly going about their work. It’s competence porn that highlights the divide between those of us making stuff, and those of us watching from our phones.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly ignored the bipartisan law banning TikTok from operating in the US unless it’s separated from Chinese parent company ByteDance. Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) is calling for a new way to avoid a ban without breaking the law. In a draft bill, Markey proposes letting TikTok operate in the US as long as it provides transparency into its content moderation and keeps US user data out of countries like China.
[markey.senate.gov]
YouTube is a hit on TVs, and Meta and TikTok are looking to get in on that battleground, The Information reports. What will launch first: Instagram for TV or Instagram for iPad?
[theinformation.com]
My Picun F8 Pros are not as good as the AirPods Max. But they’re much cheaper — and constantly on sale.
The incredibly weird saga of the ordered, then reversed, then passed, then upheld, then ignored, then ignored even harder attempt to ban one of America’s most popular social networks continues — as it will continue until US-China tensions cool down, everyone forgets it ever happened, or the heat death of the universe.
