Is this why Trump did a u-turn on the TikTok ban? This is what Reuters asks. Is Trump trying to court favor from a “libertarian” investment advisor who passionately supports school choice and who’s firm Susquehanna International Group owns a 15% position in TikTok’s parent company ByteDance? Yass has deep political pockets. Was this a factor in Trump’s decision?
Possibly. Very possibly.
But the Trump change on TikTok might be as influenced by the opposition to the ban from the likes of Rand Paul in the Senate and Thomas Massey in the House, two staunch defenders of the Constitution and of the Bill of Rights as anything. They see a ban on TikTok as the beginning of a slippery slope toward the banning of other websites and platforms in the future.
The crony factor is also key here. If TikTok goes away Meta (Facebook and Instagram), and Google (which controls YouTube) benefit big time. If the Chinese were to just to blow up the app in the US (not likely but possible) there is instantly a massive vacuum in the marketplace that would likely be filled by TikTok lookalike products from both tech giants. Both Meta and Google (Alphabet is Google’s parent company) did some questionable things in the last presidential election in Trump’s and much of the public’s eyes and this has not been forgotten. Trump doesn’t want to shoot himself in the social media foot.
TikTok ban could create financial windfall for Meta, Alphabet and Snap
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