There is no one that knows what TikTok is

U.S. District Judges Bounded on a Top Ten Tenths of Trademarks: The Case against TikTok

Three separate federal district judges have blocked efforts to ban TikTok — two courts during the Trump administration, and one U.S. court more recently in Montana.

Civil liberty advocates argue that a bill that could shut down a social media platform violates the free speech rights of millions of American users.

If the company cannot sell the app in that time, it will become illegal for app stores and web-hosting companies to offer TikTok, as long as it remains under the control of a “foreign adversary.”

And even if the Senate passes a companion bill, and Biden signs it into law, there is a six-month deadline to sell, which could be prolonged by court challenges.

People could turn to virtual private networks, or VPNs, to shield their location and get past restrictions. Many popular internet services in Russia and China have been banned due to the technique.

One of the most popular social media apps in the world would sell TikTok for a lot of money. TikTok is likely worth tens of billions of dollars, an amount only the biggest tech companies — like Google, Meta, Microsoft or Amazon — could afford.

While the Biden administration has taken a strong stance against tech industry mergers that serve to inflate the size and influence of already massive companies, the possibility of TikTok being acquired by a Big Tech firm raises antitrust concerns.

National security officials in Washington have been investigating TikTok’s ties to Beijing for five years, and they have not approved the plan.

In 2022, ByteDance admitted that former employees had surveilled Americans on TikTok, including several journalists who were writing stories about the company.

The company has also touted an initiative dubbed “Project Texas,” saying that all U.S. user data has been transferred to servers controlled by Austin-based software company Oracle. TikTok also says Americans’ data is now being monitored by third-party auditors in the U.S.

The judge said that a crusade by officials in Montana to block the movie TikTok within the state’s borders had a “pervasive of anti-Chinese sentiment.”

Defending the Bytedance Identity Theorem: Is TikTok Just an App? A Post by Scott Mnuchin

Mnuchin is an experienced Wall Street investor. He used to be a financer with a Hollywood production company before working for President Trump.

Bytedance has pushed back on those claims, saying it has not received a request from China to access the data of Americans and would not share it if asked.

An investor who used to work for the Treasury Secretary said this week that he is putting together a group of investors to find a buyer for TikTok, which is owned by Chinese people.

Also, even though the House bill passed overwhelmingly, it faces a far more uncertain future in the Senate. And even if it passes Congress, it would likely face big legal challenges.

An essay on the bill, which was published this week in The Atlantic, was captioned, “It is just an app.” As you might imagine, it goes on to say that even though “TikTok has cultivated a culture and community that no other platform has come close to replicating,” its cachet has been diminished in recent months. Younger people aren’t flocking to it; it’s recently lost a lot of those songs people were dancing to, thanks to an ongoing licensing dispute with Universal Music Group. Eventually, the argument goes, if TikTok disappears, Americans will find somewhere else to soothe and stimulate their brains.

The Gadget Lab Hotline: An All-Hotline Access Point for Discovering New Physics, Technology, and the People Who Know It

Makena says that you should go to the office. (Really.) Mike recommends Ener-C powdered vitamin drink mix. Lauren reiterates Kate Knibbs’ earlier recommendation of American Fiction, the film that just won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay.

Makena Kelly has a social media account:KellyMakena. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is a fighter. The main hotline atGadgetLab is blinged out. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth. Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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The Status of TikTok and What it Means to Its Users and Unlikely Users (and Their Reply to Comment on ‘Non-Standard’)

For now, Jackson can still post, although his posts are being brigaded with comments like “🍅 🍅 🍅 🍅 🍅 🍅 🍅 🍅 🍅.” He remains the most-followed member of Congress on TikTok despite a recent drop in followers.

“WITHOUT TIKTOK YOUR NOTHING!!! One irate viewer commented on Jeff Jackson. One said, “SELLLOUUUUTTTTTTTT.” The office of Jackson did not reply immediately to the request.

Jackson voted against the bill when it was passed, which felt like a betrayal to the millions of TikTokers who had called their representatives in order to prevent the app from being banned.

Missing from this debate are the bigger questions of what TikTok actually means to the people who use it. The app served as a lifesaver during the Covid-19 outbreak. TikTok is memes, and occasionally cultural appropriation, but its algorithm is also incredibly good at helping people find their corner of the online universe. How else would we have “lesbian TikTok” or “cat TikTok” or “guys who cook in the woods TikTok” (not that I know about these things). Its very format—video smothered in text and reactions—can build both viral dances and political commentary. The current discourse about TikTok uses the app’s popularity as a meme machine to belittle its more vital aspects.