The timing isn’t lost on anyone.
It comes just days after TikTok finalized a sale that gave a consortium of mostly American investors control of TikTok’s business in the U.S, a deal that averted a nationwide ban of the app over national security concerns tied to its Chinese parent company.
Among the lead investors is tech firm Oracle, which is run by billionaire Larry Ellison. He’s a close ally of President Trump, whose connection to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has plagued the administration for months.
People claim the Chinese government spied on Americans in TikTok. Like, that’s probably true, but unlike America, China didn’t have legal jurisdiction over Americans, and American interests couldn’t censor anything. Obviously that couldn’t stand.
Did everybody forget the time when TikTok sent a push notification to its users telling them to call their congresspersons? The issue has never been spying, the issue is manipulation. The US oligarchs couldn’t handle another country being able to pull the strings like that.
The only people getting anywhere when calling their congressperson are billionaires.
In this case it actually pissed them off to the point that they unanimously voted to advance the ban.