Was the whole TikTok drama a bait-and-switch to make Trump look good?

[pstokely]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-tiktok-ban-b2682406.html

Political commentators have suggested that the drama surrounding TikTok is a “scam” to make President-elect Donald Trump “look good” after he has vowed to save it.

The Chinese-owned social media app went dark in the U.S. on Saturday night and posted a message at about 10.30 p.m. Eastern time saying: “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!”

The Biden administration blasted TikTok’s statement as a “stunt” in a statement on Saturday.

And on Sunday morning, Trump vowed to issue an executive order on Monday, the day of his inauguration, to give the app’s parent company ByteDance more time to find a buyer. Early Sunday afternoon, TikTok announced it was “in the process of restoring service” to the app — and thanked Trump for his support.

[Strelnikov_]

1. Yes

[RandySF]

2. Yes

[jeffreyi]

3. Yes, Virginia.

[FarPoint]

4. Every day.... everything their media talking points address, they are ALWAYS bait.

tRump always does this....media follows his lead with orgasmic delight....

[LeftInTX]

5. Yes

[newdeal2]

6. They played this poorly

It was down for barely half a day. Many people didn't even notice. And everyone can now tell this was done for political reasons.

I think Tiktok damaged their own credibility with users more than anything. It now looks like the CEO is sucking up to Trump and pushing pro-Trump messages.

[emulatorloo]

10. +1000.

[spanone]

7. Of course it was.

[emulatorloo]

8. No. CCP/Bytedance have made fools of themselves and they spent lots of cash bribing Trump. Trump will take the money

and run, further humiliating them.

[underpants]

9. No. Don't skip over the steps here.

The Republicans have targeted the CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY (CCP) mostly as an aversion to Russian activity. “CCP” is just shorthand in RW world (talk radio) now, you don’t even have to say it now.

The point here is to get Tik Tok’s algorithm and user intel into the hands of the right people and then they can control who sees what.

[NameAlreadyTaken]

11. Thank God we will still get to

watch 10-second videos of people doing stupid things!

[emulatorloo]

12. Never been a shortage of places to see that on the internet

[applegrove]

13. Yes. Kabuki theatre.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

14. tRump needs a WIN to start off his 4 years of TERROR.