Donald Trump is a lunatic who makes bold pronouncements all the time. I’m almost surprised that he hasn’t announced that we’re going to war with the moon and that he’s going to build us a better moon, a biglier moon. Trump’s latest out-of-nowhere pronouncement is that he alone can do what no other president has been able to do: shut down TikTok. LMAO. I’m too old to TikTok but I love watching the short-form videos and I love to see how many people can be so creative and amazing with the limited time frame. TikTokers really are, for the most part, young people. And they’re using TikTok to get into politics and spread political messages. Trump really is an old man yelling at clouds.
Donald Trump abruptly announced on Friday that he plans to ban TikTok from the United States, telling reporters traveling with him on Air Force One that he could issue an executive order as early as Saturday to shut down the Chinese-owned video app.
“As far as TikTok is concerned we’re banning them from the United States,” Trump told the reporters traveling back with him to the nation’s capital after a trip to Florida, according to a pool report. Trump said he could use emergency economic powers or an executive order to ban TikTok in the United States.
“Well, I have that authority. I can do it with an executive order or that,” he said referring to emergency economic powers. (Later press reports questioned whether the president actually had that power to do so, and the ACLU tweeted that banning TikTok was “a danger to free expression and technologically impractical.”)
Earlier this month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. was looking at banning TikTok as well as other Chinese social media apps, citing national security concerns. Pompeo added that the Trump administration was evaluating TikTok as it has with other Chinese state-backed tech companies like Huawei and ZTE, which he has previously described as “Trojan horses for Chinese intelligence.”
Not to defend the Trumpers, but I am also kind of uncomfortable with the fact that TikTok is a Chinese app and that China has already found a way to shut down videos of the protests in Hong Kong. I’m not saying that Trump has the authority to shut down TikTok (he does not) or that announcing it this way was the right thing to do (it was not). I’m just saying that it’s okay to be massively suspicious of TikTok in general.
But for something lighter – people are now convinced that Trump suddenly wants to shut down TikTok because he heard about comedienne Sarah Cooper’s videos and TikToks, where she uses the audio from Trump’s own press conferences and interviews in hilarious parody form. It could absolutely be about Sarah Cooper. But let’s not forget that TikTokers were behind the biggest disaster of Trump’s reelection campaign, the Tulsa Nazi rally catastrophe.
Behold, some of Sarah Cooper’s best TikToks, including her parody of the “banning TikTok” audio.
How to tick tack pic.twitter.com/1Mn8nk363f
— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) July 31, 2020
How to person woman man camera tv pic.twitter.com/rcQC4sxmLX
— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) July 24, 2020
How to mask pic.twitter.com/Mm8IBTrNxd
— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) July 6, 2020
How to cognitive pic.twitter.com/YM51OJ58qA
— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) July 10, 2020
How to more cases than anybody in the world pic.twitter.com/VA9bPJiQ6i
— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) May 15, 2020
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Avalon Red.
As much as I adore Sarah Cooper, it aint it. Most of us saw these videos first when they appeared on twitter. Drump is petty as f…k, but his sudden stance on TikTok has everything to do with the recent visit of Zuckerberg to the White House and Zuckerberg’s “competitive app” to TikTok called Lasso. One dirty hand washes the other and all that.
This. Don’t underestimate this. Facebook and Instagram are luring TikTok creators over with their own copycats.
Many of the TikTokers I follow are on most, if not all of the social media platforms. And many of them want to stay on TikTok to do what they do. Even with all of its issues. No one seems to want to make this jump. Everyone that I watch is hoping Microsoft buys the platform to keep it going. It’s been a crap show watching everyone panic.
Allegedly, Lasso bombed and Facebook has a new app called Reels to compete with TikTok.
https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/apps/news/facebooks-tiktok-clone-lasso-is-shutting-down-as-zuckerberg-gears-up-to-launch-instagram-reels/articleshow/76745585.cms
Oh thanks, I didn’t know that! I mean, could it be any more obvious?Zuckerberg is a human equivalent of a leaking bag full of liquid shit – I am actually surprised that Trump hasn’t adopted him yet.
Zuckerberg seems like the separated co-joined twin of Ken-Doll Kushner: same weird hair, same ghostly pale skin, same dead eyes, and just as soulless.
Zuckerberg has already shown he is in goose-step with #TangerineTwitler, so this wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
This! I said this to my sister yesterday! I laughed, bc she loooooves tiktok and said, I wonder if any of his friends is launching a competitor and he is doing this to help them. Omg, i was kidding. ….
Tanguerita, you nailed it.
Also I wuv Sarah Cooper and I’ve never been on Tiktok.
Lol Tulsa will be nothing compared to what those teens will unleash against Trump now.
Plus 4 million teens will turn 18 before the election and they can vote…
Your comment makes me heel hopeful. Thanks, I needed that!
Indeed and threatening to take away their social media platforms will only encourage them to NOT vote for him.
Plus they will EASILY get around any ban he implements and they WILL own his big fat dinosaur ass.
I hope you are right. A giant gaggle of angry teens is exactly the Trump TicTok army we didn’t know we needed. Go forth and cause video chaos! I love Sarah Cooper, but I think this particular man-baby fit is over the Tulsa embarrassment. He can block Cooper, but Tulsa was in his face.
I work with a pro-choice non-profit and TikTok has been our best recruiting tool for new volunteers. The new volunteers have been doing all kinds of videos while volunteers plus research for educational videos. This Gen X loves Gen Z. They are not here for people fucking with their future.
I just love her little touches! The picture of Putin with hearts, the drawing of a mask on t rumpus picture, herself acting as the other person, it’s just all so hilarious.
Yesss, the little touches make them! I loved when she absentmindedly sniffed the whiteboard marker in the last one. Too good!
Love her! This is the only way I can listen to that voice, is through Sarah Cooper’s rendition. LOL at ever single one.
That poster makes me loose it every time. I could watch her 100 times (I am close to that anyway) and every time I see the heart poster I lose it lol. So well done. Sarah Cooper is a national treasure!
Lol…she is so dang funny!
So… YouTube taking down bullsh-t medical videos from dangerously unsound doctors and ridiculous “plandemic” conspiracy nonsense is a violation of “free speech” but banning a whole social media app is fine?
SMDH… Trump and his ilk are such hypocritical dummies.
I have never felt so much hatred for so many people. I hope this nightmare ends soon!
I talked with a social media professor who literally studies this stuff, he’s a hardcore liberal and he is VERY concerned that China is gathering information to influence the 2024 election. He said they are known for playing the long game, and he’d stake his reputation on being right about this. Not at all defending President Cheeto, I don’t think he’d do it for the right reason. But maybe banning Tiktok isn’t a terrible thing.
Same here VERY liberal but also studied international business – Chinas govt owns a part of every major business in that country (particularly tech). I never downloaded TikTok and never will. Anything you put on there, the Chinese govt has, every where you are, they know it. They are data mining anyone with that app.
we would be smart to stay off this app, period. Cheeto is banning it for all the wrong reasons of course, but even a broken clock is right twice a day
Yeah, I feel torn about it, since I know a lot of good content us created by users. But from a security standpoint, all the security pros I know dislike it, and I hate hate hate how in the early days content was screened/promoted for “attractiveness” of the creators. It has become a major thinspo promoter. All social media is these days, but it was intentional in the early days of TikTok, and still continues.
I will never download it from a security standpoint, I can watch Sarah Cooper on twitter and elsewhere. If Sarah had really gotten under Trump’s skin, you just KNOW he would be spouting off about it. He never shies away from a fight with a woman. Oh wait, maybe Ghislaine…
I think the Cambridge Analytics case showed all/ most social media apps are used for data mining. I won’t have tik tok due to security concerns (i still have instagram & whatsapp. I found insta had been sold to Zuckerberg because the algorithm changed and the app became annoying to use so I researched it).
A lot of our right to digital privacy was taken away when the Bush administration used 9/11 as an excuse to declare an illegal war.
Anyhow if you concerned about privacy then turn your phone off and leave it elsewhere so you can have whatever discussion is needed in person.
All smartphones (including the one I’m currently using) have essentially become pocket sized surveillance devices.
This. Social media apps and most apps are used for data mining and using a smartphone tracks your movements and some activities too. It’s just a different country. You can change settings to minimize the privacy invasion but you can’t have full privacy. It’s a given. If you really want full security or privacy, then start by not using credit cards, debit cards and smartphones. I’m not trying to defend China here but if it makes you better not to download TikTok go ahead. But that’s not going to be the end of apps selling your data or tracking you.
For sure – anything that’s free on the internet or on your phone is selling your data, period. If something is free, you’re the product being sold.
However in TikToks case that info is owned by the Chinese govt which I am less excited about.
How would that work in this case? Is it specifically with TikTok, or via other channels, also?
It really sucks to be an adult right now. 🙁
@Truthiness – if you can, watch her via YouTube. It is the only platform on which she is able to make money from her videos and it is her comedic craft right now.
And NOW! LMAO. TikTokkers are ordering tons of the Trump neighborhood volunteer swag boxes that the campaign is hawking for free. A lot of parents are about to find their garages crammed with boxes full of MAGA crap, but I see on Twitter there are bonfires planned. Anyway, this will absolutely f*ck with the campaign’s data collection AGAIN, like the Tulsa ticket extravaganza, but will also cost big money. So win-win.
Ha! This cracks me up. God love those kids.
The Kids Are All Right. I love this trend on Twitter because I’m learning, through parents’ posts (just as they are), their kids explaining how to *easily* circumvent a ban. Trump and his gang are dinosaurs about to be hit by a meteor.
One mom put up an account of her two twin boys “dialogue” with their dad about this. It was hysterically funny!
Think is, if Twitler thinks he’s “banning” anything he’s seriously deluded…well…of course we know he is, but has NO ONE around him heard of VPNs?? These kids are SO computer savvy, they will find a way to get in through another IP address in another country. Hell, I use one just to watch my British/Australian shows. It is NOT hard to do lol
That’s the thread exactly! The comments from other parents were chock ‘oblock full of other easy workarounds parents are hearing from their kids … like changing smartphone settings to Canada (or any other country that doesn’t ban TikTok). I loved the kids’, “Burn it all down.”
Haha that is fantastic! I would personally not underestimate those kids, they are organized!
I was just about to post this!! Never underestimate a bunch of pissed off bored kids!!! This is what happens when you buy your children everything their hearts desire – you have no capacity to understand how much a kid might value the stuff they do have. Add pandemic times to that and Trump just created yet another poopstorm.
Mark Warner got rich in tech and said he wouldn’t have Tik Tok on his phone. I think there are legitimate reasons for banning it…but Trump isn’t going after it for legitimate reasons. He is doing it because he is scared of teenagers.
The country is on fire, you jackass!
How does Trump have all the time in the world to constantly be f’ing around on twitter, bitching about tiktok, etc??
Can’t somebody at the WH ever get this Orange Turd on track to do the actual job of being POTUS?
Trump gives me a blinding headache whenever I see his worthless “news”
^ This all goddamn day!
My 10 year old stepdaughter spent the night with me and her brother last night and she kept going off to check to see if “Trump had banned TikTok.” I was like sweetie don’t listen to him, even if he could do it, they’ll figure out another way. She may only currently be concerned about this news story but at least she is paying attention!
I’m skeptical of TikTok because they were scrubbing the videos of Chinese citizens trying to warn the world about covid back in January and February. They were even hiding those messages in things like makeup tutorials to keep them up just a little longer. I admit, I do love a lot of the videos that get shared on the socials but nobody in our household has downloaded the app.
This woman is my hero
Ok so tiktok is getting banned plus teens will vote trump out? Win win. Biden doesn’t want his own staff on Tim toi, there must be a reason. There’s a YouTubeR I love who talks about this. Very hilarious video, Which shows propaganda issues with this app and a similar app. he’s called Lao why 86
It’s spyware, India banned it. I usually can’t stomach the orange menace’s voice but I only can with Sarah Cooper, she makes it look effortless but it isn’t, she’s great!
This is about Tulsa. He’s still salty that the teens outsmarted him, lol.
The U.S. military has banned TikTok. Joe Biden’s campaign has banned the use of TikTok. It’s a national security threat. I think Trump has been told that, like Huawei, it will soon be banned by the rest of U.S. agencies. We have to get rid of this app. Trump is blabbing on about this to warn China, I believe. He’s such an idiot.
Well hopefully this will get zoomers and millennials to vote this November. Voter registration is down compared to 2016.
I know a lot of people are paranoid about the Chinese spyware, but sometimes I think that a little xenophobic. Not that China is all sunshine and rainbows or anything, but that literally every app is spying on you. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. If you have your Instagram open and talk about something, you’ll get an ad related to whatever you said. Google something? You’ll get a google ad about it. Your phone tracks your movement. We willingly put fitness trackers on our wrists. When quarantine first started, they were using our phones to track us and see who stayed home. It’s like everyone is fine with apps data mining, as long as they are American companies.
Anyways, I think it’s just another one of distractions. Is he gonna follow through? And even if he does, there are simple vpn work arounds.
While we gawk at his tweets, he’s focusing (as much as he can focus on anything), on fossil fuels. Whether Arctic wildlife refuges, Indian reservations, etc. he’s pulling slight of hand land grabs favoring big company drilling and mining. His agenda is regulatory windfall and making millions. So yeah, throw out bullshit while he destroys the planet.
Sarah Cooper is a national treasure, to be sure, but the greatest likelihood is the FB megalopoly/TikTok knock off, so rump can still have the Zuckerberg android on his side for the disinformation campaign.
Although, I’m not certain KellyAnn Cryptkeeper is avoiding going along with the scheme, due to her daughter’s popularity and frequent criticism of rump. I’m sure she’d like to see Claudia pipe down (that she asked her daughter to delete her account was public quite some time ago).