Tik Tok Is Officially Controlled By MAGA Now. Let's Abandon It & Move On.

Here's everything you need to know...

As of last night, the multi-year long battle has come to a close. As many Tik Tok users saw when opening their app last evening, there were new “terms and conditions” to agree to for using Tik Tok.

Tik Tok has officially been sold to a hand selected group of Trump acolytes, who will now have control over the algorithm, and all of its data on you.

Here’s a snippet from The Verge, on this new acquisition:

Just over a year after it briefly disappeared from app stores, TikTok in the US is now part of a new entity, TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC. With approval from both the US and China closing on the schedule laid out in December, ByteDance’s ownership of the new joint venture is now only 19.9 percent to satisfy the terms of the divest-or-ban law.

The other 80.1 percent is owned by investment firm Silver Lake, Oracle, and Abu Dhabi investment firm MGX — the three “managing investors”.

A press release announcing the deal’s closure didn’t say how much those stakes cost or give details about potentially launching a new app in the US. It did say that the joint venture’s oversight of “comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation, and software assurances for U.S. users” will apply to TikTok, the video editor CapCut, Lemon8, and “a portfolio” of other apps and services.

A recent poll of Americans social media usage, has found that 37% of Americans say they use Tik Tok.

So this change will effect tens of millions of Americans. So let’s dive into what users can expect, now with this change of ownership.

1. TikTok collects everything you upload, including drafts you never post

2. DMs + messages are collected and reviewed

3. AI prompts & AI responses you enter are stored and used to “improve” their systems

4. They access clipboard content when you copy/paste into the app

5. Contacts can be pulled from your phone if syncing is on

6. Faceprints & voiceprints can be extracted from your videos

7. Location data (approximate by default, precise if enabled)

8. Keystroke patterns + device behavior are tracked

9. Activity can be linked across multiple devices

10. TikTok shares your data with advertisers + analytics partners

11. Your activity can affect ads outside TikTok

12. Opt-outs exist but you have to manually manage them

13. Public videos can appear on Google, news sites, and aggregators

14. Data can be kept for legal or business reasons, even after account deletion

All of this is now in hands of Billionaires & corporations that are loyal to trump.

So you tell me - do you want to use an app that is collecting all of that data on his behalf?

Should we leave Tik Tok behind & move on?

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On A Side Note

I wanted to acknowledge the general strike & several hundreds (possibly thousands) of walkouts happening today. These are primarily happening in Minnesota, due to the ICE invasion, but I know others have popped up around the country as well.

While this post was going to be solely about Tik Tok, I didn’t feel comfortable not mentioning the truly remarkable demonstrations we’ve seen today.

I am inspired by them & I hope you have been too.

We need more demonstrations against ICE.

Against this regime.

Against the MAGA movement in general.

I am heartened to see so many people standing up today. It reminds me that, even though we’re exhausted, we refuse to give up.

Until next time,

Desmond