Trump vs TikTok: The US embodies Orwell's dystopia
At the end of June, at the height of the Covid crisis, a pre-election rally of the current US President Donald Trump took place in the American city of Tulsa (Oklahoma). Much to the chagrin of Donnie and the organizers of the rally, there was no extra crowd - the event brought together very few supporters of the businessman president, despite high expectations.
As The New York Times reported, the turnout for the election rally was disrupted by teenagers who were fans of the K-pop music style and decided to play a joke on the president. The “Onizhekids” of Tulsa created a newsletter in which they urged fellow citizens to book tickets to a meeting with Trump, but not to come to the event itself.
On the eve of the meeting, Trump campaign chairman Brad Parscale boasted to the press that there were over a million people in Tulsa who wanted to see the “great citizen of America,” but according to the city’s fire department, which was involved in organizing security for the event, the turnout was a measly 6,2 people.
The event sparked ridicule from Trump's opponents, and the email, which caused an epic failure for the president's political strategists, was distributed among users of the popular Chinese social network of short video messages TikTok.
After waiting a pause, on August 6, Trump signed a decree “On Combating the Threat” allegedly emanating from TikTok, promising big trouble to all American companies and individuals who did not sever business ties with the Chinese owners of the application, ByteDance and Tencent, within 45 days.
The US Senate immediately came to the rescue by issuing a ban on the use of TikTok by government employees.
It looks like Trump famously used the embarrassing incident in Tulsa to attack TikTok.
The reasons why the service fell out of favor with the American president are a copy of the aggravation against Huawei: “the theft of American technology and a threat to national security and the transfer of personal information of American citizens to Chinese intelligence services.”
However, the owners of TikTok were offered a compromise option: within six weeks from the date of Trump’s decree, transfer control of the social network to Microsoft or any other American company.
At the beginning of August, TikTok's capitalization was estimated at $100 billion, and its audience reach was one billion users.
Trump also said that part of the funds from the deal should go to the US treasury, and that Microsoft is not the only American company interested in gaining control of the popular service.
If the owners of TikTok and the CCP behind them do not make a deal, they promise to block the social network in the United States.
In response to Trump's threats, the stock market value of the service's shares fell by tens of billions of dollars, and TikTok downloads decreased by 21%.
ByteDance director and founder Zhang Yiming suggested that the United States would rather block the service than force the sale of its American share to Microsoft. He also had to delete some of his messages and disable comments on some of his own statements, for which social network users called him a “traitor.”
The passions around the Chinese social network were fueled by a transcript of Trump’s negotiations with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, published by TechCrunch, from which it clearly follows that the head of the White House is demanding a bribe from the purchase of TikTok, which Donnie is ready to share with the American treasury.
It is unclear how this extortion will affect Trump’s election campaign, but Chinese officials, unlike the timid founder of TikTok, do not intend to follow Washington’s lead, calling the deal with Microsoft a theft and hinting through the China Daily that China has “many ways respond if the US administration carries out its planned defeat and takeover of Chinese businesses.
Observers, however, believe that Microsoft, with the full blessing of Washington, will still lay its hairy market paw and take over the popular service, invented and promoted with Chinese money.
In fact, ByteDance’s deflection has already become apparent: the company is opening a European data center to process information flows from European TikTok users in order to avoid similar sanctions from the EU authorities.
Before the stink around the potential “deal of the century” had time to dissipate properly, the second part of the Marlezon ballet burst out: darling Trump declared war on another major Chinese online service – WeChat.
The reasons are the same: “theft of technology and collection of users’ personal data.”
The period for “correction” is the same - 45 days, otherwise...
As you know, WeChat is the brainchild of the Chinese IT giant Tencent, bombarded with government investments by the decision of the CPC leadership, and combines a social network, chat and e-wallet in one bottle. The service is fantastically popular in mainland China due to its flexibility, convenience and damn loyal policy towards users. A lot of everyday transactions of the Chinese population take place through the WeChat e-wallet, up to “an organized meal of dumplings in the evening at the nearest eatery” for a group of pensioners.
If TikTok is a huge, fat piece of cyberspace conquered by the Chinese, then WeChat is all the same, but in addition with a thick layer of black caviar powdered with natural gold.
However, appetite comes with eating...
However, there is also a difference. WeChat is such a piece of the market in cyberspace that Americans could choke if they bite into it.
And it's all about the owner. Tencent is a much stronger and more influential company compared to ByteDance, which owns 13% of the IT market. Over the years of its existence, the investment holding has managed to completely or partially buy up a bunch of foreign companies and create subsidiaries. It’s not easy to cope with such a powerful Chinese octopus.
Even if we take into account that the Americans did not miss a beat with WeChat, and the owner of the service actually shares the collected information “with whoever needs it,” since Tencent is the brainchild of the Chinese Communist Party, for which one can only feel pride and satisfaction for the skillfully invested efforts and resources.
By starting a war against TikTok and WeChat, the Americans are trying to kill two birds with one stone. Firstly, to take away incredibly profitable and fast-growing online services from China and take over them. Secondly (if not first) is the desire to bring online services with a billion-dollar audience under the control of the CIA and NSA. Only the USA has the right to control cyberspace!
Let us remember that Russian social networks were of little interest to Americans; they were still platforms for Russian-speaking Runet users from other countries. But as soon as Pavel Durov’s brainchild, the Telegram messenger, gained explosive popularity in the West, the founder and owner, who flaunted the “absolute security of users’ personal data,” “servers not controlled by governments,” “encryption keys inaccessible to intelligence services,” was quickly brought down by the FBI, threatening to deprive him of his business "for aiding terrorists."
What can we say about Facebook, Google, Apple and Twitter, which actively cooperate with US intelligence services, and were largely created with their money.
Well, how can we not recall Orwell’s novel “1984” and the warning slogan from it: “Big Brother is watching you!” It’s just that Orwell modeled a certain hypothetical “Ingsoc” (English socialism), but in reality, “Amcap” - American capitalism, considered “the most correct, democratic, free and standard”, is engaged in surveillance of the human masses.
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