You may have forgotten that there was once something of a bipartisan consensus to ban TikTok. You may have also forgotten that the initial charge to outlaw the app was led by one Donald J. Trump. And you have very likely forgotten — or perhaps never even knew — that absent government action between now and January 19, TikTok will simply disappear in the United States, in accordance with a law signed by President Biden. The reason the app will probably earn a reprieve has much to do with its wild popularity. But it helps that Trump, a China hawk, is suddenly a TikTok champion. What accounts for his transformation? It’s not his love of memes. Today, John Herrman writes astutely about the strange saga of the TikTok ban and tries to make sense of what Trump’s self-serving conversion on the issue says about where the tech world is headed.
—Benjamin Hart, staff editor, Intelligencer |
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