The Wire - April 24, 2024

this is zir for 2100 zillu April 24th 2024 president's routine information cut off is 2000 bottom line up front Tik Tok pushes back against divestment mandate beginning with international events in the Red Sea Horn of Africa region overnight the United Kingdom Maritime trade operations center reported an explosion in the vicinity of a commercial vessel in the Gulf of aen analyst comment very few details have been made public regarding this incident on the home front in the United States Tik Tok leadership has reiterated a more Hardline stance regarding facing a potential ban in the United States following Biden's signing of the divestment Mandate Tik Tok CEO shuzi Chu released a statement indicating that Tik Tok will not be divesting to an American company analyst comments for this wire as a reminder the legalities of the Tik Tok Scandal are vastly more complicated than one might imagine technically Tik Tok is not owned by China or Chinese State media organizations however the contention arises when examining Tik tok's parent company bite dance which is unou dedly run by a conglomeration of Chinese business interests and is heavily embedded within the CCP bureaucracy while the majority of shareholders of by dance are Chinese on paper the technicalities of Tik tok's ownership are vastly more complicated for instance the founders of Tik Tok are from Singapore and the various business dealings and registrations of Tik Tok have all taken place outside of China in fact in the early days of Tik Tok he was actually registered as a business in Los Angeles the Tik Tok app itself is also banned in China with a separate app called Duan also developed by by dance being the way that Chinese citizens interact with a Tik Tock like ecosystem this means that per the definitions and legal Lees of the law that was passed Tik Tok may already fall under the category of being an American company anyway while the CCP influence and undoubted surveillance is palpable on the Tik Tok platform it's unlikely that China would seek to invest such overwhelming surveillance infrastructure in a system that can be easily banned with the stroke of a pen consequently it's unlikely that any legal or congressional action on the matter will have any impact on Americans use of Tik Tok at all in fact the Banning of technology that is already easy to circumvent will probably have the opposite intended effect the use of vpns to access banned content in the United States is already quite popular likewise the side loading of apps banned by mainstream app stores is also fairly common normalizing the use of clandestine tactics to bypass government restrictions may result in the zero some game of political power suffering in the long run as ancient mentalities in Congress are unable to comprehend the basics of internet use this concludes the wire4 2100 Zulu April 24th 2024