He really does just say anything
He's the proverbial infinite monkeys at a typewriter. Wait long enough and he'll say literally anything about anything.
In other words: “I hate TikTok and China, but young people hate me, and maybe I can shave off a quarter of a percent in a tight race if I give them TikTok”
Related: anyone been on TikTok lately? I know misinformation is all over social media in general, but holy fuck is it bad on TikTok. Even after using custom filters to try and avoid election stuff altogether, it seems like every other post is some ridiculous MAGA BS without sources making some outrageous claim about Democrats.
Case in point: according to multiple posts I saw earlier today, both Kamala and Tim Walz have dropped out of the race.
I see no MAGA stuff there. I'm in the other echo chamber, must be (and happily so).
I see no politics whatsoever (other than stupid life challenges), algorithm shows what you want to see.
Algorithms show what the company wants you to see, not what you choose to see.
I mean kind of but not really? Most of my algo isn't identifyably political, but the bit that is, is all left of liberal.
Facebook was like that for ages, posts about the try that in a small town guy outselling Taylor swift, woke celebrities begging to work with kid rock but bring denied, Disney announcing they're firing all their diversity hires... it's like they're living in a totally different reality.
You can try resetting your for you page to stop getting that content. I don't get that kind of content at all.
Tiktok shows you stuff you interact with, you've trained the algo to show you right-wing misinformation.
I've never interacted with a single post, nor is the account tied to an email which is used for anything else.
Watch time is a type of interaction.
I'm aware of that. I actively try and skip political stuff as quickly as possible. I understand how the algorithm is supposed to work, but in my experience, it isn't working that way. On a fresh account, the first video it ever served me was a MAGA post.
Edit: I also considered that maybe it was location based. My TikTok has no overt permissions (unneeded if you never post), no contact sharing, and I always access through a VPN. Does not seem to matter which VPN server/location I select.
Oh yeah, it is location based, when I first started they kept trying to give me local, South Carolinian right-wing "comedy".
It was the cringiest shit I have ever seen in my life, and as a furry, that is not a low bar.
The weird orange felon/rapist is flailing and grasping at ANYTHING to be relevant, including lying out of both sides of his mouth.
He can’t even save his own social media company. He’s lost $5 billion in less than a month. Even for a guy who bankrupted multiple casinos, that’s an achievement.
Someone here pointed out that these losses are money laundering wins. I now have a different view on the "failed" casinos.
And tax write-off sink holes, as he loves to over-value for loans and then under value for tax breaks (ex. - what he did in NY and is currently appealing the judgement against him). And losses would lower that tax burden even further.
Of course he does - his mental capacity does not allow him to conceptualize the future or plan for it, or to remember the past, so he just says whatever he considers to be most advantageous to him at that very moment...
Like an amoeba that swims towards cheetos
Oh no, the guy who will say anything to get elected is saying something different than he used to. How dare he, the scoundrel.
I guess I'm more interested in who the target demo for this piece is. Like everyone who's going to care already has an opinion about him (for good or ill) is this a last straw effort to wear down his base? They live in an entirely different reality, if felony indictments, sex scandals, and the rest haven't been enough him suddenly supporting a popular and controversial app actually might help him with the base.
Is it red meat for the outrage masochists among Trump's opposition? If so, why not go for the juicer Russian psyop story that broke a few days ago about former trump staffers and alt right podcasters being paid by the kremlin to sow misinformation? That's much more outrageous if you're looking to get your rocks off about what Trump has done this time.
I am looking forward to the day the only thing people write about Trump is that he's still alive in Argentina or a look at how the Trump era changed us all.
It demotivates potential Democratic voters by reminding them that their party did the thing everyone was clowning on Trump for trying to do.
For all his faults, Trump is better at reading the room than the democrats. When there's an issue he doesn't know shit about (this is most things), he'll just say what the people in front of him want to hear, whereas the democrats have no problem saying and doing things that are incredibly unpopular among their base.
I am looking forward to the day the only thing people write about Trump is that he’s still alive in Argentina
The most on brand would be him flying a plane full of gold bullion to Cuba to avoid going to prison.
This one is easy! Somebody told him he was losing the youth demographic. "Hmmm, kids like the TikTok, right?"
The case that the most rabid fans are too young to vote no doubt flew over his head.
Banning it was his administration's idea. Not saying I'm for or against banning TikTok, I don't really have any skin in the game because I don't even use the service so it makes no difference to me, but ffs hold this dude accountable for one fucking thing for a change. Why do so many people let him get away with saying whatever convenient lie that pops into his mind?
Says he'll save it if they pivot to selling right wing nutcase ideas to kids. Will try and ban it anyway if he gets into power.
That was my biggest laugh of the morning.
I'd start by assuming that he's either being paid somehow for suddenly supporting TikTok or if there's something else in it for him. With trump, usually "it's grift" is the likely explanation for many things.
He's simple, but it's not just the grift.
What he wants is anything that strokes his ego. Anything that makes him feel more important, gets him attention, etc.
It COULD be as simple as someone sucking up to him. Or someone has told him this will get him votes or make him popular.
OR there could be money in it. Or a.combination of things. But he's absolutely not just - or maybe even usually - about the grift.
I assume he thinks this will win over more Gen Z than it will lose him Boomers, and no one will ever hold him to this promise anyway.
“I promise if you reelect me I’ll fix all the bad things that I did! I will also pardon myself so I can keep on fixing things, for myself”
Tik Tok, Ukraine, and Palistine. Day one
That's just basic political instincts. Dems implement an unpopular policy? Say you'll reverse it.
I can't understand how the democrats thought it was a good idea to ban Tiktok on an election year.
You think voters care? I'm not so sure, haven't heard it brought up in a political context until now. Can you imagine TikTok coming up in the debates?
Are there single-issue tiktok voters? Probably not. But democrats doing a thing that we all agreed was dumb under Trump does contribute to the sense that the democrats do not represent them, which decreases voter turnout.
Similar to Biden escalating the trade war against China; there's probably not "buy a chinese EV" single-issue voters, but making EVs unaffordable to the vast majority of Americans decreases voter turnout among people who didn't want a trade war with China.
Every time the democrats try to out-flank the republicans from the right, they're effectively campaigning for the republicans.
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