Whatever deal the US president is eyeing over the app, it is further proof some digital giants wield disproportionate clout

Late on Saturday 18 January, TikTok, the short-video app beloved of millions of users mostly aged between 18 and 24, went dark in the US . This was not because of a power outage, but because its owner switched it off. For an explanation of why it did so, though, we have to spool back a bit. For years, TikTok has been a thorn in the sides of US legislators and national security officials for two reasons. First, it’s owned by a Chinese company, ByteDance, which doubtless does whatever Xi Jinping tells it to do. Second, TikTok hoovers up phenomenally detailed data about its young users. The average session lasts 11 minutes and the video length is about 25 seconds. “That’s 26 ‘episodes’ per session,” says blogger Prof Scott Galloway , “with each episode generating multiple microsignals: whether you scrolled past a video, paused it, rewatched it, liked it, commented on it, shared it, and followed the creator, plus how long you watched before moving on. That’s hundreds of signals. Sweet crude like the world has never seen, ready to be algorithmically refined into rocket fuel.” The thought of personal data with this granularity falling into Chinese hands seemingly drove the American deep state, not to mention Meta, Google and co wild. And Congress got the message.

In April last year, Joe Biden signed into law the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act , a statute that had attracted unprecedented bipartisan support on its path through a divided Congress. The act basically mandated that TikTok’s owner would have to sell it to an American company or be banned in the US. It was scheduled to come into force on Sunday 19 January 2025.

The right is ecstatic about the end of the Biden era – but remains polarized about some of Trump’s decisions

Americans really do inhabit two worlds: some shed tears of sadness at the advent of Donald Trump’s second presidency. Others cried, too – with joy.

Across the conservative, “post-liberal” and alternative media spheres, journalists, pundits and some social media circles celebrated the end of the Biden era with the enthusiasm of rebels toppling the relics of a collapsing dictatorship. As Trump swore his presidential oath, the writer Walter Kirn, a pro-Trump, anti-establishment agitator on X, grandiloquently declared : “This is a revolution against a corrupt ancien regime .”

TikTok owner ByteDance is reportedly still searching for non-sale options to stay in the US after the Supreme Court upheld a national security law requiring that TikTok's US operations either be shut down or sold to a non-foreign adversary.

Last weekend, TikTok briefly went dark in the US, only to come back online hours later after Donald Trump reassured ByteDance that the US law would not be enforced. Then, shortly after Trump took office, he signed an executive order delaying enforcement for 75 days while he consulted with advisers to "pursue a resolution that protects national security while saving a platform used by 170 million Americans."

Trump's executive order did not suggest that he intended to attempt to override the national security law's ban-or-sale requirements. But that hasn't stopped ByteDance, board member Bill Ford told World Economic Forum (WEF) attendees, from searching for a potential non-sale option that "could involve a change of control locally to ensure it complies with US legislation," Bloomberg reported .

Read full article

Comments

Une vidéo produite par une IA montre des géants en train de construire des pyramides égyptiennes. Elle aurait pu rester au rang de la blague, mais le web étant ce qu'il est, cette vidéo est un prétexte pour questionner les faux créés par IA.

Agency accuses Meta, Google, TikTok and other companies of sharing troves of user information with third-parties

Social media and online video companies are collecting huge troves of your personal information on and off their websites or apps and sharing it with a wide range of third-party entities, a new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) staff report on nine tech companies confirms.

The FTC report published on Thursday looked at the data-gathering practices of Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, Discord, Reddit, Amazon, Snap, TikTok and Twitter/X between January 2019 and 31 December 2020. The majority of the companies’ business models incentivized tracking how people engaged with their platforms, collecting their personal data and using it to determine what content and ads users see on their feeds, the report states.

The energy drink with 200mg of caffeine per can has gained a cult following in the US due to its wellness-coded image

On Dakota Johnson ’s first day on set to film her directorial debut Loser Baby, she grabbed a can of Celsius and started drinking. She said she spent much of the rest of the shoot with a Celsius in her hand. She recalled feeling exhilarated, and though she also found it hard to sleep, surely that was just inspiration from the creative process flowing through her body.

Then her costume designer let her in on a secret: Celsius is an energy drink that contains 200mg of caffeine per can. That’s why she was staying awake all night.

Report shows 23% increase in attacks on animals using weapons in 2023 compared with previous year

Rising rates of animal abuse in England and Wales are being fuelled by social media, with perpetrators sharing videos and photos of dead and injured wildlife and pets, animal welfare charities have warned.

Experts also raised concerns about the proliferation of other less extreme forms of online animal cruelty, such as taunting pets for “funny” reactions on TikTok and Instagram.

The term for England footballers’ wives and girlfriends first exploded in 2006 in Germany. The new generation watching the Euros are turning the old stereotypes on their heads

When England take to the pitch for their first game on Sunday night in Germany, eyes will be trained not just on the players but on the team sitting in the stands, cheering on the squad – the wives and girlfriends of the players, the so-called Wags.

The acronym Wags first appeared in the Sunday Telegraph in 2002 – apparently coined by the staff of a Dubai hotel where the players’ wives and girlfriends stayed. Still a relatively new phenomenon, it exploded like a glitterbomb on to the resort of Baden-Baden, where the England squad were based during the World Cup in Germany in 2006.

Customers keep filming employees behind the counter, in a bid to ensure their burritos are big enough

When Atulya Dora-Laskey clocks in to her job making tacos, burritos, and salad bowls on the line at a Chipotle in Lansing, Michigan, she knows there’s a chance a customer will whip out a camera to film her assembling their lunch. If it does happen, “it’s immediately anxiety-inducing for my co-workers and me,” she said. She finds it “very stressful and dehumanizing” to be filmed at work.

These incidents of filming began last month, after rumors circulated on TikTok and Reddit alleging that Chipotle line workers skimped customers on the chain’s infamously large portion sizes – unless customers filmed workers making their order.