Trump's TikTok Deal Benefited Firms That 'Personally Enriched' Him, Lawsuit Says (nbcnews.com) 49
An anti-corruption group has filed a lawsuit (PDF) against Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi over the deal that transferred TikTok's U.S. operations to a group of investors tied to the administration. The suit claims the arrangement violates a 2024 law requiring ByteDance to divest and alleges the deal financially benefited Trump allies while leaving the platform's algorithm under Chinese ownership. NBC News reports: The suit, filed by the Public Integrity Project, a law firm that seeks to raise the "reputational cost of corruption in America," argues the deal violates a law intended to prevent the spread of Chinese government propaganda and has enriched Trump's allies. That law, signed by then-President Joe Biden in 2024, said that TikTok couldn't be distributed in the United States unless the Chinese company ByteDance found an American-based corporate home by the day before Donald Trump returned to office. The law was upheld by the Supreme Court.
"The law was clear, but it was never enforced," says the lawsuit, filed Thursday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. "Shortly after the deadline to divest passed, President Trump issued an executive order purportedly granting an extension for TikTok to find a domestic owner and directed his Attorney General not to enforce the law." The plaintiffs in the suit are two software engineers from California: One is a shareholder in Alphabet Inc., YouTube's parent company; the other is a shareholder in Meta Platforms, Inc., which is Instagram's parent company. Both say they suffered financially due to the non-enforcement of the law. "The original motivation for this law was to prevent the Chinese government from pushing propaganda onto American audiences," said Brendan Ballou, CEO of the Public Integrity Project and a former Justice Department prosecutor. "The deal that the president approved is the absolute worst of all possible worlds, because right now ByteDance continues to own the algorithm, which means that it can censor the content that it doesn't like, but at the same time Oracle controls the data and it can censor the information that it doesn't like. Really it's a situation that's going to be terrible for users, and terrible for free speech on the platform."
"The law was clear, but it was never enforced," says the lawsuit, filed Thursday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. "Shortly after the deadline to divest passed, President Trump issued an executive order purportedly granting an extension for TikTok to find a domestic owner and directed his Attorney General not to enforce the law." The plaintiffs in the suit are two software engineers from California: One is a shareholder in Alphabet Inc., YouTube's parent company; the other is a shareholder in Meta Platforms, Inc., which is Instagram's parent company. Both say they suffered financially due to the non-enforcement of the law. "The original motivation for this law was to prevent the Chinese government from pushing propaganda onto American audiences," said Brendan Ballou, CEO of the Public Integrity Project and a former Justice Department prosecutor. "The deal that the president approved is the absolute worst of all possible worlds, because right now ByteDance continues to own the algorithm, which means that it can censor the content that it doesn't like, but at the same time Oracle controls the data and it can censor the information that it doesn't like. Really it's a situation that's going to be terrible for users, and terrible for free speech on the platform."
Sounds about right (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Sounds about right (Score:3)
And now his fight in the Middle East is going to cost the US its remaining allies and make the US look even more of a liability. Yes, everything he touches turns to shit.
I'm sorry, what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Since when has "Free speech on the platform" been a consideration for either Alphabet OR Meta?
No way! (Score:5, Informative)
I mean he created his crypto shit coins so you don’t need USD to buy a pardon or favor.
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Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Personal enrichment is the primary purpose of this presidency (staying out of jail is a close second).
Re:Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: Duh (Score:5, Informative)
King of the grift. He’s raking in cash at our expense. https://www.forbes.com/sites/d... [forbes.com]
Re: Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
The lawsuit doesn't allege Trump personally benefited from the deal, just people he knows, people who like him.
Let me get this straight. You think Trump is funneling all that money into the pockets of his cronies out of the goodness of his heart, and not because that money will find its way back to him?
Re: Duh (Score:5, Informative)
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Self delusion. The MAGAturd staple
Off the top of my head, in no order, missing a whole bunch:
Not forgetting that he is so open about his pay-to-play behaviour.
But noooo. The Grand Mushroom cannot possibly be crooked
Re: Duh (Score:4, Informative)
In this context, allies means people who give Trump lots of money and use the money he sends them via government handouts to reshape the media landscape so it benefits his fascist aims. This is absolute cronyism at its worst.
But I guess you are okay with ill-gotten gains as long as they are properly laundered.
He Goes To Church (Score:1, Funny)
So this is all OK.
Rotten to the core (Score:5, Insightful)
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Announcing and doing are different. What if he hasn’t? There are no repercussions or consequences.
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What if he has?
In his second term, we know that he hasn't. The revocable trust arrangement in no way meets the standard of handing over "complete and total control". As for the trust during the first term that you were actually referring to, even if we are to naively believe that Weisselberg wasn't throwing himself on his sword for the others, he was one of the named trustees and committed both tax fraud and perjury. When he left the company between terms, he got a $2 million dollar severance package with one of the cond
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Hilarious. Are you really this dim? It doesn't matter even if control was handed over when contracnt, influence and money are still being handed out to those companies and people.
Since the days of Rush, people on the right have pretended to be stupid to "own the libs". The problem with Trump is they have to pretend to be really totally completely fucking stupid and it isn't working any more.
How of hands: (Score:2)
NBC's own coverage doesn't support the claims (Score:3)
so... in TFS and TFA this activist dude says that ByteDance / China still owns the algorithm.
but NBC's own linked coverage says Oracle does:
TikTok's powerful recommendation algorithm, which dictates much of what users see, was of particular interest with regard to the app's future. TikTok said in its release that the new U.S. company "will retrain, test, and update the content recommendation algorithm on U.S. user data. The content recommendation algorithm will be secured in Oracle’s U.S. cloud environment."
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/s... [nbcnews.com]
also this dude claims that the law was about:
to prevent the Chinese government from pushing propaganda onto American audiences," said Brendan Ballou, CEO of the Public Integrity Project and a former Justice Department prosecutor.
which is true. but the guys suing are suing because they claim they somehow lost money in this deal ( presumably they picked shareholders and made this claim because otherwise they'd get thrown out for not having "standing" ( which they don't) ) .
i'm "so-so" on whether the original goal is good or bad and whether the execution is adequate, but this whole suit is BS and will get thrown out.
Yeah But!!! (Score:1, Flamebait)
At least he's not a warmonger like Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris! - MAGA (up until six days ago)
Re:Yeah But!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, I remember those awful California wars...
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I think residents of Minneapolis and other cities may disagree with the 'warmonger' denial as well.
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MAGA (up until six days ago)
Nah they're still saying that. Don't underestimate the ability of a MAGAt to cheer on an objective reality that they are also denying.
And what exactly is illegal about this? (Score:5, Informative)
Remember how icky it was to see Biden use his power to help his sons? That guy’s shenanigans are nothing compared to what Trump is doing.
And, for him, I’m pretty sure it’s all legal. I hear a lot of people say “the potus is not above the law”. Sorry, but the potus, as a single person, is indeed immune to federal law. The supreme court saw to that. He’s also immune to most state laws from a practical standpoint.
To be clear - just him. Just that one guy. Not his underlings.
The supreme court can control him, but only on narrow constitutional issues. Congress is his real supervisor. They could fire him. Obviously that’s not gonna happen, though. So, the guy’s basically got free game.
I’m not saying I approve or disapprove of any of this, but this is the way it is.
Re:And what exactly is illegal about this? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Remember when those ICE guys beat an ICU nurse to death just cause they felt like it? And it was captured on video? If a federal prosecutor ever thinks that they committed murder, they can be indicted and tried. Sure, Trump could pardon them, but those lowlifes couldn't afford the bribe. They could be indicted any time after Trump leaves offi
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He's not a king. I was very careful to point out that the immunity applies to him, and him only. Not his appointees. Not the people who work for him. Not his goons.
Thomas Cromwell enters the chat.
It has never applied to anyone else. The King's goons and cronies have immunity at the king's pleasure.
Our democracy is holding. Times are ugly, and our system is imperfect, but the democracy is healthy.
It is not.
Always remember, "we the people" voted for this.
With the level of voter suppression and gerrymanderin
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I live in the midwest, where lots of states went Trump, so I rub shoulders with people in both parties. The guy won fair and square. He's awful, but that's irrelevant
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Gerrymandering is actually something of a wash (both sides do it and cancel each other out)
Well the Republican Gerrymandering has got so egregious that California stepped in because without some counter action elections would have been insanely slanted in favour of Republicans. But both sides gerrymandering the fuck out of elections is massively unhealthy for democracy.
The last Democratic president overstepped - he tried to push things to the left,
U wot m8?
Nah what happened is the Democrats put forward a wo
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Regarding most of your other points - you're letting the media frenzy maching lead you around be the nose. As one example, take the SAVE act. To Republicans, it's a massive (BIGLY) accomplishment that keeps out the hordes of fake voters. To Democrats, it's evil voter repression that freezes out huge numbers of legit eligible voters that don't have a valid ID. Both points of view are wrong.
The conservative view is wrong becau
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Regarding most of your other points - you're letting the media frenzy maching lead you around be the nose.
No, you're letting the "both sides" bullshit lead you round by the nose.
There is basically no voter fraud, especially with regards to illegal immigrants. The SAVE act raises the barrier to voting, therefore it's only logical that the vast majority of people affected by the SAVE act will be citizens. And which groups of citizens do you think it's most likely to affect?
It's not just Democrat states that a
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There are those types of countries where citizens care enough to fix their environment and get rid of their kings. And then there are other types of countries.
Re:And what exactly is illegal about this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, Hunter is a scumbag, and Biden did way too much to help him (including that pardon, though by Trump standards that was pretty mild). Beau, on the other hand, was a pretty respectable politician with nary a scandal attached to him, who sadly died way too young at 46 in 2015 (way before Biden became President, obviously).
So it's more how Biden helped his son (singular) than sons (plural).
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The potus is immune to federal law.
Well this was right on the nose (Score:4, Interesting)
Who are the petitioners ? (Score:2)
Zhaocheng Anthony Tan (California resident, software engineer, shareholder in Alphabet Inc.)
Garrett Reid (California resident, software engineer, shareholder in Meta Platforms, Inc.)