The Supreme Court on Friday announced its decision to uphold the ban on video-sharing platform TikTok. This means app stores will no longer be allowed to offer the app for download.
In its ruling, the court highlighted the unique national security threat the app poses since ByteDance, a China-based company, owns it. It discussed concerns that the company would be compelled to share data collected from American users with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
As noted in the ruling, “ByteDance Ltd. owns TikTok’s proprietary algorithm, which is developed and maintained in China.” The ruling also suggests that Chinese law empowers its regime to force companies to funnel data to it, thereby making TikTok a potential “espionage tool of China.”
Congress passed legislation in April 2024 requiring ByteDance, the China-based company that owns TikTok, to sell the app or cease operations in the United States. It mandates that tech companies such as Apple or Google not include TikTok in its app stores, preventing users from downloading or updating it.
The measure does not prohibit Americans from using the app. However, if people are unable to keep up with the updates, the app will eventually be rendered inoperable.
The law is set to take effect on January 19, one day before Trump’s inauguration.
The legislation was passed amid concerns over national security. Proponents argue that China’s government might compel ByteDance to share Americans’ data with the regime. They also expressed concerns that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might use the app to spread anti-American and pro-China propaganda. The law is intended to ensure the app is not under the control of a hostile foreign government.
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Schweizer: The Only Opinion on TikTok That Counts Is the Chinese Communist Party’s
With the U.S. Supreme Court set to rule on a law that could force the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok to shut down, there has been fierce debate about whether TikTok is an avatar of free speech in the digital age or a threat to national security. There is also shifting opinion from President-elect Donald Trump, who once supported banning the highly addictive video app from American app stores but now wants to slow things down.
“The opinion that ultimately matters here is the opinion of the Chinese, the people who control this app,” says Peter Schweizer on the latest episode of the Drill Down podcast. And that opinion, Schweizer says, is that TikTok is a valuable weapon in Communist China’s war with the West.
Schweizer’s 2024 bestseller Blood Money revealed the close ties between TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, and Chinese intelligence. That revelation stirred Congress to look into the matter, and ultimately resulted in legislation that effectively forces digital apps owned by foreign adversaries to be sold to Americans or be shut down.
Schweizer says the real verdict will come after the Supreme Court’s decision; what will China do after the Court rules? Any sale of TikTok would have to be approved by the Chinese government, as well as by U.S. regulators, he notes. Both Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta would like to buy the app, just to kill it. The app has 4.9 billion downloads worldwide.
Schweizer points out that if China refuses to agree to a sale, it is because, as he disclosed in Blood Money, the algorithm used by the app is considered a state secret, not a regular “business” secret. The Chinese government has been quoted calling the app “a modern-day Trojan Horse” and a “key part of their information-driven mental warfare” against the West. The book showed that ByteDance does joint research with Chinese intelligence agencies on how to manipulate people online.
“China has been studying this for years,” he adds.
India recognized the threat posed by TikTok and banned it in that country. This weekend, the U.S. could follow suit, depending on whether the Court approves the ban.
TikTok was already on the radar of social media critics when Blood Money debuted in Feb. of 2024. The book documented the close coordination between ByteDance, Chinese intelligence, and the CCP. Shortly afterward, Schweizer and other GAI researchers met with members of the House Select Committee and various senators to share details of the research they had done on TikTok. Two months later, Congress passed, and President Biden signed, a law requiring divestment of TikTok to an American company, which set the stage for this week’s court battle.
“It’s funny that the fate of TikTok, which is for teenagers, will be decided by the Supreme Court, which has a median age of about 70, and a U.S. president-elect who is 78,” quips co-host Eric Eggers.
“Trump now appears to want a delay,” Schweizer noted, “probably because what he really wants is to use a possible ban as leverage in dealing with China on other matters such as fentanyl and tariffs.”
The hosts also consider what kinds of whack-a-mole games might happen if TikTok is banned. Already, media reports on the growth of a similar, Chinese app called “Little Red Book” have appeared. Will this set off an endless “ban-the-app” game?
“China will have to decide to sell the app or let it die,” Schweizer says. “So, if they don’t agree to sell it, it means China would rather let it die than give up the algorithm that makes it go.”
The power of that algorithm as an influencer on young minds is obvious when comparing TikTok’s curation of silly dance videos with the science experiments and Chines literature discussions available on its China-only version, known as Douyin. “Douyin is celery and carrots. TikTok is a big bag of doughnuts,” Eggers says.
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CAUGHT ON VIDEO: Orange County, CA Election Worker Repeatedly Scans Huge Stack of Ballots THREE TIMES — Election Official Responds
In a bombshell revelation, TGP contributor Joe Hoft and his team at JoeHoft.com have raised serious questions about ballot counting procedures in Orange County, California.
Reviewing video footage from the Orange County ballot counting facility on the evening of Friday, November 8, 2024, Joe identified a troubling incident: an election worker appeared to process a large batch of ballots through a voting machine three separate times.
“We don’t know if there is a legitimate reason for the worker’s actions,” Joe wrote, adding, “But the worker pushed the same batch through the machine three times. (Each ballot is to be counted only once.)”
This activity allegedly occurred shortly before the facility had received a bomb threat, forcing the evacuation of staff and public observers.
The Gateway Pundit previously reported that a bomb threat was called into the Santa Ana building where counting was going on.
In a statement, Orange County Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley Page sought to reassure the public, saying, “The Orange County Registrar of Voters is committed to ensuring equal access to the election process, protecting the integrity of votes, and maintaining a transparent, accurate, and fair election system.”
Page explained that the bomb threat, sent via email, was immediately addressed by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, already present on-site as part of standard security protocols during ballot processing.
Now, in response to Joe’s explosive reporting, the Registrar’s office provided a detailed explanation to The Gateway Pundit.
According to their statement, the worker seen scanning the ballots three times was not committing fraud but rather following a standard protocol to address “scanner errors.”
Orange County Registrar of Voters said in a statement:
In his post, Joe Hoft stated: “We don’t know if there is a legitimate reason for the worker’s actions.”
The answer is “Yes.” This video shows an Orange County election worker scanning a batch of ballots three times, but only saving the batch once.
This is shown at the 1:25 mark of the video Mr. Hoft posted when following her third scan of the batch of ballots, a batch report printed from the printer at the end of the table, which she then attached to the top of the batch of ballots. This batch report did not print the first two times she scanned the batch of ballots, meaning she did not save those scans.
She likely scanned the batch of ballots twice and then cleaned the scanner before scanning the batch of ballots a third time because during the first two scans some of the ballots were rejected by the scanner. Given the large number of vote-by-mail ballots we must scan during an election, we must regularly clean the scanners.
We complete quality checks and audits to ensure ballots are only counted once and accurately, including:
- Other Orange County election workers later quality checked the batch of ballots in this video two additional times, making sure the ballots in the batch match the information printed on the report. We do not upload any batch of ballots into the tally until these two reviews are completed.
- Before I certified the results of the election, we audited the results of each of the 171 contests on the ballot. The audit was conducted by randomly selecting one percent of the precincts in the county (23) and then selecting additional precincts (62) until every contest was included. Then four-person audit teams hand counted every ballot in those selected precincts. Our audit teams hand counted about 40,000 ballots for this election. These hand-counted results were compared to the voting system tally, finding that the results of each contest was correct. You can review information about these audits on our website at ocvote.gov/audit.
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