The TikTok deal is truly cynical, even by the standards established under Trump II. American billionaires will get richer, but the Chinese will still control the algorithmns and source code, which means that they will still be able to feed disinformation to more than 180 million Americans on their “feeds” and collect highly personalized data on those Americans. Oracle will “audit” the algorithmns but no one should expect Larry Ellison, the pro-Trump CEO of Oracle, to spend sufficient funds to do a thorough job. It would hurt his profits.
Another disturbing undercurrent is that Trump perceives that he will be able to use TikTok to spread his distorted version of the truth, undermining the so-called legacy media, which is already fighting for its survival in many ways.
