This headline was literally my first out-loud laugh of the day. I love it.
Meta has denied directly lobbying on the TikTok ban, but the company spent a record sum lobbying in 2024, including on “Homeland Security” topics. In March 2022, the Washington Post reported that Meta paid a firm called Targeted Victory to push the narrative that TikTok is dangerous to children. And Zuckerberg himself has spent the last five years painting a picture to Congress that his monopolistic company faces great competition, actually, from Chinese companies and more importantly from China itself. This story has served Meta extraordinarily well, as he has been able to distract from Meta’s myriad privacy violations and monopolistic actions by saying it would be worse if China wins. Meta is not a monopoly, he says. It is a company fighting on behalf of America against China and Chinese companies for the soul of the internet.
“Ooh, China bad, don’t pay attention to all the evil we do.” Jackass.
Just look at the Russian model, that’s what Trump wants to do.
You can only be a billionaire, if you do what the authoritarians want. Otherwise you get arrested or pushed out a window and they absorb all your assets… I don’t think all of these US billionaires thought this through to be honest.