Oracle Doesn't Buy TikTok, But Gets A Lucrative Hosting Deal, And Trump & Friends Will Pretend This Means Something
from the art-of-the-grift dept
The TikTok saga, which was insanely stupid to begin with, kicked into overdrive last month when President Trump issued a blatantly unconstitutional executive order that was designed to force ByteDance to sell TikTok to an American company. We had all sorts of questions about this, but effectively ByteDance had until this week to find a buyer. While Microsoft was rumored for a while, late last night Microsoft announced that its proposal had been rejected and the only competitor left standing was... wait for it... Oracle. This led many to conclude that Oracle was buying TikTok. That is not the case. But hold on, we'll get there.
There was one other serious bidder: Walmart. Last night the company claimed it was still interested in buying TikTok, but the White House rejected that plan, because it would have made it totally obvious that the "national security" pretense for demanding the sale was obvious bullshit. Nope, the White House said: it has to be sold to a "tech" company, so that the White House can stand by its totally unsubstantiated by evidence claims that TikTok's dancing teens represented a national security threat.
So, with Walmart blocked, and Microsoft's deal not accepted, that left Oracle. But immediately the descriptions of Oracle's involvement were... weird. They very clearly did not say anything about "buying" TikTok. Instead, Oracle put out a very short press release saying that it will "serve as the trusted technology provider" to TikTok. That's not how you describe a sale.
This is a hosting deal.
Oracle will just host TikTok on its wannabe, way-behind-the-competition, cloud platform. And Trump and his cult-like supporters will pretend this actually accomplishes something. Oracle's executive suite has long been vocal Trump supporters, so this basically dumps a giant hosting contract into Oracle's lap. ByteDance will effectively still own TikTok, and Trump will pretend he's done something. For what it's worth, this is the second big Oracle cloud deal done in the last few months, with the previous one being with videoconferencing company Zoom.
As Russell Brandom over at the Verge notes, this deal "accomplished nothing." ByteDance still owns TikTok (and, according to reports, retains full control over TikTok's algorithm). As former Yahoo and Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos points out, literally none of the concerns people have raised about TikTok (most of which were bogus in the first place) are solved by an Oracle hosting deal:
A deal where Oracle takes over hosting without source code and significant operational changes would not address any of the legitimate concerns about TikTok, and the White House accepting such a deal would demonstrate that this exercise was pure grift. https://t.co/3kpwqnEYol
— Alex Stamos (@alexstamos) September 13, 2020
As Stamos points out, accepting this deal would show that it's nothing but "pure grift," basically dumping a forced contract into Oracle's lap, a company which (again) has had an executive licking Trump's boots since day one.
And people can't even truly argue that Oracle will somehow make whatever little "private" data there is on TikTok "more secure." It's not like it was just months ago that an Oracle-owned subsidiary, BlueKai, leaked data that tracked users all over the web, exposing billions of records.
In other words, the whole thing was a joke. Like so much of this administration it was performative nonsense by Trump, who was mad that some kids made him look foolish on TikTok, combined with anti-Chinese racism, to push for a deal he had no legal right to push for, resulting in a weird scramble that doesn't accomplish what he wanted, but does shift a bunch of money to some of his vocal and wealthy supporters. The "Art of the Grift."
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Filed Under: china, corruption, donald trump, grift, hosting, larry ellison, national security, security
Companies: bytedance, microsoft, oracle, tiktok
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Buyer's for the Liar-in-Chief's Pig-in-a-Poke Abound
"That's not how you describe a sale."
It's how you gull deplorable, stump-ignorant lackwits.
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Re: Buyer's for the Liar-in-Chief's Pig-in-a-Poke Abound
A practice run for the presidential election.
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The deal may well deliver one thing, a feed of data straight into that big bit barn in Utah.
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And if they don't Sell?
What will happen?
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Re: And if they don't Sell?
The Whitehouse knows they can't do anything legal to force a sale of tiktok. Thats why this deal with Oracle is happening. Trump can continue pretending that he did something while nothing really happens.
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Personal data is something
Nothing is confirmed yet, but if this is true then the deal does achieve something:
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-china-bytedance-tiktok-oracle/bytedance-drops-tiktoks- u-s-sale-to-partner-with-oracle-sources-idUKKBN265002
There are no meaningful privacy protections in USA, so once Oracle puts its hands on the data of tens of millions of teens you can be sure they'll be immediately on sale through its adtech and marketing services.
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" Oracle's executive sweet"
If intentional - brilliant.
If not - claim it was :)
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Re:
Bah. No that was not on purpose and I now need to correct it...
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Re: Re: "sweet"
Suit, suite, sweet. They're all the same, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICGwfkAYwr0
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Imagine that
Funny how often Trump and those around them always seem to come out ahead financially from his lies and PR stunts for the gullible...
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Oracle's executive ~sweet~
It's the suite life...
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This is a joke trifecta when you consider:
1) Oracle is a joke if a tech company
2) Oracle's founder and CEO is an ardent supporter of our Joker in Chief
3) Trump
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Perhaps I'm giving the god-emperor too much credit. Or not enough credit to the advisor who got through to him. This strikes me as a step back, possibly to ease international tension. Tiktok don't sell, so China gets a win it can give it's populace, and so does Trump with "we control a Chinese company" rhetoric.
Probably be wrong, but I guess I'm an eternal optimist.
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I think the concerns are legit but the way it is being raised is hypocritical and stupid. There is a risk of China's passive influence on such platforms if they silence critical commentary of the country but just screaming surveillance and privacy when the NSA does the same thing is throwing stones in a glass house.
This deal though is laughable on its face part of me wonders if Oracle in their mediocrity is considering to pull a AT&T "Hey, let's get involved with the modern media game!"
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"Trump & Friends Will Pretend This Means Something"
It does. It means that Trump has yet again been able to carry out a petty personal vendetta in abuse of his power (whether it's actually effective is irrelevant to his ego boost), and that one of his financial donors and political supporters gets to materially profit from it. And that neither of them will face consequences for such activity, even though it would have been a major scandal in any past administration.
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Still waiting for Trump & co. to explain why I should care about someone on the other side of the planet spying on me when my own government is slurping down every piece of data it can find to have a ready excuse to arrest anyone they want.
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Jim Moriarty's take
on things, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9SMnEAQggs
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