White House Supposedly Blocked Walmart From Buying Tiktok Because It Would Prove Its Rationale For Forcing A Deal Was Bullshit

from the look-at-that dept

Among the rumors of who might take over TikTok (which the Trump administration is forcing ByteDance to sell) was the surprise entrant of Walmart. While we're still waiting for the official decision, a report last week noted that the White House stepped in to tell Walmart that couldn't happen if Walmart was to be the lead buyer:

The deal structure would have had Walmart as the lead buyer, with SoftBank and Alphabet acquiring minority stakes. One or two other minority holders held talks to join the consortium, two of the people said.

Walmart wanted to be the exclusive e-commerce and payments provider for TikTok and have access to user data to enhance those capabilities, one of the people said. But the people said the U.S. government wanted the lead buyer of TikTok to be a technology company because that would better fit with its national-security rationale for forcing Chinese owner ByteDance to divest TikTok’s U.S. operations.

This is why the newer rumor is that Microsoft would be the lead, in combination with Walmart. There's no way the DOJ would allow Google to be the lead buyer for TikTok. But here we have it: proof that the White House knows its own rationale for forcing the sale of TikTok is total and complete bullshit, and it's worried that one potential buyer might underline that fact.

Of course, this raises a shit ton of questions. Going back to the original issue, why is the White House even forcing this sale in the first place? The fact that it's now effectively admitting that the "national security" rationale was bogus by telling Walmart it can't be the lead is really revealing. Not that anyone seems willing to say or do anything about this. But now it does seem abundantly clear that even the White House knows that its rationale for forcing a deal is a fraud. Then of course, why is the White House even involved in the deal at this stage, telling Walmart what it can or can't do? None of this makes any sense, and all of it is not how any of this is supposed to work.

But, of course, the anti-TikTok sentiment is so strong among many that no one's going to point out that even the White House doesn't seem to believe its own reason for forcing the deal.

Filed Under: china, national security, social media, white house
Companies: tiktok, walmart

Surprise: Report Claims Facebook Has Been Driving White House TikTok Animosity

from the manufactured-outrage dept

As we've been noting, Trump's executive order attempting to ban TikTok is not only legally unsound, it's not coherent policy. Chinese state hackers, with their unlimited budgets, can simply obtain this (and far greater) data from any of the thousands of companies in the existing, unaccountable international adtech sector, our poorly secured communications networks, or the millions of Chinese-made IOT devices or "smart" products Americans attach to home and business networks with reckless abandon. The U.S. has no privacy law and is a mess on the privacy and security fronts. We're an easy mark and TikTok is the very least of our problems.

With that as backdrop, it's clear that most of the biggest TikTok pearl clutchers in the Trump administration couldn't care less about actual U.S. consumer security and privacy. After all, this is the same administration that refuses to shore up election security, strictly opposes even the most basic of privacy laws for the internet era, and has been working tirelessly to erode essential security protections like encryption. If the U.S. was actually interested in shoring up U.S. security and privacy, we'd craft coherent, over-arching policies to address all of our security and privacy problems, not just those that originate in China.

Trump's real motivations for the ban lie elsewhere. As a delusional narcissist, some of his motivation is the attempt to portray himself as a savvy businessman, extracting leverage for a trade war with China he clearly doesn't understand isn't working, and is actually harming Americans. Spreading additional xenophobia as a party platform is also an obvious goal. But it's also becoming increasingly clear that at least some of the recent TikTok animosity is originating with Trump's newfound BFFs over at Facebook, who've been hammering Trump with claims that Chinese platforms "don’t share Facebook’s commitment to freedom of expression," and "represent a risk to American values and technological supremacy.":

"That was a message Zuckerberg hammered behind the scenes in meetings with officials and lawmakers during the October trip and a separate visit to Washington weeks earlier, according to people familiar with the matter. In a private dinner at the White House in late October, Zuckerberg made the case to President Donald Trump that the rise of Chinese internet companies threatens American business, and should be a bigger concern than reining in Facebook, some of the people said."

Nobody's getting specific on the details, but those Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, and Trump administration dinners last fall, not too surprisingly, focused a lot on the threat China poses to American industry:

"In a private dinner at the White House in late October, Mr. Zuckerberg made the case to President Trump that the rise of Chinese internet companies threatens American business, and should be a bigger concern than reining in Facebook, some of the people said."

On one hand, Facebook certainly has a case to make that if AG Bill Barr and state AGs impose poorly-constructed remedies that harm and/or hamstring Facebook, worse, less ethical foreign alternatives could come to dominate the vacuum that's created. On the other hand, this is Facebook and the Trump administration, and neither have been stellar examples of the "American values" the meetings sought to defend, so it requires some heavy logical lifting to presume Facebook's motivations here are predominately patriotic and altruistic.

Of course Facebook wants to build a narrative where U.S. companies are somehow exceptions to the privacy-violating unethical hubris that is the global norm. Of course Facebook wants to derail antitrust scrutiny of its own myriad failures and misdirect that scrutiny toward foreign competitors whose teen video data it covets. And of course Facebook wants you to believe it neither works closely with China nor exhibits many of the same bad privacy habits China routinely engages in. Aka an "opportunistic weasel," as Gizmodo puts it:

"...if these meetings happened the way the Journal is laying them out, then even if Zuckerberg isn’t guilty of calling TikTok a threat to our security, he’s very guilty of being a weasel. A weasel who isn’t afraid to cuddle up to an administration he’s ostensibly critical of, and offer up any other company, foreign or domestic, as a distraction to take the heat off antitrust scrutiny."

Facebook's self-serving posturing here may be accompanied by some legitimate concerns that hamstringing domestic social media giants in idiotic ways could only make things worse for U.S. tech in general, but it's also pretty hard to believe TikTok hysteria coincidentally reached a fevered pitch just as Facebook was unveiling its TikTok clone, Reels.

There are certainly whiffs of coordination here that go well beyond genuine concerns about the perils of regulatory over-reach. This being Facebook, how much coordination will likely emerge three months down the road, but Facebook, for its part, is claiming TikTok was never even mentioned at October meetings:

"Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone said in statement Sunday that "Mark has never advocated for a ban on TikTok." He also said it was wrong to conclude that policy decisions were driven by Zuckerberg.

"He has repeatedly said publicly that the biggest competitors to US tech companies are Chinese companies, with values that don't align with democratic ideals like free speech," he said. "It's ludicrous to suggest that long-standing national security concerns — raised by policymakers on both sides of the aisle — have been shaped by Mark's statements alone."

Zuckerberg could have easily avoided mentioning TikTok specifically at dinner, while having his policy folks and lobbyists repeatedly wind up Trump and Senate leaders on a TikTok ban. The problem with believing there's no unsavory coordination here requires leaning on reputations the Trump administration and Facebook simply don't have. Namely that either operates out of anything more than self-interest, or genuinely cares about the privacy and market ramifications of a teen dancing app. If either party is bothered by the insinuation they're not being truthful here, a good first step would be to perhaps stop lying constantly.

Whatever the motivation, it remains hard to view the TikTok ban as serious, adult policy given the track records of those involved with it, its legal shakiness, and the fact it won't actually accomplish any of its stated goals. It's a legally unworkable mountain of policy nonsense, and those who continue to pretend it's rooted in a genuine desire to protect Americans' data and security are giving the Trump administration -- and apparently Facebook -- credibility they've certainly never earned.

Filed Under: china, donald trump, mark zuckerberg, privacy, social media
Companies: facebook, tiktok

Tim Wu Joins The Ban TikTok Parade, Doesn't Clarify What The Ban Actually Accomplishes

from the fluff-and-nonsense dept

I've mentioned a few times that I don't think the TikTok ban is coherent policy.

One, the majority of the politicians pearl clutching over the teen dancing app have been utterly absent from other privacy and security debates (say like U.S. network security flaws or the abuse of location data). In fact, many of them have actively undermined efforts to shore up U.S. privacy and security, whether we're talking about the outright refusal to fund election security improvements, or repeated opposition to even the most basic of privacy laws for the modern era. Let's be clear: a huge swath of these folks are simply engaged in performative, xenophobic politics and couldn't care less about U.S. privacy and security.

Two, banning TikTok doesn't actually accomplish much of anything. It doesn't really really thwart Chinese intelligence, which could just as easily buy this data from an absolute ocean of barely regulated international adtech middlemen, obtain it from any one of a million hacked datasets available on the dark net, or steal it from the, you know, millions upon millions of "smart" and IOT devices we attach to our home and business networks with no security and reckless abandon. In full context of the U.S., where privacy and security standards are hot garbage, the idea that banning a Chinese teen dancing app does all that much is just silly.

That said, I remain surprised by the big names in tech policy who continue to believe the Trump administration's sloppy and bizarre TikTok ban accomplishes much of anything. Case in point: Columbia law professor Tim Wu, whose pioneering work on net neutrality and open platforms I greatly admire, penned a new piece for the New York Times arguing that a "ban on Tiktok is overdue." Effectively, Wu argues that because China routinely bans U.S. services via its great firewall, turnabout is fair play:

"For many years, laboring under the vain expectation that China, succumbing to inexorable world-historical forces, would become more like us, Western democracies have allowed China to exploit this situation. We have accepted, with only muted complaints, Chinese censorship and blocking of content from abroad while allowing Chinese companies to explore and exploit whatever markets it likes. Few foreign companies are allowed to reach Chinese citizens with ideas or services, but the world is fully open to China’s online companies."

Wu proceeds to insist that refusing to behave like China and ban their products in retaliation is somehow a sucker's bet:

"Some think that it is a tragic mistake for the United States to violate the principles of internet openness that were pioneered in this country. But there is also such a thing as being a sucker. If China refuses to follow the rules of the open internet, why continue to give it access to internet markets around the world?"

This being 2020, I suppose I'm not surprised to see the guy who invented the idea of net neutrality advocate that the United States begin behaving more like one of the most repressive countries on the planet in regards to technological openness. The piece doesn't spend much time (read: none whatsoever) pondering what becomes of the millions of young U.S. content creators who'll suddenly lose their platform or be shoveled off to Facebook's dull TikTok clone.

I don't agree, but at least understand why retaliation is the default instinct for so many folks on this subject given China's longstanding behavior. My problem, again, is that Wu's piece lacks any mention of what this singular ban of a teen dancing app actually accomplishes. So we ban TikTok, then what? Do we ban every single Chinese-made "smart" television in the country (TCL has a 16.5% market share)? Every single IOT device? Every crappy Chinese-made router? All global adtech? They're all technically the same type of threat, and if you're freaking about one of them, shouldn't you be advocating for a ban of all of them?

Many TikTok hyperventilators would immediately say, "yes!" We're to ignore that American governance can't even currently tie its own shoes, much less help its citizens obtain food, shelter, and aid during an avoidable health crisis. A ban on all domestic Chinese hardware, software, adtech, apps, and services (something you'd need to do to truly follow this retaliatory logic to its ultimate conclusion) is likely impossible. Context matters. And in full context, American security and privacy standards are a dumpster fire, TikTok is among the very least of our worries, and a much broader view of our security and privacy problems is necessary.

If we genuinely wanted to protect U.S. consumer data from bad actors, we'd be funding a major expansion in election security reform. We'd stop kneecapping and under-funding our privacy regulators. We'd pass a basic privacy law for the internet era. We'd hold adtech, telecom, and "big tech" companies genuinely accountable for violating consumer trust. We'd shore up the integrity of our communications networks. We'd help develop and implement security standards for IOT devices. We'd build a coherent framework of policy that protects consumers and businesses from all threats, not just Chinese apps.

To be abundantly clear we aren't doing this. We're not even anywhere close to doing this. Instead, we've spent the last month freaking out over a teen dancing app (when we weren't busy trying to ruin encryption). Despite the growing list of big policy names that somehow think this proposal makes sense, I still don't see the point.

Filed Under: apps, bans, china, data, great firewall, tim wu
Companies: bytedance, tiktok

If Oracle Buys TikTok, Would It Suddenly Change Its Tune On Section 230?

from the seems-like-an-important-question dept

Late Monday, it came out that Oracle is one of the potential American acquirers of TikTok from the Chinese company ByteDance, after President Trump ordered Bytedance sell TikTok out of spite. Microsoft has been the most talked about potential purchaser, though there were also rumors of a potential bid by Twitter.

The Oracle rumor strikes many as particularly bizarre, for good reason. Oracle is pretty much an enterprise-only focused company. However, if it has one strength it is in buying up companies and integrating them into its cashflow generation machine. I'm still not sure I see the synergies here, but perhaps Larry Ellison is finally realizing that Oracle is the opposite of cool in Silicon Valley.

However, the thing that struck me most about all of this is that Oracle is one of the main companies behind the plot to undermine Section 230. Oracle has been a funder of a weird group of anti-Section 230 activists, and has been involved in multiple anti-Section 230 crusades. And, as we've pointed out in the past, it seems pretty clear why: Oracle has always been incredibly (to a petty level) jealous of Google and Facebook's success -- and seems to see Section 230 reform as a weapon it can use to attack those companies without harming itself, since Oracle doesn't really host much user generated content.

Of course, that would change if Oracle actually ended up buying TikTok. Suddenly, it would have a massive platform full of user generated content, and it would be fascinating to watch if Oracle changes its tune on 230 (or calls off its attack dogs who keep misrepresenting 230). That would certainly be interesting. Of course, the general rumor is that Oracle is really just doing this to drive up the price for Microsoft (who Oracle is losing to in the fight for "cloud" supremacy), but President Trump has given his blessing for an Oracle/TikTok deal, which isn't too surprising, given that Oracle's top execs have been sucking up to Trump and praising him since he was elected.

Filed Under: china, section 230, user generated content
Companies: bytedance, microsoft, oracle, tiktok

So Now We Needed Another Ridiculous Executive Order About TikTok That Goes Beyond The President's Authority?

from the come-on-now dept

A week after issuing his first ridiculous executive order about TikTok, barring any transactions involving the company if it is still owned by ByteDance, President Trump decided he needed to issue a second executive order about TikTok, this one more directly ordering ByteDance to sell it. The authority used in this one is different. The first one was using the IEEPA, which is what Trump has used to claim "national security" reasons for imposing tariffs on China without Congressional approval. This time he's using 50 USC 4565, which allows the US treasury to block certain mergers, acquisitions and takeovers that might impact national security.

Except, here Trump is using that in reverse. ByteDance bought Musical.ly (and made it TikTok) two years ago. Trump didn't raise a peep at the time. To turn around now, two years later, and pretend that he can order the deal unwound is just silly.

Even if you don't trust ByteDance/TikTok, you should be absolutely concerned about this for multiple reasons: it's a clear and blatant abuse of power by the President. Allowing any President to just declare a foreign-owned company a problem and try to force it to sell to an American company is going to cause all sorts of long-term problems for the US. What's to stop foreign governments from doing the same to us? China is probably just itching to do something similar in retaliation. Second, to reach back two years and try to unwind a merger at this point based on this flimsy legal theory is just crazy as well. It's clear that this is nothing more than vindictiveness on the part of the President.

If there are real security issues with TikTok, then there should be due process. There should be investigations and evidence. Not just a childish, narcissistic President suddenly declaring that an entire company must be sold.

Filed Under: china, donald trump, due process, executive order, merger review, retaliation
Companies: bytedance, tiktok

The Idea That Banning TikTok Thwarts Chinese Intelligence In Any Way Is Ridiculous

from the sitting-at-the-kid's-table dept

As we've noted a few times, not much about the Trump administration's ban of TikTok makes coherent sense. Most of the biggest TikTok pearl clutchers in the GOP and Trump administration have actively opposed things like basic US privacy laws or even improving election security, and were utterly absent from efforts to shore up other privacy and problems, be it the abuse of cellular location data or our poorly secured telecom infrastructure. It's a bunch of xenophobia, pearl clutching, and performative politics dressed up as serious adult policy that doesn't even get close to fixing any actual problems.

And yet, many reporters and internet experts keep parroting the idea that banning TikTok somehow "protects U.S. consumers" or "prevents the Chinese government from obtaining U.S. consumer data." You're to ignore that Americans install millions of Chinese-made "smart" TVs, fridges, and poorly secured IOT gadgets on home and business networks with reckless abandon. Or that international corporations not only sell access to consumer data to any nitwit with a nickel, they often leave it unencrypted in the cloud. Or that the U.S. has no privacy law for the internet era, and corporations routinely see performative wrist slaps for privacy and security incompetence.

The idea that Chinese intelligence, with zero scruples and an unlimited budget, "needs" TikTok access to spy on Americans' data in this environment is just silly nonsense. Any yet, here we are.

It's all even more absurd when you consider the scope and complexity of global adtech markets. As Gizmodo's Shoshana Wodinsky recently explored, international adtech is a complex, unaccountable monster. This orgy of consumer tracking, behavioral data, and "anonymized" (read: not actually anonymous at all) datasets is so complex, even folks that cover the sector have a hard time understanding it. Thinking we can control what data the Chinese government is gleaning from this tangled web -- or that even selling TikTok to Microsoft somehow "fixes" anything -- is an act of hubris in full context:

"Over time, what’s become very, very clear is that while, say, Google and Facebook and TikTok are ultimately at the whims of local regulators, the same can’t be said about the digital Rube Goldberg machine of platforms, subsidiaries and shady third-parties these companies use to churn our data into massive profits. Our current digital economy, to a certain degree, depends on global ties that are built to run far deeper than any ban or buyout could ever hope to touch.

Or, to put it more bluntly: If Trump’s real concern is keeping the data of our squeaky clean American phones out of the clutches of that dirty, no-good communist adversary China, then Microsoft buying TikTok won’t do shit—our data is making its way from U.S. companies to servers in China constantly, regardless of who owns TikTok."

Thinking a ban of one Chinese teen dancing app addresses any of this is just absurd. Similarly, the idea that our defunded, understaffed, and kneecapped privacy regulators at the FTC can actively track or manage any of this (without serious reform, more staff, and a bigger budget) is equally silly:

As Wodinsky notes, if this market is so large that journalists, experts, and privacy and security regulators can't ferret out where your data winds up and who is actively cashing in on access to it, the idea that banning or selling TikTok is some mystical foil for one of the most powerful intelligence-gathering governments on the planet is a bizarre pipe dream:

"The wonderful world of digital advertising is built on black boxes inside of black boxes inside of black boxes. This means that there’s a good chunk of people who work at these companies who likely can’t tell you exactly where your name, your phone number, your precise location, or other personal data might actually end up."

And yet if you read numerous press reports and analyst insights into the TikTok fracas, they'll fail utterly to include any of this as essential context, which in turn lets the Trump administration pretend that this political tap dance is actually helpful internet policy.

Filed Under: china, data, espionage, surveillance
Companies: tiktok

Forget TikTok. Feebly Secured Infrastructure Is Our Real Problem

from the missing-the-broader-context dept

One of the dumber aspects of press coverage of the TikTok kerfuffle is the lack of broader context. How, exactly, does banning a Chinese-owned teen dancing app solve our security and privacy headaches in a world where apps and services everywhere are collecting most of the same data, if not more? And why the myopic focus on just TikTok when Americans attach millions of totally unsecured Chinese-made "smart" IOT devices to their home and business networks with reckless abandon? If you're going to freak out about U.S. consumer privacy and internet security -- why not focus on actually shoring up overall U.S. consumer privacy and security?

Many press outlets and analysts have innately bought into the idea that banning TikTok somehow seriously thwarts the Chinese government's spying efforts. In reality, China's spying capabilities, fueled by an unlimited budget, have no limit of potential other ways to get far more data thanks to United States' lax privacy and security standards. Case in point, last week in the midst of TikTok hysteria, a report quietly emerged showing that the U.S. satellite communications networks have the security of damp cardboard:

"More than a decade has passed since researchers demonstrated serious privacy and security holes in satellite-based Internet services. The weaknesses allowed attackers to snoop on and sometimes tamper with data received by millions of users thousands of miles away. You might expect that in 2020—as satellite Internet has grown more popular—providers would have fixed those shortcomings, but you’d be wrong."

The security researcher in question showcased how it wasn't particularly difficult to hack into these satellite networks to observe all manner of online activity, from airliners receiving unencrypted navigation data in flight, to utility administrators managing wind turbines. Many of these vulnerabilities have been known about for fifteen years yet still haven't been fixed:

“There are still many satellite Internet services operating today which are vulnerable to their [the previous researchers’] exact attacks and methods—despite these attacks having been public knowledge for more than 15 years at this point,” Pavur told me ahead of Wednesday’s talk. “We also found that some newer types of satellite broadband had issues with eavesdropping vulnerabilities as well."

Which is all to say: if you're going to freak out about TikTok, why not at least spend some of those calories discussing actually trying to fix our broader cybersecurity and privacy problems? Why not create systems that are simply resilient, transparent, and accountable by design?

The U.S. still doesn't have even a basic privacy law for the internet era, companies routinely face no serious penalty for privacy missteps, our privacy regulators are routinely kneecapped and under-funded, consumer data is routinely left open on the cloud, a new hack is revealed at least once a week, and nobody wants to spend the funds necessary to upgrade older infrastructure because doing so simply isn't sexy. To ignore this, then become utterly hysterical because the Chinese government might get some teen phone data, seems divorced from the broader context.

Yet most of the biggest pearl clutchers about the dangers of TikTok have been utterly absent from this broader reality.

They were nowhere to be found among efforts to fix a massive SS7 flaw that makes our cellular infrastructure vulnerable. They were dead quiet as folks tried to hold the cellular industry accountable for selling everybody's location data to any nitwit with a nickel. In fact, most of the folks that have hyperventilated the most about TikTok have repeatedly shot down attempts at internet-era privacy laws and fought against funding to secure U.S. elections. Why, it's almost as if many of them don't actually care about U.S. privacy and security, and instead are performatively upset about TikTok for xenophobic, financial, and political reasons.

Seriously concerned about U.S. cybersecurity and privacy issues? Why not work to actually try to fix those problems instead of engaging in histrionics about a teenage dancing app? Because it only takes a few hours of reading about the U.S. cybersecurity and privacy incompetence before you come to realize that TikTok is among the very least of this country's problems on that front.

Filed Under: china, infrastructure, iot, privacy, surveillance
Companies: tiktok

Gullible Maine & DHS Intel Officers Believed Teen TikTok Video Was Serious Terrorist Threat

from the this-just-keeps-getting-dumber dept

We've been noting for a few weeks that much of the hysteria surrounding TikTok is kind of dumb. For one, banning TikTok doesn't really do much to thwart Chinese spying, given our privacy and security incompetence leaves us vulnerable on countless fronts. Most of the folks doing the heaviest pearl clutching over TikTok have opposed efforts at any meaningful internet privacy rules, have opposed funding election security reform, and have been utterly absent or apathetic in the quest for better security and privacy practices over all (the SS7 flaw, cellular location data scandals, etc.).

Even the idea that banning TikTok meaningfully thwarts Chinese spying given the country's total lack of scruples, bottomless hacking budget, and our own security and privacy incompetence (the IOT comes quickly to mind) is fairly laughable. Banning TikTok to thwart Chinese spying is kind of like spitting at a thunderstorm in the hopes of preventing rain. Genuine privacy and security reform starts by actually engaging in serious privacy and security reform, not (waves in the general direction of Trump's bizarre, extortionist, TikTok agenda) whatever the hell this is supposed to be.

I see the entire TikTok saga as little more than bumbling, performative nonsense by wholly unserious people more interested in money, politics, leverage, and power than privacy or national security. Case in point: desperate to create the idea that TikTok is a serious threat, a new document leak reveals that the Department of Homeland Security has spent a good chunk of this year circulating the claim that a nineteen year-old girl was somehow "training terrorists" via a comedy video she posted to TikTok.

According to Mainer, the video in question was sent to police departments across Maine by the Maine Information and Analysis Center (MIAC), part of the DHS network of so-called "Fusion Centers" tasked with sharing and and distributing information about "potential terrorist threats." The problem: when you dig through the teen in question's TikTok posts, it's abundantly clear after about four minutes of watching that she's not a threat. The tweet itself appears to have been deleted, but it too (duh) wasn't anything remotely resembling a genuine terrorist threat or security risk:

"In the TikTok clip, Weirdsappho first displays a satirical tweet from the stand-up comedian Jaboukie Young-White, a correspondent for The Daily Show, that “thanks” police for “bringing in the army” to combat peaceful protests against police brutality. The tweet encourages protestors to throw “water balloons filled w sticky liquids (esp some sort of sugar/milk/syrup combo)” at tanks, in order to “support our troops."

And yet, after the clip got picked up and spread around by a handful of Qanon conspiracy cultists, it was, in turn, picked up and spread around by utterly unskeptical and uncritical agents at DHS and MIAC, who have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to far right extremism (for what should be obvious reasons), but can be easily worked into a lather where the vile menace "antifa" is concerned:

"Fusion Centers like MIAC, which is headquartered in Augusta and run by the Maine State Police, are engaged in a pattern of spreading misinformation, based on far-right rumors, that raise fears of leftist violence at peaceful protests against police brutality. Earlier this month, Mainer exposed how two social media posts by unreliable sources became fodder for official warnings about anarchist “plots” to leave stacks of bricks at protest sites for use as weapons against police.

In a July 15 article based on the BlueLeaks files, The Intercept revealed how DHS and its fusion centers are hyping far-fetched plots by alleged anti-fascist “antifa” activists despite evidence that far-right extremists pose actual threats to law enforcement personnel and protesters."

The idea that law enforcement and "intelligence officials" can't (or just won't) differentiate between joking political teen videos and serious terrorism threats should be terrifying to anybody with a whit of common sense. But it's not just part and parcel for a law enforcement and intel community that apparently can't behave or think objectively, it's par for the course for this wave of TikTok hysteria that's not based on much in the way of, you know, facts.

Filed Under: comedy, dhs, maine, satire, terrorist content, terrorist threat
Companies: tiktok