For the Democrats, 2024 was a fateful year, and 2025 is set to be, by all accounts, even worse. This is due to the eventual coming to power of Donald Trump. Republicans are strengthening their positions, with an increasing number of people shifting from the liberal camp to the conservative one. The symbol of the changes was the refusal of Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of Meta and the founder of Facebook, from further cooperation with the Democrats and his open support for Trump.
Times dictate its rules. Even though the “fact-checking” that Zuckerberg disbanded helped to “moderate” content, in the vast majority of cases it was perceived as some kind of censorship. It was handled by “independent third-party organizations certified by the independent International Fact-checking Network or the European Fact-Checking Network.” Meta CEO said it was necessary “to get back to their roots and restore free expression on Facebook and Instagram.” Moreover, he plans to move the Meta content moderation team from California to Texas and “continue to fight against censorship in other countries with US President-elect Donald Trump.”
It turns out that this urge to make social networks more open is dictated by the strive to ensure freedom of speech. However, in fact, it would be possible to do this without reference to politics. Nevertheless, in his video message, Mark Zuckerberg unobtrusively mentioned Donald Trump. The relocation of the teams to Texas also indicates a shift in the company’s policy. Previously, fact-checking was mainly carried out on posts that did not correspond to liberal values, but now the situation has changed 180 degrees.
Social networks are no longer so open, and the government is increasingly trying to control them. The rejection of fact–checking is just a shield behind which the Meta’s reorientation towards conservative users is hidden. This means that there will be direct state control.
The Tik Tok case is therefore quite indicative. The impact of this social network on American society is now greater than ever. People perceive information that is colorful and presented interactively much more. The fact that TikTok belongs to China is causing concern among the American authorities. They fear that the Chinese will be able to spread ideas alien to Western society in the American environment. In this regard, it was decided to limit the work of the social network, which 170 million Americans have access to.
The short-form video app lost to the Joe Biden administration in a dispute against the primacy of the “TikTok ban bill” and is forced to look for outside buyers of its American division. The current deadline expired on January 19, just a day before the inauguration of Donald Trump, who started a war with TikTok in his first term. However, Donald Trump himself does not rule out that after taking office, he will extend the period during which the social network will have to find a buyer in the United States.
Initially, the process stalled after Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. Nevertheless, there have been repeated warnings from the American authorities that the Chinese Communist Party is using the application to collect users’ data. John Kirby, Strategic Communications Coordinator for the White House National Security Council, said in April 2024 that “every American ought to be concerned” over the TikTok situation. “We don’t know what ByteDance and what the Chinese Communist Party could do with the information that they can glean off of Americans use of the application,” he said. In addition, the US authorities fear that TikTok may use the recommendation feed to “spread disinformation.”
The president-elect opposes blocking the social network, believing that it will harm millions of American users. But at the same time, Trump agrees that TikTok poses a threat to the country’s national security, so he supports its sale to the American owner. The Democrats’ calls not to limit the work of the social network and to extend the search time for a buyer in the United States did not receive a response from Joe Biden. Senator Ed Markey introduced a bill to postpone the deadline from January 19 by another 270 days, but it also failed.
Now that TikTok has lost its multimillion audience in America, the company’s management will have to act more actively, because time is money. Chinese officials initially considered banning the social network in the United States preferable to the forced sale of the business. Although ByteDance, which owns TikTok, has promised that it will not transfer them to the Chinese government, even if Beijing demands it, few people believe in this statement. China’s influence on businesses based in this country is too great.
Donald Trump is trying to get his hands on all those resources that could potentially harm him or increase his influence on Americans. There is no doubt that TikTok will be acquired by a company or a person who enjoys the full confidence of the Republican. In order to popularize the values that Donald Trump himself believes in, Internet resources are needed and TikTok is the last of the remaining ones. This is the real reason for such harsh conditions on the part of the American administration. A social network owned by China, against which Donald Trump is once again trying to start a trade war, should not work in the United States.
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