Tiktok stuff

The whole TikTok thing is pretty crazy.

- In super cringey hearings, many in the US Congress seemed downright 20th century about the whole thing, including a very strange exchange between TikTok's Singaporean CEO and Sen. Tom Cotton about whether the CEO was or ever has been a member of the Chinese communist party (he has not and Singapore is not part of China).

- Based on the supposed national security threat, Congress passes law, signed by the president that TikTok must be removed from US app providers and go offline by Sunday January 19, 2025.

- The law was challenged in court and the SCOTUS (today) denied the challenge, leaving the law in-place.

- The Biden White House (on what would be it's last full day) said it would not take any action relative the enforcement of the law, leaving it for the Trump administration.

- Trump has invited the TikTok CEO to sit in the VIP section at the inauguration on January 20, the day after the ban goes into place.

- Many US TikTok users have migrated to Red Note, a similar app that is actually Chinese - and are finding that (a) the Chinese users there are really nice and (b) some elements of life in China seem really cool if not impressive.