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President Trump suggests allies like Larry Ellison and the Murdochs could control TikTok's U.S. operations. This raises questions about potential partisan influence on the algorithm, pending Chinese government approval. #TikTok #Trump #algorithm #Murdoch #Ellison
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President Trump now says the tech
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billionaires Larry Ellison and Michael
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Dell plus the Murdoch Lachland and
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Rupert Murdoch could be part of the Tik
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Tok deal. CNN chief media analyst Brian
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Stelter is with us now. What exactly do
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we know about the deal and most
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importantly the algorithm?
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Let's start at the most important detail
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of all. All of this requires the
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approval of the Chinese government and
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it is not at all clear that that
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approval is actually about to happen.
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And although the Chinese president did
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make some uh positive uh signals about
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this last week after his call with
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President Trump, it is quite clear that
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China views the tick tock situation in
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the US as a very valuable point of
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leverage. So we can come back to that in
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a moment. But what we do know over the
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weekend is that President Trump talked
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about some of the expected investors in
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this American consortium. This
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consortium would control the US
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operations of Tik Tok including that all
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powerful algorithm which would
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apparently be retrained using servers
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belonging to Oracle. Uh that's the
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company uh that is controlled by Larry
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Ellison the billionaire tech mogul who
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is a friend of President Trump's.
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Notably Trump said over the weekend in
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an interview on Fox News that Fox's
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owners may also be involved in the
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consortium. This was a new bit of news
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that Trump seemed to enjoy revealing on
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Fox's uh uh cable uh network. He said
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that Rupert Murdoch and Laughlin Murdoch
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are in talks about having a stake in the
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venture. Now, I'm told by a person
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familiar with the matter, this means
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that Fox Corporation as a company would
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actually be getting a small stake in Tik
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Tok. So if you think about this, Larry
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Ellison, a friend of the president, the
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Murdochs, uh these billionaires who are
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going to be in this American Investor
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Consortium, they are of course Trump
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friendly and Trump adjacent. And that
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raises new questions about how the
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algorithm, how the Tik Tok app could be
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used to influence a partisan political
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agenda. If there were lots of concerns
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30 years ago uh about media mogul owning
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conservative cable channels like Fox
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News, well the new era, the new digital
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age question is about who owns the
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algorithms. Witness Elon Musk hanging
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out with Trump last night in Arizona. So
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this detail about the Murdoch is
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interesting. We don't know yet if this
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is actually going to come together or
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not. And most importantly, we don't know
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if China is actually going to allow this
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deal to move forward. Uh the expectation
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according to analysts have spoken to CNN
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is that China is using Tik Tok as a form
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of leverage to extract concessions from
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the US that it believes are much more
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consequential. die.
#Government
#Politics