TikTok is the social media sensation that all of Silicon Valley — and a lot of Washington, DC — has their eyes on. The app, created by ByteDance, became famous for rocketing musicians and dancers to stardom. But as its popularity and influence have grown, so has scrutiny of its privacy policies, security, and influence, with legislators voicing concern about its ownership by a Chinese firm. Meanwhile, social media competitors are doing everything they can to knock off TikTok’s features and usurp its short-form video dominance.
The preliminary finding in an investigation opened last year says TikTok breached the Digital Services Act’s requirements to publish information about the content of ads, which users are targeted, and who paid for them. Now it’s TikTok’s turn to respond and try to avoid a potential fine worth up to 6 percent of its annual turnover, just weeks after it was fined $600 million for breaking the bloc’s GDPR regulations.
The government’s case could come down to whether the judge thinks MeWe is a closer competitor to Instagram than TikTok.
During an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, President Donald Trump said he’d “be willing” to extend TikTok’s June 19th deadline if its China-based parent company, ByteDance, doesn’t reach a deal to divest the app’s US business in time. China backed out of a potential deal last month after Trump imposed up to 145 percent tariffs on goods imported from the country.
[bloomberg.com]
That’s according to Semafor’s White House correspondent Shelby Talcott. The TikTok turmoil is just going to go on forever, huh?
Attorney General Pam Bondi sent Apple a letter “telling the company it should follow President Donald Trump’s executive order” extending ByteDance’s deadline to sell TikTok by 75 more days, reports Bloomberg. The outlet had reported a similar letter sent to both Google and Apple prior to their decision to restore the app to their online marketplaces in February, too.
On The Vergecast: the Switch 2, tariff chaos, Microsoft’s best gadgets, and the TikTok ban.
Things are about to get even more turbulent for the tech industry.
You can now skip ahead in Reels by holding down on either edge of the screen, which plays the video at double speed. Reels started out with a 15-second cap but can now run for up to three minutes, so playback controls make sense.
TikTok thought the same thing when it added a fast-forward feature, which you enable by... holding down on either edge of the screen. What a coincidence!
Security Checkup, an all-in-one security dashboard similar to Google’s identically named tool, allows TikTok users to manage their devices, two-step verification, passkey, security activity, and account recovery options all from a single screen. The new hub can be accessed by selecting “Settings and privacy” within your TikTok profile and tapping “Security & permissions.”
The VP, who’s reportedly brokering discussions, told NBC News, “there will almost certainly be a high-level agreement that I think satisfies our national security concerns, allows there to be a distinct American TikTok enterprise.” That deal, according to The Information, will likely involve Oracle playing an active role to help run the US platform. As a reminder, the deadline comes from President Donald Trump’s 75 day ban delay, giving legally dubious cover to TikTok’s service providers.
The Reddit co-founder is now part of “The People’s Bid for TikTok,” a consortium of investors who want to buy TikTok’s US assets and put it on a decentralized, blockchain-based platform. The group, led by real estate billionaire Frank McCourt, submitted its bid for TikTok earlier this year.
Akamai delivers content for TikTok, and the company says in an SEC filing spotted by Matt Schettenhelm that, despite President Trump’s order refusing to enforce the TikTok ban, it could be exposed to liability, including things like “significant fines” and “financial loss and other similar harms by continuing to provide services to the Chinese application.”
[ir.akamai.com]
A developer named Isaac Gemal spent a few hours coding using Anthropic’s Claude last week to make WikiTok, a site with a TikTok-like presentation, but instead of vertical videos, you swipe through random Wikipedia article previews you can tap to read, ArsTechnica reports.
Gemal reportedly has no plans for an algorithm, and “liking” a post saves it to a list locally, according to the developer.
The Vice President, along with National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, has been tasked with “quarterbacking a deal to save TikTok” before President Trump’s enforcement pause deadline arrives in April, according to Punchbowl News.
The Wall Street Journal backs that up, saying Trump gave Vance the job, counting on his (reportedly unimpressive) venture capitalist background to get the deal done.
[punchbowl.news]
It’s no surprise that you can’t find it on Google TV or Apple’s tvOS after the federal TikTok ban, but Axios found that TV makers LG, Amazon, and Vizio also stopped offering the app for download.
It’s understandable. After all, who wants to risk hundreds of billions in fines to offer a social video app designed for smartphone screens?
