Romney admits TikTok ban linked to Israel’s “awful PR” on site – National & International News – TUE 7May2024

TikTok sues over US ban; Romney admits ban linked to Israel’s “awful PR”.

Trump’s classified documents trial indefinitely postponed.

TikTok sues over US ban; Romney admits ban was over Israel’s “awful PR”

Last month, President Biden signed a law (passed overwhelming in both houses of Congress) that requires the Chinese-owned of video-sharing platform TikTok either sell to a non-Chinese company or face a ban in the US. TikTok’s Singaporean CEO Shou Zi Chou quickly responded saying the company would sue to overturn the ban on First Amendment grounds. Today, TikTok and its parent company ByteDance did just that, filing a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

“For the first time in history,” the filing says, “Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban”. The company argued that the divestiture that would avoid a ban “is simply not possible: not commercially, not technologically, not legally”. They said a resulting ban would silence “the 170 million Americans who use the platform to communicate in ways that cannot be replicated elsewhere”.

Israel’s “Bad PR”

Many users of TikTok and other critics of the ban have argued that the renewed push to ban TikTok has more to do with what’s going on in Israel than what’s going on in China, or with US national security. Some have highlighted that the most vocal supporters of a ban in Congress are also major recipients of donations from AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), an umbrella group for various pro-Israel organizations.

Also worthy of note is this audio from Jonathon Greenblatt, head of the Anti-Defamation League, which has sought to equate any criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Greenblatt notes that in the US, support for Israel is no longer a “left or right” issue but a “young and old” issue. In this audio and in public appearances, Greenblatt has blamed TikTok’s algorithm for pushing pro-Palestinian content over pro-Israel content. This is a basic mischaracterization of how algorithms work. Algorithms push the content users are already looking for. 

Previously, Congressional supporters of the TikTok ban openly cited criticism of Israel on the platform as a reason to ban it. However, the ban has proved very unpopular, and there has since been a push to create distance between the pro-Israel lobby and the TikTok ban.

The Atlantic Council (a prominent think tank funded by military contractors and other major corporate interests) recently published an article blaming Iran for a “cooked up conspiracy theory” seeking to link Israel propaganda with the TikTok ban. Some news outlets have even implied that drawing a connection between the Israel lobby and the TikTok ban was antisemitic. 

Apparently, Romney and Blinken didn’t get the memo. During their conversation, Romney acknowledged a that the strong bipartisan support for the TikTok ban was due, in part, to a perception that TikTok and other social media sites were responsible for the fact that “Israel’s PR’s been so awful”.

Judge indefinitely postpones Trump’s classified documents trial

Florida federal District Judge Aileen Cannon has called off a May 20 start date for the trial over former President Trump’s mishandling of classified documents. Judge Cannon, a Trump appointee, has been criticized for overly favoring Trump in numerous rulings, and has even had rulings overturned by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. In her filing today, Cannon said her decision was due to numerous pre-trial considerations and did not reschedule the trial.

Cannon’s decision plays into Trump’s usual strategy of indefinitely delaying proceedings against him. However, it does mean that the other federal prosecution against Trump in D.C. (this one for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election result) may go ahead this summer without running into scheduling conflicts with the Florida trial.

In New York today, another criminal trial against Trump (the hush-money trial) continued with testimony from Stormy Daniels, a former porn star who claims to have had a sexual encounter with Trump. It was Ms. Daniels who was the recipient of a $130,000 payout at the heart of the trial’s allegations. Trump is alleged to have falsified business records to cover reimbursement to his former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen, who fronted the hush-money payment to Ms. Daniels. If convicted of these allegations, Trump faces up to 4 years in prison.

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