Don’t Say Epstein!

Summary

Patrick Boyle examines TikTok's January 22, 2026 USDS joint venture takeover, arguing that the deal did not remove algorithmic manipulation or surveillance risks but transferred control to politically connected US owners. He details the $14B bargain valuation, ByteDance's retained stake and ad/TikTok Shop operations, Oracle/Silver Lake/MGX ownership, censorship glitches, invasive new privacy terms, and the political reversal. The video concludes the new arrangement may be a domestic custody transfer rather than a privacy or security solution.

• TikTok finalized a USDS joint venture on January 22, 2026, after ByteDance agreed to divest US operations.
• The $14B deal gave Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX significant stakes, while ByteDance retained 19.9% and kept TikTok's US advertising and TikTok Shop businesses.
• Users reported blocked terms like "Epstein" and suppressed protest or ICE raid videos; TikTok blamed technical glitches and an Oracle data-center outage.
• The new terms expanded biometric, precise GPS, and sensitive personal data collection plus broad AI/content licensing with no AI-training opt-out.
• Reason magazine's rational-business-actor defense is weighed against examples from Twitter/X and Grok of ham-fisted algorithm changes.
• The political debate inverted: Republicans who once warned about Big Tech now praise the deal, while Democrats and California regulators raise censorship concerns.
• Reports of a roughly 150% jump in TikTok deletions suggest early user backlash, though the venture has not yet suffered major US user losses.