Latest / Never Post / News Post: Is It Time To Delete TikTok?

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News Post: Is It Time To Delete TikTok? · Never Post

0:10
Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a
0:13
podcast for and about the Internet. I'm your host Mike
0:16
Rugnetta. This intro was written on Wednesday, 01/28/2026 at
0:21
09:47AM eastern, and we have a considered show for you today.
0:29
This episode marks the first in a change to the way that we are
0:33
producing and releasing Neverpost, which you can hear
0:37
more about in detail in our state of the pod upload from a
0:42
few weeks ago. But the long and short is in this news episode,
0:46
me, Hans, and Georgia take a look at the saga of the sale of
0:51
TikTok.
0:52
How over the last six years and two presidents we got to where
0:56
we are today. And then we ask, is this really where we want to
1:03
be? But right now, we're gonna take a quick break. You're gonna
1:06
listen to some ads unless you're on the member feed. And when we
1:09
return, we're gonna talk about a few of the things that have
1:11
happened since the last time you heard from us.
1:15
Also, you might notice that I sound a little bit different
1:17
this episode. It's because the power in the studio is out,
1:22
which is a fun thing to have happen when it's eight degrees
1:25
outside. So I am recording on my mobile setup. Back to my normal
1:30
microphone and setup hopefully in the next upload. Fly me to
1:36
the moon and let me play among the stars.
1:38
Let me see seven stories on Jupiter and Mars. Kalshi, a New
1:44
York based prediction market web service comparable to Polymarket
1:48
was sued last September by Massachusetts AG Andrea Joy
1:53
Campbell, who said the company allowed people to place bets on
1:56
the outcomes of sporting events without being licensed to do so
2:02
in the state. On the January 20, Campbell got a court order to
2:07
prevent Kalshi from operating within the state, saying in a
2:11
statement that the move is part of her, quote, ongoing efforts
2:14
to combat the public health harms associated with sports
2:18
betting and gambling, especially among young people, end quote.
2:23
That court order is now on hold. Calshey claims it is
2:27
appropriately regulated federally and that Massachusetts
2:31
should butt out.
2:32
Suffolk County judge Barry Smith disagrees and says the temporary
2:36
injunction will hold but is giving both sides until February
2:40
4 to confirm. The Boston Globe reports that if the injunction
2:44
holds, which it seems like it will, Kulsi might be unavailable
2:47
in Massachusetts for months or years while litigation unfolds.
2:52
It's unclear what this means for other prediction markets like
2:56
Polymarket. Hackers are fighting back against ICE, the
3:03
militarized federal police force currently occupying several
3:06
American cities, kidnapping innocent people including
3:09
toddlers and children, and who People Magazine reports are
3:12
responsible for quote at least thirty two deaths in the last
3:16
year. Tech Dirt reports that hackers have started to chip
3:19
away at the extensive surveillance dragnet employed by
3:22
ICE and the CBP to inform and manage their campaigns of state
3:26
sponsored violence.
3:28
The projects range from the fairly straightforward like ICE
3:31
list wiki, which aggregates publicly available information
3:34
about ICE and its operations, to the more technologically
3:38
involved like apps and gadgets which allow people to track the
3:41
presence of surveillance equipment like flock cameras,
3:44
drones, and Ray Ban meta sunglasses. Tech Dirt is also
3:48
currently suing the US DOJ over the removal of ice tracking apps
3:53
from the Apple App Store, citing the possibility that the
3:56
government engaged in, quote, unconstitutional coercion to
4:00
restrict constitutionally protected speech documenting
4:03
public information. France has officially banned Zoom and Teams
4:14
for its federal workers. As part of the growing digital
4:17
divestiture movement whereby governments and other
4:20
institutions are seeking to move away from US based technologies,
4:24
France has announced its plans to restrict the use of Zoom,
4:28
Teams, Google Meet, and other American platforms for video
4:32
conferencing, opting instead for the domestically developed
4:35
Vizio. This comes on the heels of a previous requirement that
4:39
French officials discontinue the use of WhatsApp and Telegram.
4:43
Now, if we can just make it illegal for anyone in The US to
4:47
use Teams as well, we'd really be cooking. Shopify will let you
4:59
hawk your wares in, chat GPT, and levy an additional 4% fee
5:05
for the pleasure. Purchases via other artificial intelligence
5:09
services like Google's Gemini will not trigger additional
5:12
fees, reports payments.com. This is part of a new set of features
5:16
Shopify is calling agentic storefronts where people can
5:20
browse, compare, ask questions about, and ultimately purchase
5:24
items via AI chat services. Over the last year or so, massive
5:29
payment processors like Visa and Mastercard have spilled much ink
5:33
and spent all kinds of money forwarding the idea that the
5:36
future of payments is so called agentic commerce, where
5:41
consumers are accompanied and aided by all manner of AI
5:45
agents.
5:45
In October, on the topic, consulting giant McKinsey
5:49
described it as quote, a rethinking of shopping itself in
5:53
which the boundaries between platforms, services, and
5:56
experiences give way to an integrated intent driven flow
6:01
through highly personalized consumer journeys that deliver a
6:05
fast, frictionless outcome. Craig of list fame isn't going
6:12
to be funding as much journalism anymore. Newmark most famously
6:18
lent his surname to the eponymous j school at CUNY, but
6:22
says that his decades of giving to support journalistic
6:25
endeavors haven't had the impact that he hoped. Talking to Neiman
6:29
Lab, he says quote, I really didn't understand that audience
6:32
development and related marketing needed to be a really
6:36
big deal for everyone in journalism and didn't understand
6:41
that very few really good journalists were aware of that.
6:45
But I've started discussing that in maybe every engagement, end
6:50
quote.
6:51
Newmark explains his big question for journalistic orgs
6:54
going forward is whether they plan to attempt growing outside
6:58
of their very narrow base and emphasizes that it is a massive
7:02
undertaking simply keeping journalists safe in today's
7:07
climate. He plans going forward to focus his philanthropy more
7:11
heavily on cyber security as well as veterans and their
7:14
families. DuckDuckGo asked and you answered. The privacy
7:20
focused search product asked its users a simple question to vote
7:24
for one of two options, yes AI or no AI. And 90 of respondents
7:32
chose no AI.
7:35
The vote seems to be a way to announce the search site's
7:38
bifurcated approach. Votes for yes or no led to two different
7:43
versions of the site. According to a statement by CEO Gabriel
7:46
Weinberg, no ai.duckduckgo.com turns off search assist buttons
7:52
to duck.ai and automatically turns on the hide AI images
7:57
filter. While yes ai.duckduckgo.com turns search
8:02
assist too often, features duck AI on the homepage, and turns
8:07
off the hide AI images filter. At the time of writing, duck
8:12
duck go has just released its first public statement about the
8:16
result emphasizing that their approach to AI going forward
8:19
will always be one involving choice on the part of the end
8:23
user.
8:24
Georgia Hampton: Thank you.
8:25
Mike Rugnetta: And finally, TikTok is now under majority
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control by US interests. On January 22, a deal was finalized
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bringing the app previously controlled by Chinese based tech
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company, ByteDance, to American data centers and under the
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control of American business interests and to some degree or
8:47
another, maybe, the American government. After a short break,
8:54
Hans, Georgia, and I discuss. Joining me to discuss are Never
9:25
Post senior producer Hans Buto
9:27
Hans Buetow: TikTok.
9:29
Mike Rugnetta: And Never Post producer Georgia Hampton.
9:31
Georgia Hampton: I don't know what to do.
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Mike Rugnetta: Friends friends, hello. Okay. So before we really
9:39
get into the discussion part of this, I wanna go over the
9:42
history of this so far, which has been fast, because it's
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been, both multiple years and multiple presidents.
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Hans Buetow: Yeah. Where do you start? Right?
9:52
Mike Rugnetta: Where do you It turns out you start in 2020.
9:54
Hans Buetow: Okay. Okay. Okay.
9:55
Mike Rugnetta: So in 2020, Trump says that TikTok should be
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banned, over national security concerns that the Chinese owned
10:03
app is a threat to American national security. ByteDance,
10:07
then its parent company, sues and wins, and then Joe Biden
10:12
gets in off us. Right. He reverses Trump's executive
10:17
order, and sends the issue to lawmakers who say almost the
10:21
same thing as Trump. So congress passes a law that Biden then
10:26
signs, which says that TikTok has to be sold to US interests
10:30
within a certain amount of time.
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Hans Buetow: Let me see if I got this straight. Biden said, Trump
10:36
is wrong. You don't have to sell. Congress said, no. You do.
10:39
And then Biden was like, never mind. Yeah. You do.
10:41
Mike Rugnetta: Biden says, we shouldn't do this with an EO. We
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should do this with law.
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Hans Buetow: Like, we should proper channels. We should do
10:48
Mike Rugnetta: this based on evidence.
10:49
Georgia Hampton: Got it.
10:49
Mike Rugnetta: And we're gonna go, and I'm gonna ask for a
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commission to look at the national security's concerns
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that are possible with this Chinese owned app, and they're
10:58
gonna advise me and blah blah blah blah blah. And what comes
11:01
out at the end is basically the same thing that came out, you
11:06
know, a couple years earlier or a year or two earlier, which was
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like, yeah, it seems like this could be a problem. We should
11:12
figure out how to solve this from a national security
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perspective.
11:16
Hans Buetow: But with the backing of congress at this time
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instead of just Correct.
11:20
Mike Rugnetta: Yes. We should do this with laws instead of just
11:22
with shouting, which really just is the the only difference there
11:25
is that there is a ostensibly a piece of paper or at least
11:28
Hans Buetow: piece of paper. Shouting in different registers
11:31
Georgia Hampton: Yeah. And in a very carpeted room. Right.
11:34
Mike Rugnetta: Yes. Really, that's what it is. That's the
11:36
difference. The idea of
11:37
Georgia Hampton: a carpet of a rug. Yes. A carpet, lacquered
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wood.
11:41
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Yeah. So congress passes a law that Biden
11:44
signs, which says that TikTok has to be sold to US interests
11:48
within a certain amount of time. ByteDance then sues again.
11:53
Right.
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Trump gets back in office with a changed tune. He's not so
11:58
adamant now that it needs to go. Okay. So both ByteDance and
12:03
Trump ask the Supreme Court to delay a ruling on whether the
12:08
law banning TikTok if it doesn't get sold is constitutional. The
12:13
Supreme Court says, uh-uh.
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We're gonna rule. They say that it is constitutional, and so
12:19
then, as we
12:20
Hans Buetow: all remember constitutional, like, the the
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law saying no TikTok is constitutional.
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Mike Rugnetta: Is constitutional. Yes. And that is
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why TikTok is banned for, like, sixteen hours.
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Georgia Hampton: I was gonna say
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Hans Buetow: It goes away last January.
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Georgia Hampton: Yeah. We're getting to that moment. Can I
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Hans Buetow: ask a clarifying question really quick, Mike,
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about while all this is swirling, how how are we able to
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do this about a Chinese company? Do they have an American
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contingent to them?
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Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. I mean, there are TikTok US offices here
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in New York.
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Hans Buetow: And so because of that, they're subject to
12:51
Mike Rugnetta: Absolutely. They operate in The United States.
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They have local offices. Yeah. Like every tech company, you
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know, they are, beholden to the jurisdiction of the markets in
13:00
which they operate.
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Hans Buetow: Totally.
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Mike Rugnetta: You know, there's there's all kinds of regulation
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that they need to comply with. You know, famously, California
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has really specific regulations that they need to abide by. And,
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you know, we'll talk about this later, but there's all this
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concern about American data being sent overseas to the
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Chinese parent company being held in Chinese data centers,
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and TikTok US, at least, maintained for quite a while
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that if that did happen, it didn't happen to the degree that
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it would be like a national security concern. That it would
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basically just be like anonymized data for compliance
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and, like, you know, business operations and stuff. And it's
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not like we're sending every video scanned Right.
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And AI monitored over to our Chinese counterparts. So the
13:48
Zoom
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Hans Buetow: and enhance. Zoom and enhance on everything.
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Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Exactly. It's not being stored in Chinese
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data centers, right, which is like the the idea that was
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forwarded by a lot of people at the time.
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Georgia Hampton: The feeling I remember from when TikTok was
14:01
banned for, you know, less than a day was that somehow that
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would happen. Like, the threat of that was real.
14:10
Mike Rugnetta: I mean, I think in the minds of in my
14:12
perspective, at least, it was in the minds of some people it was.
14:17
Yep. They're they're gonna come and get your data, which I mean,
14:20
you know, again, we can talk about this behind a little bit,
14:22
but, like They're spoilers. Everybody's coming to get your
14:24
data, honey.
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Georgia Hampton: I was gonna say, I Sweet child. Going to be.
14:29
Mike Rugnetta: They're all coming for it. Everyone wants
14:31
it. Yep. So, anyways, so TikTok is banned for a very short
14:36
amount of time. Trump then signs another executive order saying
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that the law should not be enforced and the app returns.
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And at the time, I had posted something like, it will be funny
14:49
to look back on this in four years and see how the total
14:54
dissolution of law in The United States began with an executive
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order unbanning a popular video app. Mhmm. And well Well
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Hans Buetow: and here we are.
15:06
Georgia Hampton: Here we are.
15:07
Mike Rugnetta: So after several extensions to the requirement
15:12
for the sale, a sale is brokered between ByteDance, who will
15:16
retain a 20% stake in the American offshoot of this
15:21
Chinese social media
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Hans Buetow: app Okay.
15:23
Mike Rugnetta: With tech giant Oracle, who is helmed by the
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Trump friendly CEO Larry Ellison, who is himself father
15:33
to the Paramount Skydance and CBS owner David Ellison.
15:37
Hans Buetow: Perfect. Cool. No notes.
15:39
Mike Rugnetta: No notes. Private equity group Silver Lake, who
15:42
have made investments in Mhmm. Get ready. Okay. Electronic
15:46
Arts.
15:47
Yep. Airbnb. Yep. Oh. Waymo.
15:51
Dell. What? Skype. Woah. And Klarna.
15:58
Hans Buetow: Am now laying on
15:59
Mike Rugnetta: the ground.
16:02
Georgia Hampton: Not Klarna.
16:04
Mike Rugnetta: And Abu Dhabi based investment firm MGX who
16:09
focuses entirely on artificial intelligence technologies. So,
16:14
like, they are partnering with NVIDIA and OpenAI and, like, all
16:20
of the people you would expect to be on that list.
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Georgia Hampton: Stream blunt rotation. Am I right?
16:25
Hans Buetow: Dys dystopic cyberpunk blunt rotation. God.
16:30
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. All that's missing is can we get Peter
16:32
Thiel in here somehow? Literally.
16:34
Hans Buetow: If only.
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Mike Rugnetta: Each firm is gonna hold a 15% stake in
16:38
TikTok. The LLC, which has been formed to operate the platform,
16:43
is called TikTok USDS Joint Ventures LLC. USDS standing for
16:51
the United States Digital Service, which is the
16:54
traditional name
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Hans Buetow: Oh, no. For what
16:56
Mike Rugnetta: has more recently been known as Doge. Good lord.
17:02
So all of those investors, anybody who is operating the
17:05
platform, which is primarily gonna be Oracle and various
17:08
other, you know, entities, they're all operating under this
17:13
TikTok USDS joint ventures LLC. So I mean, my first question
17:18
that I have written down here is one that I feel like we already
17:21
know the answer to, which is, you know, how do we just feel
17:25
generally about this about this outcome of things? How does this
17:31
group of people make us feel in comparison to say, like, Mark
17:35
Zuckerberg and Meta or, you know, Elon Musk and X?
17:42
Just the the various other people who helm all of the
17:46
social media networks that we use every single day. Like, do
17:50
we feel like this group is better? Is this group worse? Is
17:52
this group the same? How do we how do you feel?
17:56
Hans Buetow: I feel like this group is more directly connected
18:00
to existing media infrastructure in a way that makes me nervous.
18:07
So the fact that they also that they are cousins with CBS News,
18:15
with Barry Weiss's Free Press, with, like, all the stuff that
18:19
we're watching happen there, we already know what their
18:22
priorities are. We already know what their ethics are. We
18:25
already know what their journalistic integrity is. We
18:28
already know what their sense of privacy is.
18:30
That all just becomes transferred in. Right?
18:32
Georgia Hampton: Oh, yeah. It is a very terrifying thing to
18:37
behold in a very different way. Because with, Mike, the examples
18:41
you gave of Mark Zuckerberg and Meta or Elon Musk and X, you
18:47
have this sort of mad king situation. But there is
18:51
something uniquely chilling about how structured and
18:56
organizational this is, where there isn't some guy who's
19:04
running amok.
19:05
Mike Rugnetta: Sure. Like, Elon Musk is like a piece of shit and
19:09
not good at running a company very clearly. Still very, very,
19:13
very, very, very dangerous
19:15
Georgia Hampton: Yes.
19:15
Mike Rugnetta: But is but is a bit of a clown. People like
19:18
Larry and David Ellison appear to be very good and practiced at
19:22
making the world worse.
19:23
Hans Buetow: Mhmm. But are they better in this particular
19:26
instance? Part of what made TikTok glorious was the careful
19:30
refinement of the FYP and the algorithm and maintaining the
19:35
algorithm in a certain way, which if there's pressure being
19:40
put by these people who, yes, know how to make the structural
19:42
changes, they know like, oh, we wanna highlight this or de
19:46
highlight that or de emphasize this or like if they wanna make
19:48
changes, when you start putting those sort of external pressures
19:52
into the tenderness of a delicate little algorithm, is
19:58
what they're able to be good at translatable into an algorithm
20:02
that makes it work.
20:03
Mike Rugnetta: So they have said I have seen two what feel to me
20:06
like conflicting reports, which is, hey, if you're a TikTok user
20:11
and you like the algorithm, don't worry. The TikTok
20:14
algorithm is is not going anywhere. It's Okay. It you're
20:17
gonna get the same, like, service that you expect. You're
20:21
gonna get a feed that's tailored to your interests, etcetera,
20:25
etcetera, etcetera.
20:26
But then I've also seen we're gonna be retraining the
20:29
algorithm specifically for US audiences. It is our job now to
20:33
maintain. Yeah. You know, it is a domestic operation, so we're
20:36
not relying on Chinese artificial intelligence. You
20:39
know, that was the security concern to begin with.
20:42
So it's all domestic now, and we're gonna retrain everything
20:45
and, like, here we go. Don't worry. I can see how those two
20:50
if you're, like, inside it, those two things seem do not
20:54
seem like they contradict one another. Right. To me, they very
20:57
much do contradict one another.
20:59
Absolutely. Oh,
21:00
Georgia Hampton: I mean, the word tailoring is doing a lot of
21:04
smoothing over here of, cool. Yeah. No. For sure. For sure.
21:08
What does that mean?
21:09
Mike Rugnetta: You know, all those those, beautiful Chinese
21:11
folk songs you've been seeing for the last year, people do
21:13
covers of? Those are gone. Those are gonna go gone. Gone. I hope
21:16
you don't like those because Yeah.
21:17
I think to a certain degree, people want to imagine that
21:21
software is serving them. Or like software lives in two kind
21:26
of modes. Right? You have the mode where the software is
21:29
serving you, and you go to it because it gives you things that
21:32
you can't get elsewhere. I'm never leaving this app.
21:34
I built this FYP brick by brick, etcetera, etcetera. Yeah. Or
21:38
it's working against you. Right? The adpocalypse, the algorithm
21:41
can't, you know, nobody's seeing my videos, blah blah blah blah
21:45
blah.
21:45
And I think the important thing that we didn't talk about just
21:48
now as far as the group of people is the connection to
21:50
USDS, which is huge. Right? That is an explicit connection to the
21:55
United States government.
21:56
Hans Buetow: Yeah.
21:57
Mike Rugnetta: Right? Mhmm. Which is important because so on
21:59
January 22, the TikTok USDS joint venture LLC releases a
22:05
statement that says, amongst other things, this is their,
22:09
hey. Get ready. Things are about to change.
22:11
Okay. They say US data will be protected by USDS joint ventures
22:14
in Oracle's secure US cloud environment. The joint venture
22:18
will operate a comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity
22:20
program that is audited and certified by third party
22:24
cybersecurity experts. The program will adhere to major
22:28
industry standards, including the National Institute of
22:30
Standards and Technology, blah blah blah, like all these ISOs,
22:33
cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency security
22:36
requirements for restricted transactions. The joint venture
22:39
will retain, test, and update content recommendation algorithm
22:42
on US user data.
22:44
The content recommendation algorithm will be secured in
22:46
Oracle's US cloud environment. The joint venture will secure US
22:51
apps through software assurance protocols and review and
22:53
validate source code on an ongoing basis, assisted by its
22:56
trusted security partner, Oracle. Right? And then people
23:01
start trying to upload videos about ICE, which, of course,
23:05
they are because that's what's happening in the moment. Yeah.
23:08
It the biggest story that is happening in The United States
23:13
right now. And, I mean, you know, if it is to be believed,
23:17
based upon what I've read online, in other parts of the
23:20
world as well, that, like, people in Australia and Spain
23:23
and Germany are looking at what's happening in your
23:26
backyard, Hans.
23:28
Hans Buetow: Yep.
23:28
Mike Rugnetta: Literally. It's like
23:29
Hans Buetow: Yeah.
23:30
Mike Rugnetta: They are like, it's what people are talking
23:32
about.
23:32
Hans Buetow: Yeah.
23:33
Mike Rugnetta: And they can't upload those videos. Or they're
23:36
uploading them and they're being held for review.
23:40
Georgia Hampton: Yes.
23:40
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Or they're uploading them. They're being
23:43
published, but then they're getting zero views. Yes. Or
23:46
they're getting zero views and people can't comment on them.
23:49
Yeah. So, of course, people look at the new group of owners Yep.
23:57
The TikTok USDS joint venture LLC
24:01
Hans Buetow: Yep.
24:02
Mike Rugnetta: And they think, here it is, the new TikTok. The
24:05
United States government is censoring me. Georgia, I think
24:08
you are the most on TikTok
24:10
Georgia Hampton: of Yeah.
24:11
Mike Rugnetta: The three of us. Yes. I'm curious, like, what
24:14
your sense of this is from being on the app.
24:18
Georgia Hampton: So there's real precedence for this concern. Say
24:22
what you want about really sanitized terms like unalive and
24:27
pew pew for gun and stuff like that.
24:30
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah.
24:30
Georgia Hampton: A community around this sort of language
24:32
developed on on TikTok because of very real issues with
24:41
censorship that do genuinely exist on TikTok. Like, I have I
24:44
have tested this where, like, I've tried typing out trans in a
24:48
comment, and it would, like, publish my comment with, like,
24:53
the trans flag. I would put the trans flag in a comment, and it
24:56
would just publish it with, like, a question mark, which
24:59
there is precedence for this concern of where is the app
25:07
controlling what I see? I think it all comes back to the
25:11
algorithm and how fine tuned it is, that it's so fine tuned that
25:15
there's this feeling that it's not just providing, it is
25:21
controlling.
25:21
Hans Buetow: Yeah. I think this is where these sorts of things
25:24
always algorithms get us into trouble, like the black box
25:27
algorithms get us into trouble every single time. Because we
25:29
know so little about them, we have to
25:32
Mike Rugnetta: all you can do is imagine it.
25:34
Hans Buetow: Yeah. You just suppose you can and then, like,
25:36
supposing very quickly goes into conspiracy theories. When you
25:39
start adding up things like like, was reading about the
25:41
number of outages that have been reported and how many how how
25:45
many people have had trouble actually even loading it in the
25:48
first place. The way that they describe it is that there's
25:52
problems with a data center power outage.
25:55
Mike Rugnetta: This is what TikTok has said.
25:56
Hans Buetow: Yeah. This is what TikTok has said.
25:58
Mike Rugnetta: Yes. So, I mean, it's yeah. I've seen the same
26:00
thing. Like, I see people on Blue Sky. I see people on
26:03
Instagram.
26:04
Right? People are taking to other social media networks to
26:07
say, like, for the last four days at time of recording, I
26:11
have had all of these problems. And it really it feels like, the
26:16
comedian Megan Stalter
26:17
Georgia Hampton: is the one who I was about to suggest. Georgia,
26:19
tell us about what it is that happened. Meg Stalter is a
26:22
comedian, and she posted on Instagram this whole carousel of
26:29
herself, basically saying, I have been trying to upload
26:33
videos about ICE, and every single time they get taken down
26:38
or nobody's able to see them or they're under review forever,
26:42
there's some issue that makes it so that no one ever sees them,
26:45
including, in her own words, when she's tried to mask them as
26:50
like a comedy video or something. So not even showing,
26:53
like, visuals of something, just talking, that it's always being
26:57
flagged. It's always being taken down.
26:59
It's never being published.
27:01
Mike Rugnetta: The implication being that, like, someone is
27:03
manually reviewing these.
27:05
Georgia Hampton: Yes. Or that they have this software in place
27:10
Yeah. That just can flag Some sort of
27:13
Mike Rugnetta: volunteer level, like, we Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
27:16
Hans Buetow: Exactly. Exactly.
27:17
Georgia Hampton: So she basically said, you know, I am
27:20
downloading all of my videos from TikTok. I'm gonna start
27:23
sharing them on here, which is Instagram, urging all of her
27:27
followers to delete the app, delete their account, because
27:30
she that's what she's doing. She's removing herself
27:33
completely, taking everything off, deleting her existence on
27:37
TikTok because of this. And alongside this, people
27:40
Mike Rugnetta: are also noting they're, like, going now to the
27:43
terms of service and noting the, like, draconian, you know, like,
27:47
data data sharing location
27:49
Hans Buetow: not sharing. For me. It's auto popped up. Right?
27:51
Mike Rugnetta: Well, it's an agreement with a new entity.
27:53
Hans Buetow: With a new entity. Exactly right.
27:55
Mike Rugnetta: And so people people are now reading it in
27:58
this new context and and are getting scared by it or getting
28:01
upset by it. I think even Gavin Newsom is like, we're gonna look
28:05
at this. Like, who knows what's going on here?
28:07
Hans Buetow: Which is wild thing for the governor of California
28:09
to say.
28:09
Mike Rugnetta: The truth of it being, it's what it was before
28:12
as well. It's the same. It is. It's the same.
28:14
Hans Buetow: Words in there, but it's it's really basically the
28:17
same.
28:18
Mike Rugnetta: So I think for me, this is really the story.
28:21
Hans Buetow: Yes.
28:21
Mike Rugnetta: There was a massive technical changeover
28:23
after which there were technical difficulties. Yep. We have a
28:26
bunch of people who notice these things, a bunch of popular
28:29
people who notice these things, and then draw, I think, a fair
28:32
conclusion given the actors involved in the transfer.
28:36
Completely. And then people who whose attention has been drawn
28:40
now to a terms of service that has always been bad, but maybe
28:44
now feels worse in that the actors are domestic and
28:48
associated with a fascistic invading force on Yes.
28:53
United States soil, and they're newly suspicious of this app
29:00
that has, you know, colonized a lot of their time over the last
29:04
several years. You know, like, was looking at Rusty Foster, who
29:07
writes Today in Tabs, said that he's seeing all of these things
29:11
as well, while, in fact, TikTok is the only place that he's
29:15
seeing people openly call for violence against ICE and the
29:20
CBP. Yeah. He said, if anyone still believes the rumors that
29:24
TikTok is being censored, my whole FYP is anti ICE right now,
29:28
almost without exception. People are performing panic for clout.
29:32
At the moment, TikTok is the only social media where I'm
29:34
seeing regular people openly and vigorously advocate for the
29:38
assassination of federal agents, in fact. Yeah. True. And I think
29:42
I think that this is the story. This is there's like the
29:44
strength of this I don't know at this point if it's even
29:47
algorithmic imaginary.
29:49
It's almost like platform imaginary. The idea of what the
29:53
platform is for and what it does even outside of its content
29:58
service algorithm that, like, people are now imagining it as
30:03
an extension of the United States government.
30:05
Georgia Hampton: I haven't gone on TikTok since this change
30:07
happened. I wanted to give myself a break and also to kind
30:10
of think about this and be like, do I wanna participate in this?
30:14
I am not surprised to hear that there's a much more direct, very
30:21
explicit conversation. Because in the midst of the unaliving
30:24
language and things like that, there is also just very flat out
30:30
face to face feeling addressing of current events and
30:34
documentation of current events that I don't see on something
30:37
like Instagram ever. Ever ever ever.
30:40
Hans Buetow: I think the timing of this is also wild.
30:43
Georgia Hampton: Yes. Yes.
30:44
Hans Buetow: I have never seen this level of widespread openly
30:50
voiced distrust of anything the government says. The New York
30:55
Times is starting to call them liars. Like, the New
30:58
Mike Rugnetta: York Times. That that is
30:59
Georgia Hampton: nuts. It's nuts.
31:01
Hans Buetow: It's nuts. You have, like, Laura Ingraham is
31:04
turning on Kristi Noem. Like, over the past weekend, you have
31:10
have seen maybe the limits of what it is that we're willing to
31:17
put up with without calling it direct lies. And I think being
31:22
here in Minnesota, you know, there was a I looked at my
31:26
podcast feed. This is maybe a week or so ago.
31:28
So after Renee Good was killed, but before Alex Preti was
31:31
killed. And I think Fresh Air had the title of one of their
31:35
episodes was, is what ICE is doing illegal? And I was like,
31:39
Mike Rugnetta: oh, bloody.
31:40
Hans Buetow: Girl. We're so past that. Who cares
31:44
Mike Rugnetta: at this point? Hey, guys.
31:45
Georgia Hampton: Who cares? You got other stuff going on.
31:49
Hans Buetow: That's not the point. Right? Like, these
31:51
statements come out and, like, there's so much the government
31:55
has so little credibility, I think, on the ground here, at
31:58
least in Minnesota, that it's a wild time to launch something
32:03
and put the former name of a government group into the name
32:09
of the company that's organizing it and expect to have anything
32:13
you say be believed.
32:14
Georgia Hampton: Well, and also, a very understandable reaction
32:17
to that is, okay. You're gonna be watching all of us. Yeah. So,
32:23
of course, anyone who is on an app that then opens the app and
32:28
there's a little dialogue box that's like, hey. You can't use
32:31
this until you agree to our terms of service, which include
32:33
that we are data tracking you.
32:35
Mike Rugnetta: And also, the premise of our entire app is
32:38
that it's full of artificial intelligence and tracking what
32:41
you do.
32:41
Hans Buetow: Yes. And that the US government is in the name of
32:44
the company that owns it?
32:46
Georgia Hampton: And, yeah, the app that already has had people
32:48
have to completely change the way they talk about things out
32:51
of fear of I I've seen people on Instagram being, like, I don't
32:55
wanna talk about this because the last time I've talked about
32:58
this, I weirdly had a day where I was at the airport and they
33:00
pulled me and, like, ripped apart my suitcase. And I don't
33:04
like those two things being together, and I don't know if
33:06
that was real, but I don't know if it wasn't real. Like, there's
33:09
just this fear that I think is very real. How could anyone see
33:14
what's going on with TikTok and not be like, what the fuck is
33:17
happening?
33:18
Mike Rugnetta: I think that this these two things, the fact that,
33:21
like, you know, NPR is asking, like, is what ICE is doing
33:26
illegal? And Oh, god. And then people worrying that what before
33:32
this point would have been maybe innocuous if somewhat
33:38
politically afield actions taken online could get them in some
33:43
sort of trouble. Both of those things are are two sides of an
33:47
old anarchist saying, which is the only thing that makes
33:51
criminals is laws. Yep.
33:53
And that works both ways. If there's no law to stop you from
33:56
what you're doing, you might be doing something that is morally
33:58
reprehensible, but it's you're not
34:00
Hans Buetow: a criminal. It's not a criminal. Mhmm.
34:02
Mike Rugnetta: If you're doing something that is, morally just,
34:05
that is pro social, that is communitarian, If there's a law
34:08
that says that you can't do it, then you're a criminal. You have
34:11
been already a criminal. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
34:13
And this administration wants to put that idea to use in as many
34:21
places as they can and in as many ways as it seems like they
34:25
can. So this gets me to, I think, the, like, last and the
34:29
big question that I wanna ask, which is maybe it's always been
34:34
the time, but is now really the time to ditch TikTok?
34:39
Georgia Hampton: Yeah. I I don't I don't know. I mean, the easy
34:43
answer, I think, is, yeah. Of course. Everyone get out of
34:45
there.
34:46
But, like, as a journalist, a part of me wants to be there and
34:53
see what's happening. I use it constantly for the work I do on
35:00
this show. Obviously, I am out of the three of us, the person
35:04
who's been on the app the most and uses it the most. And I
35:11
don't know how to feel, frankly, right now.
35:14
Mike Rugnetta: Maybe what you're saying, Georgia, is like, keep
35:18
using TikTok if you feel like you have to or if you really
35:21
enjoy it, but do it knowing the context you're in and maybe with
35:26
a little bit of a, like, personal data safety protocol.
35:30
Georgia Hampton: A 100%. Oh, I think anyone who uses it has to
35:33
pay attention to that.
35:34
Mike Rugnetta: And Like, you know, do you do you have to get,
35:36
like, a TikTok only device? Oh god. Just get an old Android
35:42
phone from eBay and Wi Fi only and
35:46
Hans Buetow: I was never on TikTok, so I have a very
35:49
different perspective of having watched it for all of these
35:51
years. And the thing that I feel like I've watched is so many
35:54
people close the Venn diagram between Internet and TikTok Yes.
35:58
To where I think there's a sizable number. I I can't say
36:02
for sure how many, but think that TikTok is the Internet or
36:04
the Internet is TikTok. I think that the question for me is
36:07
where does everyone go?
36:09
Yeah. And if they don't feel like they have anywhere to go, I
36:11
think that's a lot of the bet that's being made right now.
36:14
100%. Don't feel like they're easy because where are they
36:16
gonna go? They go to Instagram?
36:17
Mike Rugnetta: Barry Weiss of CBS. You go to Barry Weiss of c
36:20
Georgia Hampton: b right. Where do you
36:22
Hans Buetow: go is a really, really big question. So who's
36:24
gonna activate? Just like the explosion of blue sky, is there
36:27
gonna be explosion of new TikTok equivalent based on an open
36:33
protocol, something that's gonna actually take people over?
36:43
Mike Rugnetta: Okay. So obviously, I think, no easy
36:46
answers here. This has been a long saga. The saga will
36:48
continue. The feelings about these things complicated as they
36:52
always are, as they always will be.
36:54
Audience, listeners, we really wanna hear from you. What do you
36:57
think? Are you staying on TikTok? Are you leaving TikTok?
37:00
Do you need a replacement if you leave it?
37:03
And if so, where do you go to fill it? And why isn't that
37:06
place reels? Alright. Thanks everybody. Thank you, Hans.
37:12
Thank you Georgia.
37:13
Hans Buetow: Yeah. Thanks Mike. This was helpful.
37:26
Mike Rugnetta: That is the news we have for you this week. We're
37:28
gonna be back here on the main feed on or around Thursday,
37:32
02/05/2026 with a segment about Pornhub's 2025 in review dataset
37:39
and what we can learn about the skyrocketing growth in
37:43
popularity of safe for work content on the traditionally not
37:49
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That means, please imagine me pointing and wearing a really
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Neverpost's producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton, and the
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mysterious doctor first name last name.
38:35
Our senior producer is Hans Buto. Our executive producer is
38:39
Jason Oberholzer. The show's host, that's me, is Mike
38:42
Grenada. There's no promise at the present, though the
38:49
present's not promise at all. The grifter flashes a glimmer
38:53
like it was a sure thing.
38:55
Clinging to these turns blind sides what's before the eye, a
38:59
fist behind dice. I want distraction even more than you,
39:03
but both of us lost the duel when our seconds went missing.
39:09
Excerpt of Against Hope by Charles Bernstein. Never post is
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Radiotopia.