Fresh off Jimmy Kimmel returning to TV to warn that Donald Trump’s attacks on free speech would not end with censoring comedians critical of his administration, Trump signed an executive order to “save” TikTok, while supposedly joking that he’d like to censor influencers by tweaking the algorithm so that content is “100 percent MAGA.”
“Everyone is going to be treated fairly,” the president added—seemingly covering his tracks as critics warn that TikTok under US ownership could soon carry a right-wing bias, perhaps going the way of Twitter after Elon Musk took over and rebranded it as X.
On Sunday, Trump told Fox News that media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan, the CEO of Fox Corporation, would likely be part of the investor group taking over TikTok’s US operations. That deal—which Trump claimed Thursday was tentatively approved by Chinese President Xi Jinping—was set up to ensure that TikTok complies with a law banning majority ownership of the app by a foreign adversary in order to protect Americans from spying or foreign influence on the algorithm.
