08.01.20
Gemini version available ♊︎Donald Trump’s Trash Against China Helps Prop up Microsoft Monopoly and Distract From All the Microsoft Layoffs
The Coming War on China (John Pilger) | Full Documentary
Summary: Microsoft as a surveillance giant of the United States government isn’t a myth; it was first in the PRISM programme of the NSA (Bill Gates is a loud proponent of NSA surveillance), it took over European Skype under mysterious circumstances, and now it might be getting TikTok as a ‘gift’ from Donald Trump’s friends and the imperialists, in effect confiscating Chinese assets for full-spectrum dominance
THE Microsoft monopoly is still a problem. The Microsoft monopoly may be eroding/slipping away, but it is still harmful. Yesterday in Daily Links we included this article entitled “Microsoft’s Edge browser is crashing if you have Google set as default search” and to quote some sentences from the leading paragraph: “Microsoft’s new Edge browser started randomly crashing when users typed into the address bar tonight. The issues appear to have affected Edge users who have selected Google as the default search engine.” (This publisher is close to Microsoft, so this is followed by face-saving spin)
“The Microsoft monopoly may be eroding/slipping away, but it is still harmful.”Microsoft has a long, long history breaking and sabotaging things if they’re configured in a way Microsoft doesn’t like (e.g. AARD). Microsoft’s monopoly abuse has often been downright criminal, not merely abusive. This is why many people still dislike and distrust Microsoft.
Donald Trump, being the con man that he is, probably sees eye to eye and can relate to Microsoft. They have no moral leverage over one another and Bill Gates said or at least publicly insinuated he'd be willing to back Trump in 2020. Whatever makes him richer…
“Microsoft’s monopoly abuse has often been downright criminal, not merely abusive.”Gates isn’t a techie. He’s not educated as a techie and he never even graduated from college (where he studied law — something he became good at breaking). Gates is a politician. He acts like one; he is one. Trump reportedly offered Gates a job at his cabinet (top adviser) and Gates declined; he declined not because of Trump but because, according to him, it would not be good use of his time. Remember that Gates is not against Trump. He never was. Criminals in positions of power are less likely to enforce the law against other criminals (instead they focus on silencing if not arresting those who expose their crimes).
As a side note, earlier today I watched the whole film above (highlighted to me the other day because it had become freely accessible); its producer has a long track record of making films about issues strongly suppressed by the Western powers. I learned a lot from his films over the years and they partly shaped my views on world affairs. In the last few minutes of the film Pilger concludes and remarks on what Donald Trump is hoping to achieve. This is important and very relevant to the subject named below.
This brings us to a difficult subject because it is almost purely political (and we prefer to avoid ‘pure’ politics; they can distract from the underlying issues through partisan slant). It was all over the news yesterday and it will be in our next Daily Links. An associate of ours collated and picked the following excerpts:
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Microsoft Said to Be Exploring TikTok Acquisition
Reports in both The New York Times and Bloomberg confirmed an earlier Fox Business story that the Washington-based tech giant was in talks to buy TikTok, which with over 2 billion global downloads has become one of the fastest-growing social media platforms.
Another scenario, first reported by The Information, would involve the U.S. investors in TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, acquiring the app.
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Microsoft Said to Be in Talks to Buy TikTok, as Trump Weighs Curtailing App
It’s unclear how advanced TikTok’s talks to sell itself to Microsoft and other companies are, but changing ownership is crucial for the app. The United States is one of TikTok’s major markets, so continued operations in the country are a priority.
TikTok has discussed other scenarios to alleviate concerns by U.S. officials. In one scenario, non-Chinese investors like Sequoia Capital, SoftBank and General Atlantic could purchase a majority stake in the app from ByteDance, people familiar with the discussions have said.
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Microsoft in talks to purchase TikTok: report
The New York Times cited an anonymous source who said the purchase could come later in the day Friday. Microsoft did not respond to The Hill’s request for comment on the potential purchase.
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TikTok Draws Interest From Bidders Other Than Microsoft
Venture investors in ByteDance have approached Chief Executive Officer Zhang Yiming with a range of proposals to address U.S. concerns that the app, especially popular with teens, is a security threat, people familiar with the matter have said. Any solution would likely have to pass scrutiny from U.S. regulators in the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, as well as U.S. antitrust regulators.
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Microsoft Is in Talks to Buy TikTok in U.S.
Spokespeople for Microsoft and TikTok declined to comment on any potential talks. The software company’s interest in the app was reported earlier by Fox Business Network.
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Update: The TikTok Clusterfuck: Trump To Order A Block, Microsoft Wants To Buy, And Competition Is Still There
Update: Sooo… we already have a bunch of updates on this story. Trump has said he’s banning TikTok entirely and is “against” allowing a US company to buy TikTok. Below is the original post, with only a slight clarification regarding Ben Thompson’s thoughts on TikTok, which I didn’t present very clearly in the original. Then, beneath the post I’ll have more thoughts on Trump’s comments.
This neatly relates to a subject we wrote about in the past, namely the Pentagon/”JEDI” contract, which seemed to us like a form of Microsoft bailout in ‘military’ clothing (as we note in our series about IBM, making one’s military dependent on your aging and even inferior technology makes you “too big [or essential] to fail/fall”).
“The purchase rumors for Tiktok are likely a distraction from Microsoft layoffs or similar bad news,” our associate noted this morning and Ryan cited two articles in IRC some hours ago [1, 2]. It was past midnight, so tomorrow’s IRC logs will include that. Long story short, this morning the Bill Gates-funded BBC reported on it and it’s as shallow as Microsoft wants it. There’s no discussion about the Microsoft-Trump relationship, the Microsoft layoffs (about 5,000 of them this summer), and ‘bailout’-like aspects, which merit discussion.
“Gates is a politician. He acts like one; he is one.”“Trump wants to give TikTok to Microsoft,” Ryan said. “Could explain why it [Microsoft] wasn’t at the “antitrust” grilling the other day.”
“One of the individuals confirmed Microsoft was in the lead to acquire the popular platform’s U.S. service,” Ryan quoted. “Another attempt to prop Microsoft up” is what he called it, adding that “Skype fell out of favor after they spent way too much money on it and now they’re working closely with the administration to get TikTok in a forced sale.”
“The “China” excuse doesn’t pass the sniff test,” Ryan said, “in my opinion. We know that Microsoft is a PRISM/Five Eyes collaborator, so handing it off to Microsoft would immediately make it much easier to spy on everyone who uses TikTok, whether they are in the US or not.”
“This neatly relates to a subject we wrote about in the past, namely the Pentagon/”JEDI” contract, which seemed to us like a form of Microsoft bailout in ‘military’ clothing…”Of course the media was totally hypocritical about privacy aspects of TikTok. Pretty much all of TikTok’s big competitors are in the surveillance business and are vastly worse than TikTok. The last article above (from TechDirt) is one of several that repeatedly highlight this very simple fact.
TikTok has been blasted by Trump and his sidekick Pompeo, who are of course happy to ignore all the surveillance that benefits themselves.
“PRISM pretty much makes your Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook accounts an NSA trap. Any low level analyst can punch in your account name and start copying over your files and email and stuff,” Ryan noted. “The fact that TikTok has lured a lot of fools into using it heavily means that the US government wants to control it so that it can put hooks into it. You wouldn’t just have to be crazy to put anything sensitive on any “service” like that. You’d have to be bonehead stupid.”
Quoting another article, Ryan spotted this: “Microsoft does not have a creative social media company to sow brand recognition with younger users, though the Redmond, Wash.-based company does own professional networking site LinkedIn.”
“TikTok has been blasted by Trump and his sidekick Pompeo, who are of course happy to ignore all the surveillance that benefits themselves.”Ryan responded: “Doesn’t mention anywhere that LinkedIn is falling apart and that Microsoft just sacked almost 1,000 people that were working there. Off to the next thing. People should recognize the Microsoft brand. It’s a warning sign. “Warning, company packed with pedophiles that makes shitty bloated software with government backdoors ahead. Run!”
“I can scarcely believe that Microsoft’s Fake Google has 27% of any market in search, much less the US. Everything they’ve done to “promote it”, like hijacking your Windows 10 defaults and “search bribery” (“Hey kid, want some XBOX Gold and Rick Jones?”) has failed. I can think of various reasons Microsoft wants TikTok. None of them good. The article keeps repeating that Microsoft wants “Young users.” Just over and over again. Probably wants to incorporate their faces into the databanks that it sells to the police and Trump’s unmarked van thugs. Lots of bad things. Probably the most naked reason is another platform for their advertising though. The police keep complaining that the facial recognition software they use or tap into (Ring and such) doesn’t know how to tell one black person from another, and then also says they regularly use it as evidence in court. How does that work? Right?”
“Recall what we wrote about the “JEDI” contract; the award came under investigation and the investigators could not rule out foul play by Microsoft and Trump.”MinceR then asked Ryan, “are they paying twitler [Trump] for this or is it just out of the evilness of his heart?”
Recall what we wrote about the “JEDI” contract; the award came under investigation and the investigators could not rule out foul play by Microsoft and Trump.
“With Trump and corruption, ” Ryan responded, “it’s like the Joker said. When you’re good at something, never do it for free.” █
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