TikTok

Tick-Tock, TikTok

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified for hours yesterday before the House Energy and Science Committee and was hammered from the left and the right. Washington observers came away with the impression that it was a huge disaster for TikTok. But content creators on TikTok were less impressed by the Washington establishment.

Full disclaimer: I’m a TikTok user and I love it. It’s a great tool to expand my audience and it’s fun to make 30-second timelapse videos of my cartoons to music. But I can see the concerns about it. Even when I was a smoker I was not a fan of tobacco companies.

During yesterday’s hearing, the representatives kept trying to pin Chew down on TikTok being a tool for China to spy on users in the United States. The best they could get was “no,” and the best they could do was, “Nyuh-huh.”

Daniel Castro, the vice president of a science and tech policy think tank tweeted, “Congressional hearings would be much better if Committee rules prohibited loaded questions. Not all questions can be answered with yes/no answers.”
It’s like it’s the first time this crowd has ever watched a congressional hearing. And this committee didn’t feature the likes of Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, or Jim Gym Jordan.

Elizabeth Nolan Brown, the senior editor at Reason, tweeted, “TikTok’s CEO keeps essentially saying he’s not an agent of the Chinese Communist Party and the lawmakers are like… BUT AREN’T YOU ACTUALLY? like he’s going to trip up Scooby Doo villain style if they keep saying it.”
Will you admit to being a spy if I give you a Scooby Snack?

TikTok is a private company in China, but China is an authoritarian state. Is anything totally private in China? The government owns one percent of ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, and has placed a government official on the board. Financial Times describes the one percent share as a “golden share” investment, which is a nominal share that can outvote all other shares in certain circumstances.

Surely we need to protect our nation from China’s spying, but there’s a fine line between security and xenophobia. What information is China going to get from American users that are not already being data mined by Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and maybe even LinkedIn (the most inept and useless app since MySpace)? Several representatives from yesterday’s hearing gloated over their performance and questioning of Chew…on Twitter. Couldn’t at least one of them detect the irony in that?

Eva, director of cybersecurity at Electronic Frontier Foundation tweeted, “If you think the US needs a TikTok ban and not a comprehensive privacy law regulating data brokers, you don’t care about privacy, you just hate that a Chinese company has built a dominant social media platform.”

The TikTok kids are right in that this was a bunch of old people screaming about something they don’t understand. The entire hearing was basically, “Get off my lawn.”

Olivia Julianna, director of Politics and government affairs at Gen-Z for Change was upset TikTok’s CEO wasn’t given much of a chance to talk, tweeting, “Watching the hearing on TikTok right now, and the amount of leading questions and interruption to the CEO trying to answer questions is so extremely unprofessional and irritating. This is a hearing— let us ACTUALLY HEAR him.”

Several TikTokers TikToked about Chew not being allowed to speak, like this one…and this one too.

And are Republicans truly upset over Chinese spies when they were fine with Russia meddling with our election? You can’t say you care about security when you defend white nationalist terrorists who attacked our Capitol building. A lot of Republicans may still be chafed that TikTok users played a huge part in Donald Trump believing he was going to have a huge rally in Tulsa in 2020, only to discover a very tiny crowd of MAGAts.

I’m all for the government banning TikTok’s app on government-owned devices. Corporations can do the same thing. In fact, it’s probably smart to ban most apps on government and corporate-owned devices. Angry Birds knows where you live.

Both parties are coming down hard on TikTok. Both Trump and Biden have threatened to ban it in the United States. But I personally believe the Republican outrage is all Sarah Cooper’s fault.

Signed prints: The signed prints are just $40.00 each. Every cartoon on this site is available. You can pay through PayPal. If you don’t like PayPal, you can snail mail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402. I can mail the prints directly to you or if you’re purchasing as a gift, directly to the person you’re gifting.

Notes on my book, Tales From The Trumpster Fire: There are 19 copies of my book in stock, which go for $45.00 each, signed. Also, I have copies of my first book from 1997, Knee-Deep in Mississippi available for $20.00.

Tip Jar: if you want to support the cartoonist, please send a donation through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com. You can also snail it to P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402.

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TikTok Spooking

Sorry, kids, but I’m running late today so just enjoy this cartoon. No time to blog. CNN needs me.

Music note: I listened to Queen again.

Signed prints: The signed prints are just $40.00 each. Every cartoon on this site is available. You can pay through PayPal. If you don’t like PayPal, you can snail mail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402. I can mail the prints directly to you or if you’re purchasing as a gift, directly to the person you’re gifting.

Notes on my book, Tales From The Trumpster Fire: There are 19 copies of my book in stock, which go for $45.00 each, signed. Also, I have copies of my first book from 1997, Knee-Deep in Mississippi available for $20.00.

Tip Jar: if you want to support the cartoonist, please send a donation through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com. You can also snail it to P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402.

Watch me draw:

TikTok Trump

CNN08092020

Here’s your cartoon for this week’s CNN Opinion newsletter. Please sign up to get these in your inbox every Sunday.

I’m hoping it’s tick-tock for Donald Trump.

Tip Jar: This pandemic is hitting everyone, including your favorite goofy cartoonist. I have lost clients and I’m afraid I might lose more. The PayPal button has always been included here for those who can and want to voluntarily support what I do. I understand this time is hard on everyone. If you can’t, don’t contribute. Take care of yourself and your family first.

But, all and any help is greatly appreciated and it helps keep me going. Think of me like a street performer busking out tunes on a corner (I won’t play “Wonderwall.” I promise). If you like the tune, or in this case, toon, throw a buck into the tip jar. It’ll help me play another song, draw another toon, write another blog, make another video, and post another snarky post on social media. It’ll help keep me alive. You can also order a signed print for $40. And if you don’t like the PayPal option, you can snail mail it to my P.O. Box. 

You can purchase a signed print of this cartoon.

New Book: Tales From the Trumpster Fire

Watch me draw.

TikTok Agitators

cjones06252020

Do you know what I love about conservatives using the word “agitator?” Because it was a favorite word of southern racists back in the 1960s when northerners went to the south to register black voters. It’s what the racists called the people they murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi in 1964 during what was called “Freedom Summer.”

Donald Trump talked about “heritage” Saturday night in Tulsa where only 6,200 Trump-supporting racists showed up. When Donald Trump talks about heritage, he’s giving out a dog whistle to racists. And just like he did with taking “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” from a southern sheriff in the 1960s, he’s now using “agitators.” All Donald Trump is missing is his “sheriff’s star” and white hood. For the record, he also used the racist term “Kung flu” at Saturday’s hate rally.

Donald Trump sent out a hate tweet before his Saturday Tulsa flop that said, “Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis. It will be a much different scene!”

Donald Trump is the president (sic) of the United States and he equated protesters with terrorists. Protesting is legal in this country. And while he wants to designate “Antifa” a fictional organization as a federally-recognized terrorist group, he ignores that white supremacists are responsible for the majority of terrorist acts in this nation. He talks about Antifa burning churches while it’s white supremacists who burn churches. How long will we have to wait for him to express outrage about a noose left hanging in the garage of NASCAR’s only black driver, Bubba Wallace? To Donald Trump, that noose is “heritage.”

For the lack of a crowd in Tulsa, the Trump campaign is blaming Black Lives Matter and the media for scaring people off. But, but, but, but I thought it would be a different scene and they wouldn’t allow any “agitating” in Tulsa? From the photos of Trump walking across the White House lawn from Marine One after arriving home from the rally, he looked pretty agitated.

Trump is livid that TikTok teens, K-Pop Stans, and assorted Zoomers punk’d the Trump campaign. Brad Parscale, the soon-to-be-shit-canned campaign manager, tweeted that the Zoomers didn’t really prank them. But, but, but, but, Brad…why did you and the guy who’s soon to fire you, President (sic) Trump boast about a million people registering for your Tulsa hate rally? Why, why, why, why, Brad? Why?

Basically, Brad, you got rocked by the TikTok. You got panned by the K-Pop Stans. Your rally got put in a tomb by the people on Zoom. You’ll claim you retired but you’ll actually be fired. As Paula Abdul once sang, “Ba-ba-ba-ba-bye-ba-ba-bub-bub-bye.”

There’s another hate rally scheduled for tomorrow (in case you’re a Republican, tomorrow is Tuesday, June 23). This MAGA party is scheduled for a megachurch that will only hold 3,000 people. I’m sure this one will be filled but the oversize crowd, or lack of one, will probably still fuck with Trump and Brad if he’s still around.

Personally, I’m looking forward to a campaign season for Donald Trump with half-empty venues for his hate rallies. I don’t know if that’ll ever get old for me because I’m going to laugh my ass off every time it happens.

I’m hoping this is a sign America is tired of Trump. Defeating Trump will be a defeat for evil. It’ll be a slap in the face to his racist supporters who need some major slappage. America can move forward again and the Joe Biden administration can start to repair the damage Donald Trump inflicted upon this nation.

I’m sure Joe Biden’s inauguration will be larger than Donald Trump’s. But there could be a huge turnout for Donald Trump’s goodbye party.

Ba-ba-ba-ba-bye-ba-ba-bub-bub-bye.

Tip Jar: This pandemic is hitting everyone, including your favorite goofy cartoonist. I have lost clients and I’m afraid I might lose more. The PayPal button has always been included here for those who can and want to voluntarily support what I do. I understand this time is hard on everyone. If you can’t, don’t contribute. Take care of yourself and your family first.

But, all and any help is greatly appreciated and it helps keep me going. Think of me like a street performer busking out tunes on a corner (I won’t play “Wonderwall.” I promise). If you like the tune, or in this case, toon, throw a buck into the tip jar. It’ll help me play another song, draw another toon, write another blog, make another video, and post another snarky post on social media. It’ll help keep me alive. You can also order a signed print for $40. And if you don’t like the PayPal option, you can snail mail it to my P.O. Box. 

You can purchase a signed print of this cartoon.

New Book: Tales From the Trumpster Fire

Watch me draw.

TikTok Tulsa

cjones06242020

Donald Trump promised us his Tulsa Rally would be like something no one has ever seen before. That did not turn out to be true because I’ve seen empty seats before. Now, where was it? Oh yeah. His rally in Fredericksburg, Virginia in 2016. That room was only half full too.

Donald Trump held his first rally in three months in Tulsa, Oklahoma and it was supposed to be the energizing boost to restart his campaign. Despite being advised not to hold covidchella in a Tulsa petri dish, his plans moved forward. And expectations were high as campaign manager, for now, Brad Parscale boasted over 1 million people had signed up for tickets.  1 million people did not show up for Trump’s Saturday night hate rally but I do believe over a million laughed.

Oh, but Trump expected a million people to show up. Expectations were so high, the campaign planned events outside the arena for an overflow crowd. They set up jumbotrons so Trump fans unable to get inside the BOK arena would be able to see and hear their racist leader give his speech full of lies and praise for himself. When it was clear there was not going to be an overflow crowd, the campaign quickly tore the stage down to avoid embarrassment but left the jumbotrons up which gave the impression someone had gone to bed and forgot to turn the TV off.

The seats in the BOK are blue which was prominent with no one sitting in there. Even half the arena floor was empty. It’s estimated the attendance in the 19,000-seat arena may have been as low as 6,000. In case you’re a Republican, 6,000 is less than a million.

It was like preparing for a major party so you make 17 bowls of guacamole then no one shows up except your cousin Steve who’s in his 40s, still lives with his mom, only wears Star Trek shirts, and he’s allergic to guacamole.

Republicans will claim the arena was full and White House spokesgoon Kaleigh McEnany will do her best Sean Spicer impression and argue the arena was overflowing. Hell, they started off with six fewer people than expected as six Trump staffers on the team preparing the event tested positive for the coronavirus. It was not a good night for Donald Trump.

The Trump campaign claimed the arena was empty because the media scared Trump supporters away by reporting facts about the coronavirus. They also claimed, Brad Parscale in particular, that Black Lives Matter protesters were blocking the entrances. Before the event, the press reported there were about 200 protesters (who Trump called thugs). They also reported that no entrances were blocked.

Before the event, Donald Trump threatened protesters. That didn’t work either. Donald Trump had a very bad embarrassing night. It was like running for class president and nobody voted for you except for cousin Steve.

As it turns out, Donald Trump and his campaign got rolled by TikTok users and fans of Korean pop music. What? A prank to register for tickets went viral by TikTok users which soon went over to K-Pop Twitter. Thousands of teens who haven’t been able to march and can’t vote protested by pranking the Trump campaign. It worked. They should have told old man Trump it was a costume party just to see what would happen.

With the success of this prank, you can expect more throughout the campaign. I expect different tactics as today’s teens are creative. The irony here is they’re hitting a bully and you know what happens when you hit the bully back? He goes crying in his bunker.

The zoomers were able to generate and promote this prank while keeping it off the mainstream internet. They would delete their posts 24-48 hours after creating them, thus being quiet about it and keeping the Trump team from finding out what was going on. 4chan can only dream of being this effective.

I personally signed up for tickets with no intention of going but I wasn’t playing a prank. I wanted to see if I could still get tickets after the campaign claimed they had given out more than the arena held. I got tickets. Unfortunately, since I had to register, I also got texts and emails from the Trump campaign. I blocked the texts but I’m still getting the emails.

Donald Trump has been claiming enthusiasm for his campaign. According to John Bolton’s book, Donald Trump believes the public wants him to serve more than two terms. He’s been claiming Joe Biden doesn’t have any momentum. On Saturday night, the wind went out of his sails.

Crowd sizes are important to Donald Trump. They’re one of his greatest lies. Even when he does have giant crowds, he lies about their size. He’ll lie about this one, too, as he conducts a rampage over it behind the scenes. So much leftover guac. On Monday, he’ll probably have a new campaign manager. Campaigns usually undersell and hope to overperform. Brad Parscale oversold and underperformed. Why would you keep a guy who got rolled by meddling kids? Ruh-roh, Parscale.

Donald Trump has many more rallies planned between now and election day. He might have to get used to smaller than expected crowds because he’ll never outsmart the TikTok gang.

And he might wanna prepare for a smaller than expected turnout for him on election day.

Tip Jar: This pandemic is hitting everyone, including your favorite goofy cartoonist. I have lost clients and I’m afraid I might lose more. The PayPal button has always been included here for those who can and want to voluntarily support what I do. I understand this time is hard on everyone. If you can’t, don’t contribute. Take care of yourself and your family first.

But, all and any help is greatly appreciated and it helps keep me going. Think of me like a street performing busking out tunes on a corner (I won’t play “Wonderwall.” I promise). If you like the tune, or in this case, toon, throw a buck into the tip jar. It’ll help me play another song, draw another toon, write another blog, make another video, and post another snarky post on social media. It’ll help keep me alive. You can also order a signed print for $40. And if you don’t like the PayPal option, you can snail mail it to my P.O. Box. 

You can purchase a signed print of this cartoon.

New Book: Tales From the Trumpster Fire

Watch me draw.