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      Pro-Trump PAC Joins TikTok Amid Fight Over Its Chinese Ownership

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      The main political action committee backing former President Donald J. Trump joined TikTok on Wednesday, jumping onto the popular social media platform while it is at the center of a political battle over its ownership by a Chinese corporation, ByteDance.The super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., is independent of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, but the move to TikTok — using the handle @MAGA — signals a shift in strategy nearly three months after President Biden’s re-election campaign joined the social media platform.“There’s millions of voters on TikTok, and @MAGA will deliver President Donald J. Trump’s pro-freedom, pro-America agenda every day with the facts and stories that matter,” Taylor Budowich, the chief executive of the PAC, said in a statement. “We aren’t trying to set policy, we are trying to win an election.”The TikTok account, which had about 300 followers as of Wednesday evening, has posted five videos so far, four attacking Mr. Biden and one attacking Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent presidential candidate, as a “radical leftist.”Mr. Biden signed a law in April that would force a sale of TikTok by ByteDance, which sued the federal government on Tuesday in an effort to block the law. Under the terms of the law, ByteDance has about nine months to sell the app or it will be banned in the United States. The president can extend that time frame to a year.Mr. Trump had also tried to ban the app during his term, ordering ByteDance in August 2020 to divest the app. A federal judge blocked the attempted ban the next month, and Mr. Trump left office a few months later.But when House Republicans moved to force the sale of the app via legislation, Mr. Trump came out against the bill, saying that ByteDance’s ownership was still a national security threat but that a potential ban would anger young Americans.“Frankly, there are a lot of people on TikTok that love it,” Mr. Trump said in an interview on CNBC. “There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it.”Mr. Trump himself is not on TikTok — preferring to use his own social media site, Truth Social — and neither is his campaign. With TikTok still operating in the United States, for now, and with Mr. Biden’s campaign using the app, Mr. Budowich said that Mr. Trump’s message should be “brought to every corner of the internet.”“We will not cede any platform to Joe Biden and the Democrats,” he said. More

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      Universal Music Artists Will Return to TikTok

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      The two companies reached a new licensing deal, ending a three-month stalemate that kept some of pop’s biggest stars off the platform.TikTok and Universal Music Group have reached a new licensing deal, ending a three-month stalemate that had blocked songs from some of pop’s biggest stars from the influential social media platform.In a joint announcement early Thursday, the two companies said that they had agreed to a “multi-dimensional” new deal that included “improved remuneration” for Universal’s roster of artists and songwriters, and would address the label’s concerns over the growth of A.I.-generated content on the app.In statements that accompanied the announcement, Shou Chew, the chief executive of TikTok, called music “an integral part of the TikTok ecosystem.” Lucian Grainge, the chief executive of Universal — the world’s biggest music company, with a roster of artists including Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Drake and U2 — called the deal a “new chapter in our relationship with TikTok” that “focuses on the value of music, the primacy of human artistry and the welfare of the creative community.”The agreement ends the music industry’s biggest and most contentious dispute with a tech platform in years. Both companies hurled public accusations at each other, and artists from across the spectrum worried about whether their careers would be hurt by the absence of their music from TikTok, which has become a vital promotional platform and boasts more than 170 million users in the United States alone.But the deal also comes amid wider uncertainty for TikTok as the app faces a possible ban or sale in the United States because of national security concerns over the app’s Chinese owner, ByteDance. Last month, President Biden signed a bill that would allow TikTok to continue to operate in the United States if it was sold in nine months, though the company is expected to challenge the law in court.Universal began to withdraw permission for its music from TikTok on Feb. 1, after an impasse in negotiations to renew its previous licensing agreement. At the time, Universal said that TikTok “attempted to bully us into accepting a deal worth less than the previous deal, far less than fair market value and not reflective of their exponential growth.”Millions of videos that included Universal music — including many artists’ own official music videos — were muted on the platform. TikTok said that by withdrawing its songs, Universal had “put their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters.”TikTok and Universal have not commented on their negotiations since then. But the dispute seemed to shift three weeks ago, when Swift — the biggest and most influential artist on Universal’s roster — broke ranks with the label and returned her music to TikTok, ahead of the release of her most recent album.Her move may have weakened Universal’s leverage. But since the ban took effect, fans noticed that songs from many other Universal artists, including Grande and Camila Cabello, had returned, often in sped-up or slowed-down versions that may have been uploaded to the platform by fans.In their announcement, TikTok and Universal did not offer any specifics about the financial terms of their deal. The companies’ statement says they will work together to “realize new monetization opportunities” through e-commerce, and that TikTok will “invest significant resources” in building tools like data analytics and ticketing.The companies added that they were “working expeditiously” to return Universal’s music to the platform. That could take a matter of days or weeks. More

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      Meet the Men Who Eat Meat

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      With the help of Joe Rogan, a social media trend with staying power emerged from a 2018 book, “The Carnivore Diet.”“Girl dinner” this is not.In a social media trend that won’t stop, ravenous meat eaters, mostly men, show themselves chomping on rib-eye steaks, bacon and innards.In a recent online video, a popular TikTok user who posts as @carnivoreray unveiled a new snack recipe. After sliding sheet pans packed with fatty bacon strips into the oven, he melted two sticks of butter from grass-fed cows. Once the bacon was crisp, he poured the melted butter into the sheet pans. Then he popped the concoction into the freezer.The next morning, the influencer bit into the frozen treat while filming himself for his roughly 170,000 TikTok followers. “This tastes like candy,” he said. (The person behind the account did not reply to requests for comment.)The video belongs to an enduring social media genre quarterbacked largely by muscular fellows who claim that a meat-heavy diet is the key to mental and physical well-being.A stricter version of high-fat, low-carb regimens like the Atkins diet and keto, the carnivore diet consists of meat, seafood and eggs — period. While some add dairy and a little fruit to the mix, the strictest proponents adhere to what they call B.B.B.E — that is, beef, bacon, butter and eggs.TikTok and Instagram are awash in videos of these men (and some women) feasting on a petting zoo’s worth of meat products. Some boast about having not consumed a vegetable in months. They also claim health benefits including drastic weight loss and sharpened mental acuity. Some of the so-called “meatfluencers” forgo not only carbs but also dishware, eating straight from the cutting board.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Congress Passed a Bill That Could Ban TikTok. Now Comes the Hard Part.

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      After President Biden signs the bill to force a sale of the video app or ban it, the legislation will face court challenges, a shortage of qualified buyers and Beijing’s hostility.A bill that would force a sale of TikTok by its Chinese owner, ByteDance — or ban it outright — was passed by the Senate on Tuesday and is expected to be signed quickly into law by President Biden.Now the process is likely to get even more complicated.Congress passed the measure citing national security concerns because of TikTok’s Chinese ties. Both lawmakers and security experts have said there are risks that the Chinese government could lean on ByteDance for access to sensitive data belonging to its 170 million U.S. users or to spread propaganda.The proposed law would allow TikTok to continue to operate in the United States if ByteDance sold it within 270 days, or about nine months, a time frame that the president could extend to a year.The measure is likely to face legal challenges, as well as possible resistance from Beijing, which could block the sale or export of the technology. It’s also unclear who has the resources to buy TikTok, since it will carry a hefty price tag.The issue could take months or even years to settle, during which the app would probably continue to function for U.S. consumers.“It’s going to be a royal mess,” said Anupam Chander, a visiting scholar at the Institute for Rebooting Social Media at Harvard and an expert on the global regulation of new technologies.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      TikTok Bill to Be Bundled With Aid to Ukraine and Israel, House Speaker Indicates

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      A new measure attempts to force the Senate’s hand on passing legislation to ban TikTok or mandate the app’s sale.The House on Wednesday made another push to force through legislation that would require the sale of TikTok by its Chinese owner or ban the app in the United States, accelerating an effort to disrupt the popular social media app.Speaker Mike Johnson has indicated that he intends to package the measure, a modified version of a stand-alone bill that the House passed last month, with foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.While the new legislation would still require TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app to owners that resolved national security concerns, it includes an option to extend the deadline for a sale to nine months from the original six months, according to text of the legislation released by House leadership. The president could extend the deadline by another 90 days if progress toward a sale was being made.House lawmakers are expected to vote Saturday on a package of legislation that includes the TikTok ban and other bills popular with Republicans, a maneuver intended to induce lawmakers to vote for the foreign aid. If the package passes, the measures will be sent as a single bill to the Senate, which could vote soon after. President Biden has said he’ll sign TikTok legislation into law if it reaches his desk.The move “to package TikTok is definitely unusual, but it could succeed,” said Paul Gallant, a policy analyst for the financial services firm TD Cowen. He added that “it’s a bit of brinkmanship” to try to force an up-or-down vote without further negotiation with the Senate.The new effort is the most aggressive yet by legislators to wrest TikTok from its Chinese ownership over national security concerns. They cite the potential for Beijing to demand that TikTok turn over U.S. users’ data or to use the app for propaganda. The earlier House bill faced skepticism in the Senate over concerns that it would not hold up to a legal challenge.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Maryland Passes 2 Major Privacy Bills, Despite Tech Industry Pushback

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      One bill would require apps like Instagram and TikTok to prioritize young people’s safety and the other would restrict the collection of consumer data.The Maryland Legislature this weekend passed two sweeping privacy bills that aim to restrict how powerful tech platforms can harvest and use the personal data of consumers and young people — despite strong objections from industry trade groups representing giants like Amazon, Google and Meta.One bill, the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act, would impose wide-ranging restrictions on how companies may collect and use the personal data of consumers in the state. The other, the Maryland Kids Code, would prohibit certain social media, video game and other online platforms from tracking people under 18 and from using manipulative techniques — like auto-playing videos or bombarding children with notifications — to keep young people glued online.“We are making a statement to the tech industry, and to Marylanders, that we need to rein in some of this data gathering,” said Delegate Sara Love, a Democratic member of the Maryland House of Delegates. Ms. Love, who sponsored the consumer bill and cosponsored the children’s bill, described the passage of the two measures as a “huge” privacy milestone, adding: “We need to put up some guardrails to protect our consumers.”The new rules require approval by Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland, a Democrat, who has not taken a public stance on the measures.With the passage of the bills, Maryland joins a small number of states including California, Connecticut, Texas and Utah that have enacted both comprehensive privacy legislation and children’s online privacy or social media safeguards. But the tech industry has challenged some of the new laws.Over the last year, NetChoice, a tech industry trade group representing Amazon, Google and Meta, has successfully sued to halt children’s online privacy or social media restrictions in several states, arguing that the laws violated its members’ constitutional rights to freely distribute information.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden’s Challenges in Reaching Young Voters on TikTok Include Anger Over Gaza

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      For his campaign, navigating the platform has meant encountering over and over some of the thorniest issues plaguing Mr. Biden’s re-election bid.President Biden’s campaign is working to reach across the generation gap to the tens of millions of predominantly younger voters on TikTok, where the challenges are daunting and the rewards difficult to track.The obstacles range from anger over the war in Gaza to what social media experts describe as the unavoidably uncool nature of supporting the administration in power.Mr. Biden, 81, joined the app owned by a Chinese company last month, in what was widely seen as an effort to communicate with voters under 30, among whom he has polled poorly for months. In interviews and surveys, those voters indicated an unawareness about his administration’s accomplishments, something a word of mouth campaign on TikTok could alleviate.But navigating the platform and its more than 150 million users in the U.S. has involved confronting, usually in the comments sections of his own posts, some of the thorniest issues plaguing Mr. Biden’s re-election bid: disillusioned voters averse to politics, concerns about his age, outrage over the death toll in Gaza. Former President Donald J. Trump isn’t on the app, but his supporters are active. Adding to the puzzle, Mr. Biden’s aides are trying to sell his record on a platform his administration has argued poses a national security threat.President Joe Biden sits with attendees while listening to an opening speaker, during a campaign event at the El Portal restaurant in Phoenix, Arizona, on March 19, 2024.Tom Brenner for The New York TimesA bill to force TikTok to cut ties with its Chinese owner or otherwise face a ban in the U.S. is stalled in the Senate, but the president has said he’ll sign it if it passes — a position that has rankled even his staunchest young supporters.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More