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      What Is ‘Yapping’?

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      A new slang term with an old meaning emerges on TikTok.Have you ever been told you have the gift of gab? Did your school report cards suggest you pipe down in class? Perhaps you’ve been called a chatterbox on an occasion or two?If you answered yes to one or more of those questions, you might be a yapper.Terms like yapper, yap and yapping have become popular on TikTok in recent weeks. To yap, in modern parlance, is simply to talk … a lot, often about something of little importance.“In the internet context, I would say somebody that’s a yapper is somebody that talks too much or is an over-sharer,” said Taylor-Nicole Limas, a 27-year-old influencer and self-proclaimed yapper in Chicago. “Somebody that just keeps on talking to fill the air. If it gets quiet, they just don’t stop talking.”Users might post a video of themselves yapping, talking at length about a given topic — perhaps something they feel moved to rant about or a subject in which they are an armchair expert. Or someone might be called a yapper in the comments of a video (whether the speaker intended to yap or not).Being labeled a yapper isn’t necessarily a compliment, but on a platform built on talk, it isn’t an insult either.Some creators have cheerfully embraced the moniker. Last summer, the TikTokers @bag_and_cj became known for videos in which they react to other TikTok videos with rambling commentary. The duo was named Yip and Yap by their fans. (An occasional third participant is known as Yop.)

      @ladyaguilera2.0 I mean am I wrong??? #fyp #fypシ ♬ original sound – Ladyaguilera2.0 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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      What Trump’s TikTok Flip-Flop Tells America

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      When the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly last Wednesday to pass a bill that would require TikTok to divest its Chinese ownership or face an American ban, it provided a glimmer of hope in a dreary political time. This is exactly what a nation should do when it’s getting serious about the national security threat posed by the People’s Republic of China.It makes no strategic sense for America to permit one of its chief foreign adversaries to exercise control over an app that both vacuums up the personal information of its more than 150 million American users and gives that adversary the opportunity to shape and mold the information those users receive.Indeed, in one of the more astonishing public relations blunders in modern memory, TikTok made its critics’ case for them when it urged users to contact Congress to save the app. The resulting flood of angry calls demonstrated exactly how TikTok can trigger a public response and gave the lie to the idea that the app did not have clear (and essentially instantaneous) political influence.Moreover, the vote demonstrated that it’s still possible to forge something approaching a foreign policy consensus on at least some issues. When a threat becomes big enough — and obvious enough — the American government can still act.Or can it? The bill is now slowing down in the Senate, and there is real doubt whether it will pass. The app, after all, is phenomenally popular, and Congress is not often in the business of restricting popular things.But there’s another reason to question the bill’s prospects. And it not only threatens this particular piece of legislation, but also is yet another indication of the high stakes of the 2024 election: Donald Trump has abruptly flip-flopped from supporting the TikTok ban to opposing it — and that flip-flop is more important than most people realize.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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      Americans Invested Billions in Chinese Companies. Now Their Money Is Stuck.

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      TikTok’s turn in geopolitical cross hairs highlights the narrowing paths to liquidity for investments in Chinese companies.When investors talk about “zombie” companies, they’re usually referring to distressed start-ups that are hobbling along, unable to grow and unlikely to ever return the money they’ve raised.But as deal makers feverishly debated efforts this week by lawmakers to force TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app, they talked about a new version: China zombies.China zombies may have booming businesses, but they’re unlikely to provide investors with any immediate return because they’re stuck in geopolitical cross hairs.It’s not just the investors in ByteDance who, after handing it more than $8 billion, are stuck. What looked like a mammoth growth opportunity just a few years ago — inspiring investors to pour money into companies like Ant Financial, PingPong and Geekplus — has turned hostile.“There’s more out there like ByteDance,” Evan Chuck, a partner at the advisory firm Crowell, said of companies with investors who may find themselves in this position. “It’s only really heating up further.”Selling is increasingly a long shot. Take TikTok. Even if ByteDance puts the app up for sale, the Chinese government is unlikely to allow the company’s most valuable asset, its recommendation algorithm, to be included. The country introduced new export control rules for technologies like that algorithm in 2020, just as TikTok was nearing a deal with U.S. buyers (which eventually fell apart).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’s Progress Slows in the Senate

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      Legislation to force TikTok’s Chinese owner to sell the app or have it banned in the United States sailed through the House, but the Senate has no plans to move hastily.After a bill that would force TikTok’s Chinese parent company to sell the app or face a nationwide ban sailed through the House at breakneck speed this week, its progress has slowed in the Senate.Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader who determines what legislation gets a vote, has not decided whether to bring the bill to the floor, his spokesman said. Senators — some of whom have their own versions of bills targeting TikTok — will need to be convinced. Other legislation on the runway could be prioritized. And the process of taking the House bill and potentially rewriting it to suit the Senate could be time consuming.Many in the Senate are keeping their cards close to their vest about what they would do on the TikTok measure, even as they said they recognized the House had sent a powerful signal with its vote on the bill, which passed 352 to 65. The legislation mandates that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, sell its stake in the app within six months or face a ban.“The lesson of the House vote is that this issue is capable of igniting almost spontaneously in the support that it has,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said in an interview on Friday. He said that there could be adjustments made to the bill but that there was bipartisan support to wrest the app from Chinese ownership.The slowdown in the Senate means that TikTok is likely to face weeks or even months of uncertainty about its fate in the United States. That could result in continued lobbying, alongside maneuvering by the White House, the Chinese government and ByteDance. It is also likely to prompt potential talks about deals — whether real or imagined — while the uncertainty of losing access to the app will hang over the heads of TikTok creators and its 170 million U.S. users.“Almost everything will slow down in the Senate,” said Nu Wexler, a former Senate aide who worked for Google, Twitter and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. “They’ll need some time to either massage egos or build consensus.”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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      House Passes Bill to Force TikTok Sale From Chinese Owner or Ban the App

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      The legislation received wide bipartisan support, with both Republicans and Democrats showing an eagerness to appear tough on China.The House on Wednesday passed a bill with broad bipartisan support that would force TikTok’s Chinese owner to sell the hugely popular video app or be banned in the United States. The move escalates a showdown between Beijing and Washington over the control of technologies that could affect national security, free speech and the social media industry.Republican leaders fast-tracked the bill through the House with limited debate, and it passed on a lopsided vote of 352-65, reflecting widespread backing for legislation that would take direct aim at China in an election year. The action came despite TikTok’s efforts to mobilize its 170 million U.S. users against the measure, and amid the Biden administration’s push to persuade lawmakers that Chinese ownership of the platform poses grave national security risks to the United States.The result was a bipartisan coalition behind the measure that included Republicans, who defied former President Donald J. Trump in supporting it, and Democrats, who also fell in line behind a bill that President Biden has said he would sign.The bill faces a difficult road to passage in the Senate, where Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, has been noncommittal about bringing it to the floor for a vote and where some lawmakers have vowed to fight it.TikTok has been under threat since 2020, with lawmakers increasingly arguing that Beijing’s relationship with TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, raises national security risks. The bill is aimed at getting ByteDance to sell TikTok to non-Chinese owners within six months. The president would sign off on the sale if it resolved national security concerns. If that sale did not happen, the app would be banned.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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      Trump Gives CNBC a Rambling Answer on Why He Backtracked on TikTok Ban

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      Donald Trump told CNBC that banning TikTok would make young people “go crazy” and could benefit Facebook, which he called an “enemy of the people.”Former President Donald J. Trump offered a rambling and confusing explanation on Monday of why he had reversed himself on whether the United States should ban TikTok over concerns that its Chinese ownership poses a threat to national security.In a CNBC interview, Mr. Trump said that he still considered the social media app a national security threat but that banning it would make young people “go crazy.” He added that any action harming TikTok would benefit Facebook, which he called an “enemy of the people.”“Frankly, there are a lot of people on TikTok that love it,” Mr. Trump said. “There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it.”“There’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad with TikTok,” he added, “but the thing I don’t like is that without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people, along with a lot of the media.”Mr. Trump tried to ban TikTok while in office, pushing its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the platform to a new owner or face being blocked from American app stores. A House committee advanced legislation last week that would similarly force TikTok to cut ties with ByteDance.In a powerful display of bipartisanship — rare these days in Washington — the top Republican and Democratic lawmakers on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party used nearly identical language to describe the risks of TikTok.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 the President Wants to Curb TikTok. Biden the Candidate Embraces Its Stars.

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      At a party for social media influencers at the White House this week, President Biden’s political concerns collided with his national security concerns.The White House is so concerned about the security risks of TikTok that federal workers are not allowed to use the app on their government phones. Top Biden administration officials have even helped craft legislation that could ban TikTok in the United States.But those concerns were pushed aside on Thursday, the night of President Biden’s State of the Union address, when dozens of social media influencers — many of them TikTok stars — were invited to the White House for a watch party.The crowd took selfies in the State Dining Room, drank bubbly with the first lady and waved to Mr. Biden from the White House balcony as he left to deliver his speech to Congress.“Don’t jump, I need you!” Mr. Biden shouted to the young influencers filming from above, in a scene that was captured — naturally — in a TikTok video, which was beamed out to hundreds of thousands of people.Thursday’s party at the White House was an example of Mr. Biden’s political concerns colliding head-on with his national security concerns. Despite growing fears that ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, could infringe on the personal data of Americans or manipulate what they see, the president’s campaign is relying on the app to energize a frustrated bloc of young voters ahead of the 2024 election.“From a national security perspective, the campaign joining TikTok was definitely not a good look — it was condoning the use of a platform that the administration and everyone in D.C. recognizes is a national problem,” said Lindsay Gorman, head of technology and geopolitics at the German Marshall Fund and a former tech adviser for the Biden administration.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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      Cat Janice, Singer With Cancer Who Left Her Son a Dance Track, Dies at 31

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      TikTok rallied around the singer, who revealed during her cancer treatment that she had transferred the rights to her final song to her son, as an inheritance of sorts.Cat Janice, a singer and songwriter who released a buoyant pop track from hospice that galvanized her thousands of supporters online to sway, and even groove, in the face of tragedy, died on Wednesday at her family home in Annandale, Va. She was 31.The cause was sarcoma, according to William Ipsan, her brother.The singer and multi-instrumentalist, whose legal name was Catherine Ipsan, started writing music as a teenager and released it throughout her 20s. But “Dance You Outta My Head,” which she shared on social media alongside candid discussion of her grueling cancer treatments, quickly became the biggest hit of her career. Over disco-inflected guitar and exuberant strings, she sang about “dancing on the edge of disaster.”Ms. Ipsan released the song on Jan. 19, a few days after entering hospice care. The song caught fire as her health outlook darkened, with social media users — including celebrities like Jason Derulo — leaving messages of support.It became a common soundtrack on TikTok after Ms. Ipsan encouraged her followers to stream the song as a way of supporting her 7-year-old son, Loren, after her death. “I am leaving this song behind for my son,” she wrote on TikTok. In another post, she said she had “changed all the rights from my songs so every presave and every stream goes to Loren.”The song has been used in more than two million TikTok videos and became the singer’s first song to enter the Billboard charts.“I’m praying my story isn’t over yet,” she wrote in a post on her birthday, the day after the song’s release. “But if it is, this is a pretty incredible way to say goodbye.”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