Social media completes its shift to the right: TikTok is consequential'

"The fastest-growing social network in the world and the most popular among young people is set to operate in the U.S. under a company independent of its Chinese parent company, with a board of directors controlled by the White House, which has already expressed its preferences. A man named Lachlan is involved, Trump said in an interview on Fox News. Lachlan and his father Rupert Murdoch are probably going to be in the group, Trump told the network."

"Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle and a personal friend of the president, will also be involved. TikTok is the latest major social network to take this conservative turn. Facebook and Instagram did so shortly after Trump won the election, when their owner, Mark Zuckerberg, became a supporter of the MAGA movement. Two years earlier, Elon Musk turned Twitter into X, a platform whose algorithm gives special visibility to posts that are racist, misleading, or support far-right candidates from around the world."

"I want you all to put all the pieces together, because what this effectively means is that every mass social media platform in the United States has been taken over by the right wing. Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez issued this warning in January, after TikTok posted a message thanking the newly inaugurated President Trump for preventing the platform from being shut down in the U.S. by granting an extension to resolve its sale."

TikTok is slated to operate in the United States under an independent company with a White House-influenced board and reported involvement from Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch, and Larry Ellison. Other major platforms have moved right: Facebook and Instagram shifted after Trump’s 2016 victory, and Twitter became X under Elon Musk, whose algorithm elevates racist, misleading, and far-right content. Critics warn that combined ownership shifts and algorithmic changes amount to right-wing dominance of mass U.S. social media. TikTok publicly thanked President Trump for an extension to resolve its sale, and Meta ended its third-party fact-checking program.

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