🎬TikTok blackout

January 20, 2025

Good morning. If you haven’t heard back from that dream job, don’t get discouraged. Or maybe do — but for a different reason than you thought: One in five jobs advertised is a “ghost job” that will never be filled, according to internal data from hiring platform Greenhouse.

Not ours though. We’re looking for a wannabe humorist to write our Squared Take intros. If you have 30 minutes of your day to cook up the most random and off-beat beginnings to a newsletter, let us know here.

— Edna Akanni, Obafemi Ayomide.

CURRENCIES

Currency exchange rates against the US dollar as of market close. Here’s what these numbers mean

SOCIAL MEDIA
Tiktok’s gone dark in the US

Hiayun Jiang/NYT

If you were in the US this past Friday, there was no such thing as scrolling too much on TikTok. That’s because the Supreme Court rejected TikTok’s legal challenge to its impending banishment from US phone screens. Meaning that as soon as the wee hours of Sunday hit, US users were left rediscovering Facebook’s new interface as TikTok put up a message saying they’d been banned.

The decision was unanimous: The bipartisan TikTok ban that President Joe Biden signed into law in April is constitutional, SCOTUS ruled, as expected. The court found that “well-supported” national-security concerns over alleged Chinese data collection via TikTok’s owner ByteDance take priority over the free speech rights of the app’s 170 million American users.

But your FYP could still be saved

The Biden administration signaled that it wouldn’t enforce the TikTok ban when it officially kicks in on Jan. 19. The baton will pass to President-elect Trump today, and he’s done a 180 on TikTok since his first term when he initiated the push for a ban.

As a matter of fact, TikTok began restoring its services on Sunday. The app issued a statement suggesting a return of services after U.S. users reported being able to access the service's website meanwhile the far more widely used TikTok app itself began coming back online for some users with just a few basic services. As of Sunday evening, the app remained unavailable for download on U.S. app stores.

Trump wants to keep TikTok accessible in the US…somehow. He said he had a “good” call with Chinese President Xi Jinping about TikTok on Friday. Once in office, Trump could…

  • Issue an executive order—though legal experts say it might not hold up in court.

  • Instruct his pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi, to ignore the ban. She avoided answering whether she’d enforce it at her Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday.

As for a potential sale…TikTok has denied reports that Chinese officials are considering selling the app to Elon Musk. Without a deal on the table, TikTok intends to keep its offices open but plans to shut down services in the US, which would also remove liability risks for app distributors Apple and Google. To keep TikTok on screens, Trump might need to convince Big Tech that his administration won’t collect the enormous penalties that app stores could legally get hit with if they keep carrying TikTok.-OA

DIGITS
Not divorce worthy

The Latin Times

How much scammers milked out of a 53-year-old French interior designer who thought she was dating actor Brad Pitt. How does something like this happen?

The scammers reportedly contacted the woman via an Instagram account, sending proof that included images of his passport and AI-generated photos and videos. The faux relationship developed over 18 months, leading the woman to divorce her husband and send not-Pitt thousands of dollars for supposed treatment for kidney failure. Eventually, the woman saw news about the real Pitt’s girlfriend and realized she’d been scammed.

SHOWER THOUGHTS

“The ceiling is the only thing in the house that gets touched the least but looked at the most.”

NEWS
Round the continent

Vito Technologies

  • Nigeria was announced on Friday as the newest partner country of the BRICS economic bloc.

  • Amazon will now accept payment for its AWS Cloud Services in Nigerian Naira. Seven other currencies were announced as eligible.

  • Kenya is exploring a partnership with the UAE to extend a standard gauge railway line to connect the country to Uganda and South Sudan.

  • This month, six planets grace the sky in what's known as a planetary parade, and most can be seen with the naked eye. To get in on the planetary hangout, go outside on a clear night a few hours after sunset between 7:00 and 8:30 p.m. and face south.

Reply

or to participate.