The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 39 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Hayes: Ramaswamy is unfit for office after taking Jeff Yass donations
“I truly believe that anybody that's taking donations. From a major ByteDance shareholder. And then going out and saying that they will That TikTok should only stay in the control of ByteDance, which we've now determined through this entire last hour is ultimat…”
Steinman: ByteDance's prize is algorithm control to influence US youth
“Yeah, they absolutely want to retain control of the algorithm because that's like the prize is the ability to like inject ideas into the youth of the United States or elsewhere.”
Hays: Chinese E-Commerce Coordinates With TikTok to Manipulate US Consumers
“The Chinese companies coordinate to use TikTok as a channel to influence activity in the U S.”
Hays: DeepSeek is China's Next Subsidized Tech Trojan Horse Like TikTok
“I'll go out on a limb to say this is China's next attempt at a DJI TikTok type. Product where, hey, let's basically sell this product in America for way less than it costs. Give it away for free. Try to get a bunch of important, you know, companies using it or…”
Iovine: Social Media Affected Music More Creatively Than Streaming Did
“So, I think that affected music more sonically and creatively than, ah, streaming did, personally.”
Ohanian: TikTok Was a Problematic CCP Vehicle Before U.S. Ownership
“I've been publicly talking about how problematic TikTok was for years and years and years as a vehicle of the CCP. So I'm happy it's an American possession now.”
Hammond: Chinese export controls prevent any TikTok buyer from acquiring its algorithm
“China has very strong expert controls. Like the reason TikTok can't sell is because algorithms in general are expert controlled. And so they would be able to buy the brand name and like the offices, but they'd have to completely re revamp the algorithm, which …”
Ohanian: Frank McCourt's TikTok bid aims to migrate users on-chain
“Frank McCourt's the big dog here. He called me up and was like, Hey, I'd love to get you involved. And he already had his instincts were around building something on chain, you know, using this and the massive user base of tick tock to, you know, basically ove…”
Coogan: Self-Hosting DeepSeek Carries Far Less Security Risk Than TikTok
“I just, this is a different scenario because if you just download the Git repo for deep seek and you host it on Amazon or, you know, Google cloud or whatever, like there's no data feeding back. Like you're not helping them improve the model at all. Like that's…”
Hayes: TikTok divestiture is too moderate; the US should ban the app
“Divestiture is way too moderate, ban the app. That's Solana's position, which I agree with.”
Coogan: TikTok ban is happening unless Trump overrides it
“There is a law that's passed that should ban TikTok. It's happening unless Trump overrides it.”
Coogan: Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX will each own 15% of TikTok US
“You got Oracle, you got private equity firm Silverlake, you got Abu Dhabi-based MGX. They will each own 15% of the new entity, while TikTok investors will own about 30%.”
Hays: TikTok US deal includes a perpetual revenue share to ByteDance
“There's a huge revenue share that's going back to ByteDance in perpetuity that is obviously reflected in the valuation.”
Coogan: Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX to own 45% of TikTok US
“TikTok has signed a deal for the sale of the United States unit. The deal should close January 20 22nd. This is from Sarah Fisher, the media correspondent at Axios. Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX will collectively own 45% of the U.S. Entity, 30% We'll be held by…”
TikTok struggles with commerce because users visit for video, not shopping
“Like, say, TikTok, amazing product, but people are going there to, like, watch videos, not necessarily shop, and I think that pattern's really hard. So we've always believed there's opportunity for a player who's purpose built to be world class at shopping and…”
Coogan: The Ship Has Sailed on Starting New Mega Platforms
“The ship has sailed on starting like new platforms for the most part, in my opinion.”
TikTok succeeds as a technology export, not a cultural export.
“By default, I don't see TikTok as like a uniquely a uniquely Chinese cultural export. It's a technology.”
Misra: TikTok spent around $100M a month advertising on Snapchat
“They were running, like, a hundred million dollars a month of ads on Snapchat, right? Initially, right? When they were not, there was no presence.”
Srinivas: Perplexity will allow user thread publishing on Discover feed
“We have this thing called Discover and we're trying to increase the volume of content on Discover, and once we do that in an automatic way with curation to users interest. Like we're going to let some of the users pub try to like publish it to discover on thei…”
Srinivas: Perplexity submitted a bid to acquire TikTok US
“We, we've submitted our bid. We never expected to be the leading candidate or anything.”
Coogan: TikTok's successor will deepen user addiction rather than promote digital detox
“The thing that will kill TikTok is not, oh, be real, take one picture per day. It's actually the thing that gets someone to lock in on TikTok for three hours instead of one hour.”
Coogan: Meta and YouTube Shorts will capture 99% of TikTok's time
“I really think like 99% of the tech talk. Time spent on that app will flow to Meta, YouTube Shorts, and then Snapchat, I do think will be a beneficiary, but maybe they capture five percent of like the bleed over.”
Hayes: Jeff Yass Holds Over $30B Stake in ByteDance
“His name is Jeff Yass, a major GOP donor and an investor in ByteDance, therefore TikTok. Presently sitting on a stake in the company worth over thirty billion dollars.”
Hays: Unacceptable for China to control TikTok given its scale
“It's absolutely insane that, you know, we wouldn't want China directly controlling, you know, one of the top three largest media companies and that it's in tech talk is objectively one of the biggest media companies, even though it's a social media platform.”
Hays: The political movement to ban TikTok is completely dead
“No, it's basically, no, but basically the whole like political movement to ban TikTok is completely dead. Seemingly evaporated.”
Coogan: Future top capital allocators do not watch TikTok
“The next generation of successful capital allocators are really, really not watching, you know, TikToks.”
Coogan: Meta Built Two Data Centers Specifically to Power Reels Algorithm
“They built two extra data centers to be able to do the Reels algorithm, because if they didn't have that compute capacity, they could not have launched a competitor to TikTok on any normal time frame, because it was actually a compute intensive project, not ju…”
Coogan: Roblox Monetization Per Minute Is 5x Lower Than TikTok
“Their monetization on a per minute basis is, I think, like five times lower than other platforms, like if you comp it to TikTok or Instagram”
Coogan: ByteDance is on track for $50B in profit in 2025
“TikTok owner ByteDance is on track for fifty billion in profit in 2025.”
Hays: Perplexity submitted a bid to acquire TikTok earlier in 2025
“Perplexity was also bidding on Tik Tok earlier this year.”
Coogan: Larry Ellison is currently in the conversation to buy TikTok
“Larry Ellison is in the conversation to buy TikTok now.”
Srinivas: TikTok US decision is delayed and likely tied to tariffs
“I think they've delayed the decision and it's probably going to be coupled with the tariff situation too.”
Hayes: Project Texas Was Developed by TikTok Under Biden, Not Trump
“Project Texas was developed by TikTok, not the government. It was not developed under Trump's tenure, but President Biden's.”
Coogan: Algorithmic feed views fluctuate wildly compared to consistent podcast RSS
“If you look at, you know, a podcaster who has an RSS feed and someone listens to every single episode, well, the downloads are not, we talked to David Center about this, like his downloads might fluctuate by like, 10%. Episode to episode, but it's always in th…”
Coogan: TikTok users average 52 minutes daily, beating other social networks
“Users spend an average of 52 minutes a day on the app, which is significantly higher than any other social network.”
Coogan: Viral Citrini report made the Wall Street Journal cover
“There's people making TikToks about it now. And also it's on the cover of the Wall Street Journal.”
Coogan: TikTok reports reaching 200 million US users
“TikTok said it had two hundred million users in the U.S., up from its twenty-twenty-four estimate of about a hundred and seventy million users”
Coogan: TikTok ban legally targets app store distribution and Oracle hosting
“The law doesn't require TikTok to turn off the app. Instead, the law requires App Store operators like Apple and Google to stop making TikTok available for downloads. It also requires Oracle, TikTok's cloud provider, to stop hosting the app's U.S. Data user da…”
Coogan: X categorizes itself as News to avoid competing with Instagram
“I'm actually surprised it is in productivity because X is famously in news, not in social networking. And so X will typically be at the top of the news subcategory because it would be much harder to compete in the product in the social networking category agai…”