TikTok Schadenfreude, Iger’s Cuts, & D.C. Media Games

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Happy Friday. Welcome back to In The Room.

Tonight, some informed observations on Silicon Valley’s TikTok calculus, Disney layoffs, and Politico and the Post’s global ambitions.

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TikTok Schadenfreude, Iger’s Cuts, & D.C. Media Games

News and notes on the inside story in the media industry: what Silicon Valley billionaires want Washington regulators to do with TikTok in D.C., how Iger’s cuts are playing in Bristol and Manhattan, and updates from the Washington media carousel.

DYLAN BYERS

On Thursday, as TikTok C.E.O. Shou Chew gamely withstood a drubbing from Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike—Chew was prepped by SKDK; reviews were mixed—a consensus emerged among some observers that the pressure on the Chinese-owned company was a boon to Meta, Google, Snap and other U.S. social media firms that saw their stock tick upward over the course of the hearing. The all-too-obvious reasoning here is that, in the event of a ban on TikTok, or a forced sale, or some other force majeure-ish event, its some 150 million U.S. users will return to, or spend more time on, apps like Instagram and Snapchat that have lost market share—and, frankly, Gen-Z cachet—to ByteDance’s juggernaut.

The true implications of U.S. pressure on TikTok are, of course, far more complicated, not least because the most likely outcome here is not a ban but a forced divestiture. In any event, most Silicon Valley executives...

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