BEIJING: Poker faces were in short supply after Lady Gaga met the Dalai Lama, with Chinese social media users erupting in fury Monday.
The pop star met with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader at the United States Conference of Mayors in Indiana, where the Nobel laureate gave the keynote speech.
After Lady Gaga posted a photo of the two of them on Instagram, the image was inundated with abusive comments.
“The way the Chinese feel is just like you were shaking hands with Bin Laden,” one poster wrote.
Another said: “This is proof that she can love and respect a Chinese terrorist. She fundamentally looks down on Chinese fans, and even all Chinese people.”
Asked by AFP if the meeting would lead to a “bad romance” between Chinese authorities and the singer, foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei did not recognize the recording artist.
“Who?” he asked. The Dalai Lama was “touting his Tibetan independence policies around the world” he said, adding: “We hope people can see through to his true nature.”
The Dalai Lama’s speech mainly focused on hope for the future, US reports said.
“Now, the time has come that America should be the leading nation in the promotion of human compassion, human love in order to achieve compassionate world,” he said, according to the Indianapolis Star newspaper.
“I think in my lifetime we can achieve that. But effort must start now.”
Gaga who? Outrage in China as singer meets Dalai Lama
Gaga who? Outrage in China as singer meets Dalai Lama
Oracle says data center outage causing issues faced by US TikTok users
WASHINGTON: Oracle on Tuesday said issues faced by US users of social media app TikTok are the result of a temporary weather-related power outage at an Oracle data center, after California Governor Gavin Newsom linked the issues to what he called the suppression of content critical of President Donald Trump.
“Over the weekend, an Oracle data center experienced a temporary weather-related power outage which impacted TikTok,” Oracle spokesperson Michael Egbert said in an email.
A powerful winter storm struck much of the US over the weekend.
“The challenges US TikTok users may be experiencing are the result of technical issues that followed the power outage, which Oracle and TikTok are working to quickly resolve,” Egbert said.
On Monday, Newsom said his office was launching a review to determine if TikTok’s content moderation practices violated state law.
“Following TikTok’s sale to a Trump-aligned business group, our office has received reports — and independently confirmed instances — of suppressed content critical of President Trump,” Newsom’s office had said.
TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, last week finalized a deal to set up a majority US-owned joint venture known as TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC that will secure US data, to avert a ban on the short video app used by more than 200 million Americans. The deal was praised by Trump.
The joint venture has denied censorship, saying “it would be inaccurate to report that this is anything but the technical issues we’ve transparently confirmed.”
Each of the joint venture’s three managing investors — cloud computing giant Oracle, private equity group Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX — will hold a stake of 15 percent. The deal provides for American and global investors to hold 80.1 percent of the venture while ByteDance will own 19.9 percent.
The joint venture said on Tuesday it “made significant progress in recovering our US infrastructure with our US data center partner” but noted that US users may still face some technical issues, including when posting new content.
With more than 16 million followers on his personal TikTok account, Trump credited the app with helping him win the 2024 election.
Last week’s deal was a milestone for TikTok after years of battles with the US government over Washington’s concerns about risks to national security and privacy under Trump and former President Joe Biden.
