Ben Thompson: commitment

12 Feb 2026 Cheeky Pint Ben Thompson from Stratechery on AI ads, the end of SaaS, and the future of media

“There was a thumb on the scale here. And I started talking about it then, and I did support the ban of TikTok or the forced divesture from China because it seems fairly insane to have a primary information source controlled by your chief geopolitical adversary.”

— Ben Thompson

Source trail

Everything needed to verify it.

Speaker: Ben Thompson
Attribution: Verified speaker
Claim type: commitment
Recorded: 12 Feb 2026
Publisher: Cheeky Pint
Episode: Ben Thompson from Stratechery on AI ads, the end of SaaS, and the future of media

Transcript context

…Oh, that's funny. It got demonetized. The Houston Rockets. There was a thumb on the scale here. And I started talking about it then, and I did support the ban of TikTok or the forced divesture from China because it seems fairly insane to have a primary information source controlled by your chief geopolitical adversary. Yeah. Same like there's rules over TV station ownership and it's not wildly different.…

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