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Comment by rydre | Hacker News Reader

No, it's going to be bigger. I know most people dont use snap but they use tiktok.

Everyone young uses tiktok. It's much bigger than snap could have ever hoped. TikTok is FAANG tier company.

If I were the founder, I'd go the Chinese government and ask them to ban Tesla and put tariff on Apple in retaliation. Tell the U.S. to play free market like they claim. Or lost access for it's companies.

TikTok deserves it's success fully. It's very unfair that the U.S. government is insistent on blocking it. It's not a monopoly. It's not a dirty company. Virtually all of its "privacy violations" are the same violations done by Google, Facebook. Break up BigTech instead of hitting a creative startup.

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> Everyone young uses tiktok. It's much bigger than snap could have ever hoped.

Interestingly, you'd think that, but it's dead wrong. I'd say about a quarter of people actually use tick tock, compared to almost all using instagram or snap chat. There's a "subculture" of people that use it and are massively active, and most others don't use it at all. This strikes me as a massive impediment to tick tock's growth in America: it's entirely captured a specific group but has made essentially no inroads with any other.

> It's not a monopoly.

This is a straw-man; no one is saying it is. People are saying it's a national security risk.

> Virtually all of its "privacy violations" are the same violations done by Google, Facebook.

Well, I'm less sure of what tick tock does with data than either of those, so maybe better the devil you know? The concern is that at least at least FAANGs can be sued in a court of competent jurisdiction, whereas tick tock is based in an autocracy that is deeply opposed to the concept of freedom and means to make itself the foremost world power by any means necessary.

> Interestingly, you'd think that, but it's dead wrong. I'd say about a quarter of people actually use tick tock, compared to almost all using instagram or snap chat.

They said everybody young uses tiktok. While that's obviously an exaggeration it currently is the number 1 most downloaded app on iOS and Android by quite a long way.

It's only 300M behind the all time number of Instagram downloads on all platforms (1.8B vs 1.5B) and is growing at 4x the rate of Instagram.

https://mediakix.com/blog/top-tik-tok-statistics-demographic...

> They said everybody young uses tiktok

I'm speaking as a very young person, there seems to be a small group (about a quarter) who uses tick tock avidly. This is borne out by the data I could find, which showed approximately 22% usage among young people: https://morningconsult.com/form/more-young-teens-use-tiktok-...

I'd rather have my data used by an "autocracy" on the other side of the ocean that can't reach me, then by a "democracy" that can get me and make mu life hell. If that foreign "autocracy" is an enemy of the "democracy", even better, since they are then less likely to ever share my data.

> can't reach me

She absolutely can if you are of any interest to her. See this talk by FBI director Christopher Wray that discusses Chinese influence operations against Americans: https://www.c-span.org/video/?473658-1/fbi-director-wray-chi...

How has your life been made hell? Why would you support a far-away dictatorship?

> If I were the founder, I'd go the Chinese government and ask them to ban Tesla and put tariff on Apple in retaliation. Tell the U.S. to play free market like they claim. Or lost access for it's companies

China has already been doing stuff like this for decades.

It is about time that the US started doing the same thing back, when it makes sense to do so.

I really doubt Tiktok's founder has that sort of leverage/power over the Chinese government. The current Chinese regime makes rational decisions, I doubt they'll think banning Tesla and Apple in order to protect Tiktok is worth it from a cost/value ratio point of view.

Huawei is way more valuable to the Chinese government, and they didn't ban US companies in retaliation either.

TikTok will serve the purpose to Chinese government that Hollywood served for America's elite. It's worth every penny for softpower.

Nah there is a quite huge gap between Douyin (Chinese Tiktok) and Tiktok itself. I once out of curiosity browsed Douyin. Peculiarly, they are rather hostile with attempts to bring TikTok trends into their platform, and they showed their contempt quite clearly.

Side note: Douyin features are way ahead of TikTok. e.g. https://youtu.be/yyeO7EUciIQ

> they didn't ban US companies in retaliation either

That's probably because they've already been banning American companies for years if they posed any potential thread to Communist control.

You mean, as opposed to other countries, where entities that threaten to overthrow their governments are allowed to continue to operate?

Look if you think it is justified for China to keep out foreign companies, fine.

But if that is your opinion then don't come crying to the rest of the world, when they do the same exact thing to Chinese corporations that China has been doing to others, for decades.

Fair is fair.

I don't have an opinion on whether or not it is justified. I just think that the statement I replied to, is a very weird one. One reason being the leap of logic.

And frankly I doubt the correctness of the statement altogether. There are a ton of American companies operating in China, much more than the number of banned ones. How many US companies does China really ban?

What all these comments about 'fairness' also don't mention is that under the WTO rules, developing nations (which China officially is) are allowed to take protectionist measures.

> There are a ton of American companies operating in China

There are huge restrictions by China in American corporations.

You should look this up, if you are unfamiliar.

It is well accepted that there are many more restrictions, in comparison to say if an American corporation wanted to enter the EU market or something.

This is common knowledge, and it is easy to look this stuff up.

> are allowed to take protectionist measures.

And America is allowed to retaliate against them.

China can do what they want, but if they come crying to everyone else when other countries retaliate, nobody should expect others to take such complaints seriously.

Which US companies have been banned for threatening to overthrow the PRC?

lol, yeah ok bud.

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