Trump tells reporters aboard Air Force One he is banning TikTok | Hacker News Reader

Trump tells reporters aboard Air Force One he is banning TikTok

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26 pointszone41117 comments

Renegade... renegade. I enjoy TikTok, but until China allows free access of US apps and websites into their marketplace, I consider this a trade war which the president can conduct.

What the president can and cannot do isn't based on what you deem acceptable its based on matters of law. Furthermore claiming to be able to do something you can't actually erodes your authority and power in a conflict.

He will use an executive order. The same he could have used to order masks be worn.

Maybe I am the odd one out but I actually enjoy Tiktok and I don't like the idea of the president being able to ban apps unilaterally.

I hope this doesn't go through.

> Trump’s comments come as it was reported Friday that Microsoft has held talks to buy the TikTok video-sharing mobile app from Chinese owner ByteDance.

It's to make sure MSFT gets it and at a good price. Trump is very aware of the power of signaling whether it pans out or not.

Does he have the authority to do this?

This [1] article mentions that Trump signed executive order 13873 [2] in May 2019 which could be used to force Apple and Google to remove it from their app stores.

[1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/24/trump-cant-ban-tiktok-f...

[2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-or...

Has there been a successful instance of a widespread ban on software in the internet at large? Napster and BitTorrent says no.

If that is the case, then so many people should be using Twitter and Google in China, where they are banned. Fact is 99% of people will not bother using a VPN to access TikTok -- anyway clones will appear pretty soon and they will grab the market.

Instagram has been predicated as the backup plan for people using TikTok in the event it gets banned.

Widespread. China and Iran and Pakistan bans are not affecting Brazil, Europe or Canada. How is Trump going to stop ubiquitous VPN usage from the USA without the great firewall of China?

He just needs to take it off app stores.

You can still access tik tok via its website. Though uploading videos may be much more difficult

Which he can't unless apple and google opt to do so. If so he should have made an plea to them instead of pretending he could ban it by fiat.

A lot of Chinese people do use twitter and youtube, the reason you don't see them is because its all in Chinese characters so unless you deliberately type it in the search bar you would very rarely see recommendations from say the youtube algorithm that will lead you there.

I follow some pretty popular vlogs of village life in China with shit ton of subscribers. I can only assume VPN usage in China is a lot more common than most people think.

This is maybe a slight tangent, but it’s made me reflect on how much had changed since the Napster era. If it launched today then Apple and Google would pull it from their app stores immediately. That kind of central control simply didn’t exist back then.

side loading on android and word of mouth in a larger total economy would be the same amount of gnutella then but a far smaller percentage of total market size now.

If it was viable as a base then, would it not be viable as a base now?

for comparison.. its been said to me Nintendo is in profit on consoles and games sold solely within Japan (and maybe Korea)

on that basis, should we declare any unit which fails in the US market a failure?

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