TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources
reuters.com
reuters.com
Neither Apple nor Google have found TikTok problematic enough to delist them from their app stores. Neither is there charges that TikTok may have broken US laws.
Banning something which hasn't broken US laws, on arbitrary grounds shouldn't be possible.
The President shouldn't have authority to ban anything at all let alone an app available through privately operated app stores.
Also dictating which apps an individual can install/not install shouldn't be the job of the Federal Government.
All indication is that the president does not have authority to execute an outright ban of the thing.
Also what alarms me the veil of secrecy on the procedings. The proceeding of the CFIUS should be made public in this regard.
At this point US is seemingly acting like a dictatorship with very less transparency.
Policies and decisions should be debated and argued before they are executed, not merely justified after the fact. That's what US and a few oher democracies have turned to doing in recent years.
Ultimately I feel that it is US who has been more to blame (contrary to much of Western media coverage) for the deteriorating US-China relationship, and drumming up the chorus for a new coldwar. Chinese policy seems to have not significantly changed in the last 5 years towards the US, but on the other hand US seemed ever more keen and eger to pursue a hostile attitude towards China.
With the pandemic and with genral economic malice affecting much of the world, I don't think a path of increasing hostility and conflict is what the world needs.
For decades, China has blocked U.S. companies from fair competition, reneged on trade deals when it suits them, backed out of industrial partnerships after extracting the IP it deems useful, and generally been a bad trade partner.
I agree that the president shouldn't have authority to arbitrarily block a product or company (and ultimately he doesn't, he'll need broader support among elected officials), but it's absurd to suggest that the U.S. should blindly accept hostile behavior for decades on end without reacting, or else itself be labeled "hostile."
As far as the company, the President seems fully allowed to place restrictions on companies as foreign policy. If you're talking about the "American" part, it is owned by foreign entities, so the case still seems pretty good. Chinese spying on US citizens on US soil is definitely a foreign policy issue.
Obama's administration was known to walk up to companies with a rubber-stamped order to do whatever (usually spying on US citizens) and the place a gag order on the company so they couldn't even tell their users what was happening to them. If that was never challenged, I doubt this would be as preventing spying is certainly more moral than doing the spying.
Nobody is suggesting that China's trade policy go unchallenged. What I do want is a policy including evidence, recourse, and the possibility of compliance. I have seen no explanation whatsoever of why TikTok is so urgently terrible that we can't deal with whatever it is that the company is doing using rules --- and this strange silence is coming from people ordinarily keen on that old "government of laws, not men" principle. Everything is weird these days.
That's not absurd at all. Just because your enemy behaves badly doesn't make it acceptable for you to behave badly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater
Otherwise we would be trading beaver pelts and providing cheap labor.
Trump is banning TikTok because a bunch of teens pranked his rally using the platform.
The issue is whether current admins' China-hawks tough on China approach is smart and good for long-term US interests or merely counterproductive electioneering / domestic distraction which is... characteristic of behavior when it comes to managing other foreign relations so far. Nvm US has been quietly undermining China with Asia pivot for 10 years - many people are consumed by Trump/Pompeo and previously Bolton/Banning grievance politics because publicly clapping back feels good. Same ppl have no problem recognizing US foreign policy everywhere has been catastrophic for US interests in the last 4 years, but go full smooth brain cheering leading mode because it's China. Like holy shit, it's Pompeo. Folks can pretend/hope broken clock is right twice a day or realize people with bad history of foreign policy is maybe just bad at foreign policy. These are individuals who have no problem shaping America into the enemy it wants to fight.
He just handled all these issues poorly. He really only helped the rust belt by getting a handful of token factories to not close. Nothing really came of his meeting with Kim, and tensions have even escalated slightly. On the China front, he started a trade war with China and worked on some technology bans (both questionably helpful), and at the same time withdrew from the TPP, started trade disputes with strong allies, and weakened NATO. Coordinated response and strong western alliances would have been far more effective, but he did neither.
Put in specific data protection/privacy laws and regulations applicable to all players, not hound a single company without being able to prove any wrong doing in their part, or offering them a fair, due process.. it seems all arbitrary, discriminatory.. wrong in principle.. yet seems to cheered on by some, merely because it gives a semblance of going one up over a perceived adversary.
Retaliation or not, it is essentially arbitrary act, insufficiently justified in an open society.
International politics being driven with the ethos of a school playground.
Google and Facebook were never wholesale banned by China. You can see this with the fact that Google tried to re-enter China with project Dragonfly (a China-law compliant search engine), until it internally became politically unfeasible. Note that Microsoft operates Bing in China, and Yahoo as well.
I mean, are you suggesting we also move the planned economy model because China is right? It’s not like we adopted a free market model for the benefit of foreign interests... it’s simply a better model (in our belief) for creating a healthy economy.
The argument is also used a-la-carte: It's decades since the first time google pulled out of china, yet there was no relatiation then. And it does not apply to other countries which are often blocking google/facebook/youtube like russia or turkey?
It's frankly quite disturbing how something so completely wrong constantly ends up the top of HN comments on these tiktok threads lately. 2 of the top 3 comments say this and it's not true whatsoever. It's just plain jingoism.
Since you've raised the issue can I as an Australian, sell my lamb to US consumers unhindered? We have a free trade agreement, take a guess about our market access in certain farming sectors? Even with shipping I can sell for far better prices than domestic farmers so your government sets up tariffs and sanctions to stop that happening. Ask some South American corn farmers about their market access too while this topic is hot :)
The US is so blatantly hypocritical and that's the real "cringe" here. The ultra-nationalist sentiment in this place is laughable.
Tiktok was a risk and I don't really have much of a problem with the choices made but the online justifications are unreal to listen to.
That flies in the face of the supposed moral leadership (of the world) of our country.
This is something that is often claimed, but it doesn't reflect reality.
China does not generally lock American companies out of its market. In fact, American companies have a far greater presence in the Chinese market than vice versa.
For example, take a look at the 2017 China sales figures for a few American companies: [1]
* Apple: $44.7 billion
* Intel: $14.8 billion
* Qualcomm: $14.6 billion
* Boeing: $11.9 billion
* Micron: $10.4 billion
If you walk into any mall in China, you'll see American brands everywhere. Starbucks, KFC, McDonald's, tons of fashion brands, and on and on. The basic fact underlying all of this is that for decades, foreign direct investment flowed essentially in one direction: from the US to China. That reflected the fact that the US had capital, while China had labor. It's only recently that Chinese companies have begun expanding abroad, and FDI has started to go in the opposite direction.
1. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trade-war-watch-these-are-...
Of course it should. They control their store fronts. This is an extremist position you are taking.
> Also dictating which apps an individual can install/not install shouldn't be the job of the Federal Government.
They aren't doing that. Install the app from an APK if you care so much.
Protecting their citizens from hostile state actors is very much in their purview and mandate.
> At this point US is seemingly acting like a dictatorship with very less transparency.
Nonsense. TikTok isn't a US citizen. And they need to obey regulations. Ensuring US infrastructure and the private data of their citizens is protected is the sort of thing a democracy does.
> Chinese policy seems to have not significantly changed in the last 5 years towards the US,
I agree actually. They've been pulling this shit for more than a decade now. War on all fronts except military. I'm glad the world is starting to wake up to it.
Even in this forum, the general sentiment is that it should just be banned.
You can see it in WHO. Every president before Trump have neglect it. It will be an interesting time when American completely exit the world stage.
China has a planned economy. They pick and choose what happens economically and they have a heavy hand in manipulating it.
It honestly sounds like we want to have our cake and eat it too. The free market is the best way to develop a healthy economy, and it does not require the generosity of foreign players to function.
Fundamentally we’re just being rattled by the economic rise of China which is shaking the beliefs of some free market capitalists.
If it's a matter of national security, yes, he should. Whether it's ultimately seen as an abuse of power can be decided later in courts or via election.
The last time I asked folks here to explain to me why they think its a national security problem, I got a list of arguments that were just a little bit less plausible then those for the existence of Santa Claus.
Just because Trump says something (while providing no proof) does not make it true.
In what universe? The Chinese global stance has changed drastically over the past 5 years, and they have continued to deteriorate western companies and forced companies to appease their government, or the CCP will ban those companies, steal their IP and clone then. So far not a single soul has stood up to them, for fear of losing out. They've expanded their power in the South China Sea, laying claim to land and passages that aren't theirs at all and never have been. They fund North Korea as a satellite state to antagonize its neighbors, and turn in people that escape back to NK so they can be put in slave camps. The new security law gives them reach beyond their own borders to crack down on people that criticize the CCP. Not to mention they have literal concentration camps where they are harvesting organs, hair, using them as slave labor and stealing their possessions. Ask other Asian countries how they feel about China's slow and steady encroachment of their authoritarian regime that is anti-freedom.
I don't know, maybe the one where the U.S. constantly suprises the world in the last few years.
If you dig into this deeper, this is literally fake news. The sources for these claims are either the World Uighur Congress, a NED funded organization, or Adrian Zenz, a Christian fundamentalist who believes in the rapture, is Anti-LGBT, and praised the Nazis.
If you are so inclined, you can actually visit Xinjiang yourself and ask Uighurs there about the situation. China has been actively been encouraging foreign inspectors to visit Xinjiang to see the situation.
Given that America was wrong (or blatantly lied) about WMDs, Iraqis stealing incubators, Iraqis murdering babies in Kuwait, and is a geopolitical rival to China, Im doubtful about some of these claims.
They were expecting hundreds of thousands to turn up, but only a few thousand turned up, leaving the organisers utterly embarrassed.
I hardly think he cares about the "security" aspect of it.
Years of concentrated industrial espionage from China against US companies says otherwise.
The "circular firing squad" has now been taken to the international stage.
What does that even mean?
Chinese policy "towards the US" may be too narrow a view.
Within the past 5 years, Xi Jinping has eliminated the scheduled 10-year leadership transition which served to alternate power between various elite factions in China. This has put him in a position to maintain leadership for life. After Xi achieved this, China has seen numerous significant domestic and foreign policy shifts.
As China has become more of a near-peer global power with the US, Chinese domestic politics have become more relevant to everyone.
[1]https://www.gapminder.org/videos/hans-rosling-ted-2006-debun...
Additionally, painting China as a mere victim here ignores the complexity of the geopolitical tensions we are currently facing.
Security researchers have found it grossly problematic though.
1. https://www.proofpoint.com/us/blog/threat-protection/underst...
2. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/tiktok-flaws-...
From the first link:
> All in all, TikTok should be treated like any social media app: one that can be used with relative safety if you’re aware of the information it gathers and what it does with the data.
The second one seems like a security vulnerability found in TikTok - what separates that vulnerability from say, this one that allowed any user to delete any YouTube video?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/qz.com/374892/google-fixed-a-vu...
Since there's no reasoning presented, I guess there's no point engaging?
China routinely ban anything they don't like. How do you feel about that? Do you make appeal to fair competition to them?
This leaves a very good feeling if it happens.
But a Chinese communist party controlled media company with tens of millions of subscribers in the US which was _caught spying_ by both Apple _and_ Google is totally fine.
Is election interference and spying done by China good somehow? I don't get what you're arguing here.
For a litmus test, consider whether you'd hypothetically be fine with a massive social network operating on US soil that's run by e.g. USSR, Taliban, ISIS, or North Korea, ahead of what many think is one of the most consequential elections in our lifetimes.
In the real world, when you must take into account the realities of power politics sometimes extraordinary steps have to be taken.
China has been engaging in cyber espionage against the US for decades. Like it or not, we are engaged in a struggle with them because we have fundamentally different political worldviews.
These two worldviews cannot coexist.
3 years later, it’s grown like crazy because it’s the latest fad and would be smart for them to cash out before the next new thing hits
The whole divestment thing is probably a godsend for ByteDance, “forcing” them to liquidate their stake, but in reality let’s them cash out on an overhyped app that’s easy to copy
Must be laughing all the way to the bank
It's like Facebook, maybe around 2010-2012, with enormous upward potential - they might even dethrone Facebook and their offerings in the coming years. For the core Facebook app, I wouldnt be surprised if they did that already in a couple of countries.
Do you think that TikTok is The Big One, that will still be growing at the same rate in ten years' time? I don't.
Myspace and Facebook are shrinking. Some of the users leaving are going to TikTok, sure, but I don't think that means that it's better, it's just hotter right now.
In fact, I’d wager that, it TikTok plays their cards right, the platform could be bigger than YouTube within five years or so. I know it sounds crazy now, but there is nothing that dictates that YouTube’s model is the best for delivering democratized video publishing to the masses.
I find that a lot of these Gen Z kids don’t have the patience to sit thru a five or 10 minute YouTube video (and I can’t really blame them; how much time have you wasted watching YouTube videos that ended up being clickbait garbage?). They’d rather have the information condensed down into a 90 second video, and TikTok is perfectly designed to serve those viewing habits.
I know the popular perception of TikTok (from those that don’t use it) is that it just hosts trendy dance videos, but TikTok creators are publishing essentially all the same genres of content we see on YouTube. You can find everything from dance videos to home improvement tutorials on the service. Furthermore, more and more YouTube creators are moving over to TikTok. I view the service as the single biggest threat we’ve seen to YouTube since it’s rise to popularity.
I suspect TikToks next big move will be into YouTube’s bread and butter: official music videos. Their user interaction model lends itself extremely well into music discovery.
Also, most fundamentally, there’s only 24 hours in a day. Every hour spent on TikTok is one hour not spent on YouTube or a competing service.
Tiktok by its nature cannot maintain the momentum it has with kids 14-18 now with the kids that are currently 8-12. They will reject it no matter what Tiktok does because thats how kids are conditioned in the west to behave.
Online companies, like brick and mortar companies, rise and fall. And even if Facebook's best days are behind it, I'm not sure we can call a business that grew for nearly 15 years and is now used by billions of people a "fad." Regardless, it generated unfathomable wealth for its founders, and made thousands of employees financially set for life.
If TikTok could capture that, it doesn't matter if it lasts five years or ten years, the people at the top will become very, very rich.
So I think both commenters above are correct: it has huge potential upside that investors are willing to gamble on, and it probably won't become the next Facebook so it might be worth it for the current owners to cash out now.
That's what I heard about plenty of social platforms like this. Everyone thought Vine was here to stay too. Everyone thought Myspace was here to stay. Snapchat was huge at one point and now I no longer know anybody who still uses it. Maybe it will be like Facebook, but there's a big chance it won't. It's huge now, but its still relatively niche appeal in the grand scheme of tings. These things appear to be fickle. We will see.
Vine was loved and was shut down by a part time CEO.
> Snapchat was huge at one point and now I no longer know anybody who still uses it.
People under 25 still love and use snapchat.
Tiktok has 80 million MAUs, and is becoming the tool of cultural influence in the same way the Instagram did. I wouldn't underestimate the staying power of tiktok.
What the hurricane does after its created or whether its controllable at all no one really knows. Making room for the type of characters who will claim they can control hurricanes. Expect these people to show up and disappear as these hurricanes spin up and fizzle out.
That said, I just hope figuring out whether hurricanes can be controlled doesn't take too many more years, and happens without too many more unpredictable side effects.
Speaking about Facebook the website (separate from Instagram and WhatsApp), I'd give it 50/50 odds that a major decline in market position will start by 2030. If it doesn't happen, it will be attributed to very strategic leadership.
Their targeting and algorithmic curation is extremely, scary good.
You have teens threatening to kill themselves if it gets banned. What will all these girls do if they can't get some attention and a dopamine hit every few hours. Woman are taking to Tik Tok and posting farewells crying and dancing. Some are even threatening the President.
The app is poison but perhaps it's no worse than Insta, Twatter and FB and all social media.
How many lives this shit ruins everyday, little by little is unimaginable. People living in the digital world instead of the real one.
This happened with Snap, Vine, YikYak, etc. They will just move on to the next social network craze that doesn't have their parents, grandparents or their next door neighbours friending you. Rinse and repeat.
* The exception to this rule is unless your parents is a Kardashian / West, Musk, or an Obama or some other famous celebrity.
Otherwise I agree in principle but your examples aren't good.
The only constant in social apps is that the "apps that are here to stay" do not stay.
Would you be surprised if it just disappears in a year or two, like Vine, Orkut, Myspace, and other "giants" of their day did? I personally wouldn't because these things just come and go. I think it's really hard to make the claim that "it's here to stay".
TikTok is a lot more analogous to Instagram: where Instagram used filters to allow normal people to create much more appealing photos, TikTok's music licensing allows average users to create videos with a much stronger emotional appeal than they can get on other platforms.
ahahaha
If only I could have a nickel every time someone on HN says something like this.
This site sometimes... smh
"Back in the day we had Commodore and Amiga and many other platforms that slowly died, Windows will go their way. Unix will outlast it and kill it off."
30 years later and you could base a Fortune 500 company off of Windows, alone.
Same story with Facebook. People are comparing things to the pre-Facebook days without realizing that social media is a lot more mature now. They're presenting Snapchat as a failure when it's still growing (in users and revenue), Orkut as an example of a rise and fall when it was only popular in Brazil, while Tik Tok is global.
Tik Tok seems to have carved a niche in a pretty mature market. That's hard to do.
I think over time social networks have found more stable userbases. Facebook isn't going anywhere, neither are Instagram or (unless the feds intervene) TikTok. It's not like it was in the early days where everyone abandoned the old platform, because the new one was so much better.
Should they be allowed to continue expanding internationally, something like a Facebook or Amazon peer would be the more relevant comparison.
i used to think FB is just a fad but its been 16 years and it is still going. Not as fancy as it once was but enough to make billions.
who to say TikTok won't last? if it last more than 10 years. its already earn back all its cost and some more.
That's exactly the thoughts I had in 2010 about Facebook's 10 billion valuation.
that’s like saying twitter is dead
Now that the Chinese owned TikTok is such a desirable app to use in the USA, the US government is blocking it in a similar fashion.
To be honest it's all quite petty.
You will regret having the government choosing your apps and websites. Your jubilee will turn into sorrow, the Chinese way of life business is not a good life. You will regret becoming a China.
I agree, but this isn't far off from the GDPR and similar laws that take the view that individuals aren't competent to decide for themselves what privacy policies are acceptable.
I don't think it will be successful, I think China has made it very clear they will continue to play the US time and time again until they are dominant. The CCP will accept nothing but that. But that's the thinking behind the current moves.
Chinese company makes huge viral app for the US market, and lets everyone stoke rumors that it's a spying platform. US gov't tosses a huge subsidy at whatever domestic company can acquire it at any cost - in the interest of national defense - resulting in massive overvalued purchase. China pockets the profits. Rinse, repeat.
I don't know if TikTok is a fad and you don't either. If TikTok last more than 10 years. It already make back its cost and some more.
Heck, Snap is still around and it used to be a meme stock on WallStreetBets.
What you have is something the internet has never seen: unlike Google having to censor its content within China, you now have a allegedly independent US company actively censoring the Chinese people on a social network that identifies itself as non-political, on US (or Free World) soil.
This is a type of censorship that's far worse than anything Google or Yahoo or Microsoft ever had to do. Imagine more and more Chinese-owned companies doing this world wide. This is just absolutely ugly practice that shouldn't be allowed to proliferate.
It's not only a national security issue. It's also a human rights hazard.
They already ban YouTube, Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc. amongst many other sites.
Tiktok has a local version for Chinese users I believe and Tiktok wants to make sure Chinese users do not sign up for international version of Tiktok app.
Tiktok is owned by ByteDance which is not a US firm. It’s based in China.
Am I missing something?
The difference between the EU and US on this matter, is that the EU has almost no substitutes, and they just don't - for whatever reason (there are many) have he will to do them.
And of course there's no point - what FB is doing is no different from what a EU-based FB would do.
We had a counterpart for I think every single US-based service, but most sites didn't survive the competition. Right now only eBay failed to enter our market (they tried, but the local Allegro won out).
Personally, I'm not the fan of the local copycats - because of their local scale they couldn't really get enough profit/investment to grow the tech just as much. But still - at least in Poland, it's not true that there were no substitutes.
Be more specific. I remember a time where dailymotion was mocking Youtube as a money blackhole due to its shitty tech. Lots of startups people in the US use are from Europe (Spotify). Lots of startups that exist in Europe don't even exist in the US, or don't get that much traction in the US (monzo, revolut, blablacar, thetrainline, toogoodtogo, etc.)
> And of course there's no point - what FB is doing is no different from what a EU-based FB would do.
there is so much wrong in this sentence. By being a US company FB is run much more differently. Control of information.
BTW, a more decentralized, organic tech world, is something we should try to achieve, because as we are seeing now, there are no safe heavens for anything, anymore.
We should think more like human beings and less with nationalistic mentality, because all i've seeing til now, is nationalistic values being use not just to undermine other countries, but also undermine the nationalistic's own country.
If there's one valuable lesson history teach us, is that even the Rome empire, comparatively much powerful than anything we have now, started to fall when they corrupted the core values that served as a foundation of the Roman empire.
And nationalistic, the "we are better than everyone else", walls, stupid wars, etc..
But lets not forget an important difference here, right now all the achievements, the culture, the universities, the internet, the knowledge is widespread all over the world..
This is a pandora box effect, that once opened, cannot be closed anymore.
So even if the US totally closed itself to the world, im pretty sure the world would keep moving forward, and once this Donald Trump version of US lost it all and tried to become part of the world again, im pretty sure, it would be welcomed with open arms, and a catch up path would be offered to try to recover what was lost along the way. A sort of "Marshall plan" only that this time it would be to put the US back on their feet.
I hope the US dont keep going through this path that only leads to self-destruction..
This is not about us vs them. No apps from Australia, Europe or Africa are on the list of banned apps. Its China where in order to do business there, you have to give the government access to your trade secrets and full server access without a warrant.
While its possible for any company to succumb to government pressure for unreasonable access, it is a prerequisite to do so in China. The world knows this.
Hong Kong's new national security law is plenty proof that China is not a genuine partner and is a bad faith actor. Your right to look at TikTok videos does not trump anyone else's right for security.
Whatever happens, it's probably going to be a recipe on how to force all foreign providers to act the way the local government wants. These days the theme is forcing on the ant-gay stance, they managed to force Netflix a show that had a gay character in it. Besides that charade, they passed laws to control the social media in the name of national security and citizens rights. This comes after Twitter exposed and deleted a pro government troll army.
Anyway, if this happens Facebook, Google, Twitter etc. can start looking into the future of Instagram for Iran, Twitter for Turkey, Google for EU - all forced to partner with a local company and the global versions inaccessible.
I am sure that the US ban of TikTok would be well rationalised but the US could have chosen the EU approach of enforcing US data being kept on US soil. Sad that US choose the Chinese approach of right our of banning(because somehow becoming like China is the way of topping the authoritarian Chinese order). Something tells me that this is not about national security.
Welcome to the world of partitioned internet in the name of national security. A boring dystopia where the less fre world no longer has a role model.
I hope you enjoy the life where the government is telling you what you can and can't use so that the country stays safe. Brilliant system that served all kind of authoritarian regimes.
Good luck to the start-ups, from now on you are looking to a future where you will have to strike a deal with each country you want to operate.
"Your app just crossed the TOP100 mark in the AppStore, would be shame if something happens to it because of national security. Maybe you should sell it to our crony while it's still worth something"
You'd think we'd have learnt by now. We do not deserve the freedom we have since we clearly don't care about it. Just look at all of the pro-ban comments in this thread.
A few days ago Pompeo warned that CCP might change "us" (outside PRC in this context). It seems, however, that U.S. might be the first to be changed.
edit: unfavourable opinions seem to get downvoted into oblivion. I am actually surprised by the jubilance in the tech community towards state intervention. Had no idea that people dreamed of becoming like China where the all knowing government protects them by telling them what apps can use and which website they can visit.
Having MSFT buy it means they’ll have a back door to TikTok content immediately just like they do Skype. The US 3 letter agencies have been gunning for this ever since the app blew up, and unlike all the valley apps they have had no access to its user data.
When China doesnt open up its fire wall for US apps, why should US allow Chinese?
Right now the public opinion in China (not mine) is that India and America are hypocritical bullies and abusing the "national security" excuse, while China "never banned" any foreign web services, those "simply refused to comply with Chinese laws regarding terrorism" and their "inaccessibility" totally justified.
You see, here's the logical trap, Tiktok ostensibly didn't refuse to comply with any foreign law, and it will do any "dirty work" if being asked to (unlike foreign companies in China), so by this logic, it's a model citizen and the ban is unjustified and ridiculous. This plays right into the party's hands, right into its "century of humiliation" ideology.
>why should US allow Chinese?
So here's the catch, the CCP sabotaged and overthrew the Chinese Nationalist Party (now Taiwan) government exactly by exploiting its liberal constitution and free speech, the lesson they learned from that epic success is that never allow these freedom, China never touted freedom and rights so it doesn't matter, while the US being the democracy beacon breaching it has everything to lose.
Will there be 2 apps? Tiktok US and Tiktok for the rest of the world?
stonks all the way my brother
If it is true that there would be a US-only version, then it sounds little bit ironic - if this kind of thing keeps happening the US would be somehow walled itself just like China...
I understand that it seems unfair but I get where they’re coming from given that China isn’t exactly a saint when it comes to spying/civil rights.
I think it Microsoft agrees to take ownership of the data and protecting it, it doesn’t make sense to ban it. I’m surprised Verizon or Twitter hasn’t stepped up with bid
It's that people argue the virtues of "free-markets" while simultaneously arguing the most valuable thing any business should build is a "moat".
It the utter acknowledgment that avoiding/prevent competition is the way to be successful, while arguing that free markets enforce competition.
Its blatantly obvious that network effects, exclusivity contracts and monopolies exist. And well and market dominance leads to more dominance by purchasing any future competitive business. And yet claim most success comes from marker efficiency.
Taking a non-tech example. Madden is getting closer to a 20 year exclusive license NFL on consoles. No game can compete with made up teams and rosters. The product is stagnant, innovation a dump and yet this continuous aspect of "free-market" is ignored.
Keeping spyware-collected data of private citizens out of the hands of antagonistic authoritarian regimes seems like an appropriate use of regulation, no? Hard to argue its less appropriate than trust-busting or consumer protection regulations.
Crazy that one person can ban something over 1/4 the US population uses every day. The implications of that are staggering.
(for any politically trigger fingered voters who think this opinion is derived based on current administration, you would be incorrect. I do not think something like this should ever be decided by a single person, it should go through congress and if a new law or decision is the result of that, the party which is to be banned should have the ability to make their case to SCOTUS)
Crazy that over 1/4 the population uses one entertainment app. I don't even see how that's possible, even if all tweens/teens/teen-aspirationals use it.
I think it's more telling that 1 decision can be effective actually banning it - considering that there are so many things/services that are banned and yet available online, the fact that this hypothetical ban be effective, says more for the tech stack of this app/service than for the actually political/commercial decision to ban it.
US is doing to China what China been doing to US companies since forever.
In Amazon, Microsoft etc, US engineers of those companies aren't allowed to access the China servers directly and have to go through the Chinese operators.
I don't see that as a good development!
Or it is banned just because it's an app from China?
It doesn’t matter who drives the train, the tracks are already laid.
Obama's pivot was based on TTP, and generally avoiding direct confrontation with China.
Trump's agenda is completely different - ignoring partnership/bilateral approach, and fairly assertively acting against China.
But those were also strategies founded in different eras: the TTP was create back when China was still not quite powerful enough to be a dangerous world actor. Now it's more of a 'standoff' situation with unpredictable leadership from Trump.
And with only a 4 year horizon after which 'everything changes' on the American side.
Conflating the CCP owning and controlling a private company's platform is the propaganda that seems to be spun out this situation.
It's also what is causing people to see the app as a threat, ergo, highlighting exceptionalism and a tiny bit of xenophobia.
Also, the US can just ban it tomorrow and it’ll disappear.
Trump is incredibly vindictive. Remember a month ago when he hosted a way under-attended rally, because of a fake registration movement that spread on, yup, TikTok? Trump remembers.
What? Can anyone parse this?
China can easily pick a consulate to close when the US closes consulate in Houston. But businesses from the US in China always require Chinese companies to operate, just like World of Warcraft is operated by NetEase in China.
After Microsoft acquire Tiktok's operation, if China just picks some US business to do the same it would make China looks too soft because China is already doing this for decades, and Trump could claim the US has beaten China in this round. But if China escalates the conflict by retaliating in radical ways, the Trump administration could rally more before the election.
FYI, among the big tech Microsoft seems to have one of the best relationship with the Chinese state. Bing and Outlook is available albeit censored. Windows also widely used. It could be the case that Microsoft has a back channel with Chinese gov and already discussed this issue. I hope that the acquisition will be smooth.
No Facebook in China, no Tviter in China, all major American brands are effectively franchises, or joint ventures, so they will be shooting their own business in the foot.
They can of course order those Chinese joint venture owners to appropriate the American stake in their corporate entities, but those state never been high to begin with, with Chinese JV sides always trying to exfiltrate equity out of them.
Out of big fish, pretty much the only one remaining is Apple, which owns very little in China, but will be crippled if being denied access to Chinese contract manufacturers.
Apple will have 1-2 really bad years and would eventually be able to move their supply chain to other countries . Apple has the money to whether that storm
The millions of jobs lost in China would be permanent, and start a trend and they loose their manufacturing edge .
This is a very common misconception. It was true decades ago, when China was just beginning to open up, but over the past three decades, joint-venture requirements have been removed from most industries.
The new beta for iOS is doing a better job by having little notifications of what app is using the camera, microphone, your contacts, etc.
I would also like to speculate on something: Peter Theil owns a lot of Facebook stock and TikTok is a market threat to Facebook. Peter Theil is close with President Trump. You can see where I am going with this...
For example, Activision-Blizzard are pretty much fully separated from The9, which is the only authorized distributor for World of Warcraft in China.
Edit: Apologies, the source I was looking at was outdated and NetEase is the current distributor for WoW in China.
Feels like they have immense power if they decided to act politically.
[1] https://qz.com/823922/eric-schmidt-played-a-crucial-role-in-...
But there's little precedent for media companies to take action in US politics overtly. (IANAL, but I suspect there are legal impediments as well). Taking a political stand, or providing support for one side, might force big tech companies to resolve the ambiguity as to whether they're media companies or not.
EDIT: Actually maybe there is nothing stopping tech companies from choosing a side; apparently media companies do make political contribitions: https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/08/news-corps-million-...
EDIT 2: I can see I've accidentally opened a can of worms about biased coverage and editorials; but my usage of "support" was intended as overt and consistent involvement in political campaigning, generally through donations. And to my surprise, that does occur.
Right now from my point of view, it absolutely looks like the big social-media companies like Youtube/Twitter/Reddit/etc are actively purging large conservative opinions/voices in anticipation for the US election coming up. It's downright Orwellian that we allow them to have such a huge impact on political elections under the guise of "community standards". Those same community-standards that are touted for protecting the vulnerable are acting as camouflage for political meddling.
As for Tik-tok, I'd ban it just for the degenerate social impact it's having on a large section of our youth population. Ditto for gang-glorifying, misogynistic rap music.
With all the public threats ByteDance is receiving from president of USA, Msft or any other company which acquires, gets one of the biggest social networking site of the decade at give away price.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has quietly avoided the anti-trust spotlight recently yet has acquired github, LinkedIn, and now a social network that could rival Facebook. Satya Nadella is a genius.
Regardless, young population have historically been absent from voting.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_...
Right now, in 2020, China is operating Muslim concentration camps. Their factories are “employed” by de facto slave labor.
The western world should universally shun China. Ban anything that originates from China or anything that contains parts or software that originates from China.