TikTok and Microsoft’s Clock | Hacker News Reader

TikTok and Microsoft’s Clock

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129 pointsjoshus142 comments

Where is EU in this embarrassment?

Suppose Margrethe Vestager called and said TikTok, you are banned unless you let a "very european" company take over your business? And by the way. We would like a cut.

And would the US still being able to say "national security" if it was fully owned by German business running on servers in some Swiss mountain?

Trump is signaling that Microsoft is his lackey and Microsoft is signaling in the affirmative. That cloud business from the Defense department sure is lucrative.

Something like that.

Plus remember when Zoom was a national security threat? You know with that Chinese guy in charge, the Chinese servers, the censoring on behalf of the CCP ...

Funny how that all disappeared when Zoom got in bed with Oracle.

Zoom is of course still a national security threat.

Nothing Zoom does or does not do threatens the continued existence of the United States in any capacity.

Calling nearly everything on or related to the internet a matter of "national security" is to demand that everything be overblown.

It's the new 'think of the children' argument.

People can't be convinced it's used for child pornography, because that's pretty easy to prove/disprove. So now the boogeyman is national security.

"National Security" has always been the ultimate unfalsifiable accusation.

Only those who have access to the underlying classified information can legitimately make the argument. Those who don't have the same access must trust those who do.

The system breaks down quickly when the former group gets everyone into a war because they failed to vet the underlying intelligence or purposefully misconstrued the intelligence or they just moved the goalposts of "national security" to include preemption.

They've signalled pretty significantly that they won't follow the Chinese government's demands, including publicly joining the Hong Kong data pause. I don't mean to fully excuse the initial response (Zoom was always an American company with an American CEO!), but the Oracle partnership isn't the only thing that's changed.

The US has seen a slow but sure move towards executive power for a long time now. Congress has passed multiple laws to allow to give the president extra powers under certain conditions repeatedly. Meanwhile, presidents have been taking these powers and using them to do policy work that really should be done by congress. This is why DACA was such a mess, why we've got national emergencies dating back 30 years for the war on drugs[1]. Essentially yes, they can assert that anything is national security, and whilst countries might try appealing to the WTO or such, it's really ineffective.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_emergencies_i...

> Suppose Margrethe Vestager called and said TikTok, you are banned unless you let a "very european" company take over your business?

This would make sense if the EU had any company remotely capable of being able to afford this.

https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2005/europ...

That’s sorted by revenue not cash on the balance sheet. Here’s a more salient list:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/07/microsoft-apple-and-alphabet...

Hey ... we can print money too ...

> Suppose Margrethe Vestager called and said TikTok, you are banned unless you let a "very european" company

Wouldn't do this make sense for Facebook? I would like to see a European company owning the European side of Facebook.

I really like Silicon Valley and their initiative, but again and again American companies have shown that they cannot be trusted with European data (maybe USA data either, but that is an internal matter of the USA).

Facebook, Twitter and other social networks are the new public squares for social discussion. Even more now that many people works from home.

I can understand USA decision on this matter (not the way as it has been imposed in a short time-line and without much feedback). And I can see that Europe not acting in the same way damages European citizens capability to regulate their own public spaces.

I also see anti-globalization as a risk for many other types of products and services. A healthy global market has provided growth and stability.

Meanwhile digital social networks have been a source of radicalization and manipulation of citizens from all around the world.

A different approach is needed to product shoes or phones that to provide citizens with public spaces.

I really like Silicon Valley and their initiative, but again and again American companies have shown that they cannot be trusted with European data

Source?

Btw HSBC [1], Unilever [2] and many other European companies have had customer data breaches. I’m sure there would be even more but Europe has almost no top internet consumer companies

So I don’t have a lot of trust in European companies to safeguard customer data, curious to hear why you do.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2018/11/06/hsbc-ban...

https://www.verdict.co.uk/fresh-film-data-breach-dove/

>>American companies have shown that they cannot be trusted with European data. Source?

Room 641A? NSLs? Lotus Notes? The RSA fiasco? The EU report on Project ECHELON? The PSP? CNN? PBS Frontline? Edward Snowden? ... all the security news for the last few decades.

I might not agree with the idea that US companies are totally untrustworthy, but I would never suggest that idea is unfounded.

> Source?

The EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Invalidated: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/the-eu-u-s-privacy-shield-...

On paper and for regulatory/tax purposes, a European company does own the European side of Facebook - Facebook Ireland Ltd.

Because the Chinese cyber threat is incredibly real. The United States should be playing hard ball. The US TikTok systems are compromised by Chinese spammers already.

> Because the Chinese cyber threat is incredibly real.

Comment like this lumps tiktok, a privately owned company with the Chinese government with no evidence. It's never about national security but really about US politicians seeing a social network with real reach in the US that for the first time does NOT need to pay to lobby in the US, nor to be responsive to congressional inquiry (as they have been able to do recently with US tech platforms, accusing platforms of suppressing conservative/liberal views, again without evidence).

If you know anything about bytedance's founder you would know that he's been an outspoken globalist, criticizing the government's approach to free flow of information on multiple accounts. Uninformed comments like this is truly tragic for many globalist people in China who grew up hoping for a global stage with open, fair competition and who often do not agree with the government's perspective.

It's worse than that. The hostilities towards everything China in 2020 are pushing all sorts of Chinese people away, who otherwise would have been supportive of US and liberal values.

What baffles me is that nobody knows that this is happening. Nobody is trying to understand how the other side sees it, and to work towards a real solution. Or maybe people are just wilfully blind to this possibility. People are so convinced that their view is the only possible legitimate view, and that no other legitimate views could possibly exist.

anyone with power and wealth in china is dependent on the government, they only have these things because the government allowed them to have and keep it, for now. thus it really doesn't matter how one individual on that side sees things, he sees things the way his side allows him to see.

it would be different if people exiled from china and were getting involving once they're in the western world, but to broadcast one's independence while in china is a moot point.

i have been to china many times and have many chinese friends, also many HK friends, and the chinese, while while very hospitable to the US will never pick US over china, never publicly or to an outsider anyways, they always follow the party line.

until the mentality of the regime allows and tolerates the discent there are no unique feelings on the other side to consider.

So you're downplaying the number of people who feel that way. You're also saying that their feelings are not genuine, and only forced upon them.

All this does not bode well for world peace.

Be careful of what you're wishing for. A democratic China may not be so different in terms of geopolitics as you would think (or they would be different, just not in the way you expect). Try reading what Kishore Mahbubani — ex-Singapore diplomat and ex-UN Security Council head — has to say.

with democracy and ability to speak your mind without goverment's persecution everyone is playing on the same field.

i'd much rather take democratic china's disdain than dictator's china friendly overtures. you can work towards a long term solution of common understanding under democracy.

If I think a few steps ahead, about the implications so what you say, then this is what I read:

Unless the Chinese people overthrow their government, and succesfully install a democratic government, they do not deserve to gain wealth through business with the rest of the world, and do not deserve to live a good life. The chaos and suffering that such a process brings is not important. The unknown chance that a post-overthrow government is both democratic and competent, is also not important. The fact that the Chinese people's lives in the past 30 years have become tremendously more free and more prosperous, and that these are the best 30 years in the past 3000 years, is also not important.

In the words of Kishore Mahbubani: do you want to FEEL good, or DO good? Condemning China on a single ideological issue, while ignoring the complexity of the context as a whole, feels good because it aligns with your values, but doesn't do anybody anything good.

Actual good changes are achieved through more dialog, better mutual understanding, better relations and rational approaches.

china's masses have traded freedom and liberty for wealth and prosperity -- or i should say had them 'exchanged for them by their government'. but make no mistake, that wealth and prosperity is only there for those that support the regime, how are dissidents treated? how are muslims treated?

i don't understand your argument, just because the chinese are wealthy and happy doesn't mean they can't be be shunned for their ideology.

your argument is like the comment i heard when i traveled to chartleston and all the locals still to this day lament the civil war -- the war of northern aggression -- and how prosperous and beautiful life was in charleston [beacause it was all supported at the colossal expense of slavery]. this is your argument for china: ignore the slavery of the mind and actions, look how prosperous they are; well, some of them anyways.

i'm happy to say that i live on the side that won't sell you a seat at the table simply because you've brought a bunch of money with you. that there is some principal reason that goes beyond that.

That is not my argument at all. My argument is not, ignore the things you disagree with. It's: if you want to change them, that cannot be achieved just by denying business with them and with a 'my way or the highway' attitude. Instead, dialog and understanding yield better results. And you're not doing that.

You also state a number of things that I think are not as factual as you believe. I do not know whether you are interested in challenging those believes, so I will keep my mouth shut about them unless you indicate you are willing to.

no snide remark intended, but please do enlighten me.

i understand where you're coming from when you say "denying business with them"... but i believe that approach is taken because it is such a bottoms-down regime. because any business invariably gets approved by the regime and simply benefits the regime. it's not like a dissident is allowed to live there disconnected with the government and do business independently and start a voice/party to challenge the status quo -- that business man is there because the government allowed him to exist and he knows it.

If you are interested in discussing such things, I suggest we take the discussion off HN, because HN is not the right place. Please feel free to reach out to me through the contact details you can find if you follow the links in my profile.

so here you are dismissing the views of the people in a whole country because their government isn't 'democratic'. This isn't the most ludicrous thing I've heard but It has obviously gone too far. You are essentially denying the rights of anyone who is a Chinese citizen to speak their mind, on the ground it's influenced by the government. And for some reason, a citizen of the US would fear not for speaking anything, which is simply not true. I'm pretty sure there are plenty people who don't speak their true views for the fear of repurcussion even though they hold that view, regardless how unwelcoming it maybe. To suggest we are somehow free of those outside non-debatable coercion would be a dilusion.

Is the Chinese cyber threat not real? The United States, Russia and China are the largest producers of state sanctioned attacks by a significant margin. You are painting me as some sort of bigot when in reality I have a perfectly legitimate reason to be concerned. I have every right and reason to feel the way I do. I would support similar sentiment of any Chinese or Russian citizen who uses an American product. They can be cautious too, it won't hurt my feelings. We all make the best decision we can with the information we currently have.

Moreover, my TikTok information has already been compromised which pairs nicely with my SF-86 data that was also compromised with the OPM attacks. Why did I decide to even use the application to begin with you might ask? I chose to because I didn't want to rule out what is otherwise one of the most popular social media platforms in the country because of my own bias. TikTok is by far my favorite social media application I just no longer choose to use it. I will watch the TikTok content that trickles down into YouTube for the time being. I have no means to verify authenticity of your statement that the owner of TikTok is some sort of 'outspoken globalist' who condemns the Chinese government. All the while operating one of the largest growing social media companies based out of a communist country. If the US data is segregated from the Chinese based data centers then why did I start receiving text messages with Chinese characters in it within several days of downloading the application and creating an account? Was it all a coincidence? I would be naive to not believe that it was simply coincidental however it is damning.

Let me make my next point abundantly clear since you made some significant assumptions about my character. My concerns are rooted in a lack of trust with the Chinese government to keep my best interests in mind as a citizen of the United States.

If the threat of Tiktok gathering data is so real, then isn't a much better solution, to pressure Google and Apple into improving their security models? That way, nobody can spy on your phone anymore. Or do you think Tiktok is the only and last threat there will ever exist?

But nobody's talking about actual solutions. All this looks more like a witch hunt to me.

I don't think the key data that TikTok is gathering is anything you can really block on your phone. It doesn't ask for your phone number, it doesn't ask contacts, it doesn't ask for access to your messages. Instead, it looks for trends, it looks at who you are.

I (18 years old) have used TikTok for about 2 months, before deleting it because it simply got too addictive. In that time it learned what my favourite games are, what shows I watched as a child, my political views, my eating preferences, my technology preferences. The list goes on. While I'm not sure how much of this is saved in a black box and only known by the algorithm and how much they can extract, I'd argue that this is many times more valuable for China that my personal phone.

Furthermore the power to influence the algorithm, subtle and slightly of course, may slowly change the minds of literal millions of teens.

There is a solution even to that. That's what the Microsoft sale is all about. That's why Bytedance proposed to sell ALL shares of their US branch. Replace the entire US branch staff with US employees. Vet every line of code. Don't send any data to China. This is the ultimate solution.

And yet nobody seems to be interested in this solution. People are still cooking up new reasons to ban Tiktok. Or ignoring the existence of this solution altogether.

Why do you think that might be? I suspect it's because the issue is more emotional and fear-based than rational. People are falling for the propaganda.

That does not actually solve the problem.

Yes, maybe I find it a little easier to trust Microsoft than Bytedance. But the problem is not who holds the data that I generate about myself.

The problem is that I have zero (or very little) agency to view or manage this data. That lack of agency is important because this data will have a tangible impact on my life.

But I thought we were talking about national security? Why did it suddenly turn into privacy and data control?

Privacy is a legit angle, but why focus on Tiktok alone? Talk about privacy law reforms so that Twitter and Facebook are also included.

People should have the right to choose not to use it. Tik Tok isn't a monopoly for obvious reason. That level of government intervention would be unprecedented.

How is that different than what Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/etc are doing though? Is the worry that China can do something more nefarious with that data than US corporations can?

All those are within the reach of National Security Letters.

¿por que no los dos?

Why not both?

Also please do keep in mind that the lockdown of both Android and iOS has been gradually increasing. If they slapped on all the restrictions all at once, it'd be too much of a shock to developers.

Absolutely, but you of all people FooBarWidget should know that application security and privacy is a layered approach. This isn't our first run in with each other but I don't expect you to remember me but I will always remember the pseudonym used by the creator of Passenger. However we can find common ground because I believe at the root of all this we both believe in two things 1) the fair and equal treatment of others and 2) our inalienable right to privacy.

Perhaps I should have been more explicit in saying that the Chinese government is of concern, not necessarily the employees or owners of TikTok. But in all fairness, the Chinese government has a stronger ability to enforce their will on private business than seen in other places.

Addressing issues with Google and Apple is a tangential argument that is related but not entirely relevant to the conversation at hand. Why would I think TikTok is the only and last threat that will ever exist? I know that was a rhetorical question but a quite unnecessary one. To be fair, you don't know who I am so you can't make any assumptions of my intelligence or character outside of my comment history here on HN.

This is really an unprecedented situation so I believe it is fair to be somewhat cautious of further committing Chinese grown software into the pockets of tens of millions of US citizens. We are talking about mainland China here, not HK. If this company is so innocent then why did they pull out of HK? The acquisition of TikTok by Microsoft is interesting but why Microsoft? I don't believe Microsoft is doing it out of a sense of patriotism -- they want our data too. It isn't so much a witch hunt but we did get front row tickets to the bidding war on the commoditization of our personal data.

Thanks. It's good to hear you are someone who knows me.

My rhetorical question was not meant as an attack on your intelligence, and I apologize if it came over like that.

I agree with your common ground. I will not disagree on the desire to be cautious. Putting down measures to prevent spying is justified.

I'm just doubting whether that is the actual intention of the US govt. Let's say that they require that all foreign companies that process user data must undergo periodic security audits. That would be an actual, practical, fair solution. I have no problems with that. But that is not what is being proposed here by the US govt.

The Microsoft sale should have been the ultimate solution: replace all personnel with US personnel, use US servers only. Yet the US govt is still forging ahead with the ban, providing Tiktok with no way to solve this peacefully.

And now, they are banning Wechat. An app that nobody in the US uses except Chinese people to keep in touch with friends and family. How is this protecting national security?

I am only against the disingenuousness of it all. I am frustrated at the fact that so many people, in their zeal to oppose China (note: not making a value judgement here on whether that zeal is justified, just stating the fact that the zeal exists), don't see this disingenuousness.

The cyber threat from China is very real, but cyber capability is super cheap. A one-off capability is going to run in the low single digit millions. You wouldn't endanger an asset currently worth tens of billions and growing for that.

The situation that we have is that the only person who actually has the willpower to stand up to China (Trump) is simultaneously too idiotic and too self-centered to effectively do so.

This is a laughable statement. You don't need willpower to stand up to China, you need the presidency and the will to do so.

The EU can't use national security as an excuse because it's not a nation and doesn't have a state security apparatus of its own.

Individual countries might. I'm not sure whether we've seen an EU single market law vs national security case yet.

One of the reasons the US can do this is because this is unwinding the Musical.ly deal. The EU certainly has the ability to block an acquisition of an EU company by a US megacap.

>And would the US still being able to say "national security" if it was fully owned by German business running on servers in some Swiss mountain?

I suppose they could. But I am fairly confident that if tiktok was a German company, this would not be happening. China is reaping what they sew here. On top of getting a taste of their own medicine.

It is unfortunate for the Chinese owners though that they have to pay the price for their government's actions.

Beside all the political issues, what is Microsoft actually supposedly buying here? The data centre, data and access to it? Because it does not seem to me that they are buying any of the developers, am I right? At least there is no talk about that. How well can you run a platform by buying its software without any of the people that run it, at least from my developer point of view that seems a very strange idea. Basically, they will have to understand and rewrite the entire thing within a few months with whatever own developers they can provide. Without any major hickups, or users will leave the platform in seconds, its not like there are no competitors or the underlying technology is complicated. Its just that everyone is used to the platforms but if that changes ...

Anyways, an insteresting case study for platform theory ...

They don't need Tik Tok's tech. They want the brand and the youth demo it attracts.

How did you know they won’t acquire the talents? Is it because... those people might be Chinese engineers?

So the Chinese side of the company wouldn't have any engineers..? Or they'd split them? I think you missed the point.

TikTok is a subsidiary with mostly non-Chinese employees, so unless there's more information available, I'd assume the acquisition deal involves Microsoft hiring them. The Chinese side of the business is entirely under the parent company ByteDance that Microsoft is buying from.

TikTok users. Microsoft is bidding to purchase Tiktok's user base.

Data centers, even engineering talent, is fungible. They are replaceable and therefore have no special value worth haggling over. But attractive young people wanting to dump their lives into a video app for pennies? That is the real asset in this deal.

That part is obvious. Still, you have to be able to run it. If you have hourly outages weeks into taking over because you cannot fix this or that glitch, the nicest user database isn't worth much if users are switching to the next platform.

I do not expect much technical depth in an app such as TikTok, nevertheless you will need dozens (and more) of engineers to run it and how do you organize those to a previously unknown structure. In theory that is simple but anyone with who manages code for someone no longer in the company knows otherwise. And the engineers that wrote the code weren't native in english either ...

Microsoft isn't a new player. We can look to any number of their past acquisitions. How did they handle Skype? how did they handle Minecraft? Tiktok is just a video sharing app. The code doesn't matter. You keep the old office/database spinning until you have written a replacement. Then users are pushed an "update" that moves their profiles to the new app under the new team.

But code in any language can be read by any engineer in the world that is proficient in it. I do not speak or read Chinese but when I pull an interesting looking repo from Github that is Chinese I only have to stroke 3 keys to translate all python comments in the file to English. Works great!

You don't need really need another language when you have a common one in place. Even without code comments you should be able to sniff out the crackpots.

Chinese repos are trending on Github everyday. They do really cool things beyond the cutting edge on every side of our business. From frontend react and vue to shiny ML and backend golang.

This is not as much as cultural “translation” of code, it’s about handing over years of knowledge of running a platform. Even if Microsoft was buying some US-based social media company, they would at least want to have access to several engineers to handle the transition and transfer knowledge.

It will be interesting to see how Microsoft handles this, but I can’t believe it will be without access to some TikTok engineers for an extended period of time.

Isn't Github basically the blueprint for running an infrastructure to manage a full remote coding workspace?

I'm actually surprised the mature way Microsoft handles the Github acquisition. It's not anything like that of what they did with Skype. What you are referring to a managerial nuances on a blueprint like this.

And it is not like Microsoft would have any problem to multiply these engineers salary by 10X because they still would not pay software engineering market rate in Seattle or another hub.

Maybe all of Bytedance's engineers will get an American visa to work in Seattle now.

Given the US government’s involvement, and that they’re only buying users in the five eyes countries (except the UK), I imagine they’re buying the surveillance feed.

It’s surprising the UK isn’t part of the deal. I wonder if it’s another sign of the US’s foreign influence waning under Trump.

> Because it does not seem to me that they are buying any of the developers, am I right?

If they buy TikTok's operations in the countries or, even just TikTok’s US operations, presumably they'd be acquiring, in either case, the existing US-based business, which (assuming the job listings on their website correspond in the normal way to existing staff) definitely includes developers and other technical staff at the Mountain View, San Francisco, Seattle, and Miami locations, at a minimum.

So, yeah, I think they are getting developers.

Now, do any of those developers work on the core algorithms of interest, or are those just black boxes supplied by ByteDance and shared with Douyin, or if not ByteDance itself some other part of TikTok that wouldn't be acquired? That's another question.

It continues to be damning that the leadership of Microsoft did not buy Vine [1] from Twitter in 2017 for pennies on the dollar before Vine was shutdown. Vine was very popular, and a lot of people were very disappointed when it was shutdown back when Twitter was bleeding a lot cash.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vine_(service)

Vine's top content creators were demanding to be paid, which was completely intolerable to the whole SV mindset.

So they all flocked to YouTube and got paid.

Yeah, which is of course not part of the “whole SV mindset”.

TikToc is basicaly Vine2.0 and will go down just like Vine and YikYak already did. The reason behind MS wanting to acquire TT we will never know. I have a feeling the national sec. implications arent exactly what we are saying they are.

Neither Vine nor YikYak was doing $3B in profit/year. TikTok is likely here to stay.

Geez, that's impressive. How do they make money? Ads? Selling data? Or do they have a paid offering?

Honestly hard to tell if this is satire. TikTok is way more compelling than Vine was, even at its peak. The idea that Microsoft not buying a dying Vine from Twitter is indicative of its poor leadership is hard to wrap my head around.

People are talking about Microsoft paying more than $30 billion for TikTok's operations in just four countries. Vine was losing Twitter 10 million dollars a month at a time when Twitter was desperate for cash.

Microsoft (or Google, or Facebook, or any similar cash rich company) could have bought Vine for tens of millions.

The product and algorithm could have been tweaked to be more compelling. Even if the new owner wasn't able to do that, using an existing established platform/audience then cloning the features of upcoming competitors is very powerful.

Easy to say in hindsight. At the time it wasn't so obvious that the problem with vine was algorithmic. They wouldn't have known which direction to tweak in; I don't even think Vine had much of an algorithm. It was mostly news feed no?

TikTok hasn't always been as big as it is right now obviously. ByteDance acquired TikTok for $1 billion only 3 years ago. TikTok definitely was not as big as peak Vine at that time.

The United States loses the moral high ground moving forward and Microsoft gets a blemished gem. The machinations of this deal are unsightly. Just because this is how the game is played in China doesn't mean we have to do it too.

“Nice rapidly-growing foreign service you have there. It would be a shame if we called it a ‘national security risk’ and made you sell it to us for pennies on the dime!”

I'm very much reminded of the situation with the Anthrax medication in 2001 (Google "Anthrax Bayer" for relevant results). "Nice patents you have there. You know, we only think the rule of law is a good thing if it helps us, so ... make us a good deal for your medication or we may be forced to remove your patents."

The irony, of course, is that the US is pulling these heavy handed maneuvers at a time when the rest of the world would have gladly done it for the US for free.

Half the world is currently pissed with China. India already banned Tik Tok. The US could have used what is left of its diplomatic corps (devastated in the past few years) to encourage other countries such as the NATO nations, 5 eyes countries and other allies to threaten to ban Tik Tok and the likes of China didn’t resolve their security concerns. And the vast majority of them would have agreed, essentially forcing China to do this or something similar without the US losing its moral high ground, and gaining strength and respect amongst its allies instead of looking like a street level rent a mob type.

The same with the TPP. The US under this administration and tried hard to punish China, and basically, over the past few years has managed to slightly alter the fortunes of 2 individual companies, at a huge cost to its local farm sales, and hasn’t gained much in return at all, while hurting China only marginally.

If they had remained in the TPP, they would have had a much greater effect across Chinese companies (since it wouldn’t require cherry picking individual companies and acting specially for each of them) and the influence would have been levered since it would have come from pretty much every neighbor of China, and further, would have come at little cost to the US.

What’s most disturbing about these actions isn’t so much the actions themselves, but the fact that they have traded away so much of the US’s reputation built over generations, cost the US so much in rep and straight up cash, and has barely got it anything in return. And all this while much more effective alternatives which would have cost the US nothing but instead would have helped it strengthen its position in the world, existed by acting through its alliances.

This is similar to what I was going to post too. Unless there's some kind of 4d chess power games happening behind the scenes, it looks a real gross amount of incompetence in lack of planning, diplomacy, and leadership at all levels of international relationships. More realistically- seems like a meltdown of alliances towards standalone empire-style thinking once again.

China has blocked almost every major US internet company. Crying that Tik Tok is being forced into a sale is a bit rich. National Security concerns aside, there's a legitimate argument that the West should be banning every service that comes out of China until they open up their market.

Or we could try to be the country with better morals than China instead of posturing as one.

Protecting your own national security is immoral?!

Again with the “national security” argument. Yes, it’s immoral, just like PRISM and COINTELPRO and mass domestic surveillance and GITMO and the Patriot Act and the racism at the TSA and secret police and censorship are all immoral despite protecting “national security.”

“National security” is not a valid blanket excuse to implement draconian policies.

Why are you bring up all these other topics?

I'm talking about Tiktok. There is nothing amoral about protecting your country from data collection by a hostile foreign power.

No, it is definitely amoral censor media from your citizens and force buyouts of foreign corporations by inciting xenophobia, so you can now have access to said data instead and spy on your own citizens.

It is not that hard to see. It is amoral for the US to collect data on its own citizens, because historically, the government uses this data to erode our rights.

how is it pennies on the dime? for one the price hasn’t been discussed. and all indications are it’s going to be at a fair valuation

for all you know they will end up overpaying

This is nothing new in global politics. Just take a one look at Middle East to see how the world has been since the dawn of human civilization. Not saying it is right, a bit of throwback to the days of yonder perhaps, but I'm not surprised or shocked. Although I'm still doubtful it's going to happen.

Well, yeah, that’s why the US loses the moral high ground. The entire point of the US is that it’s different. And without getting into how true that exceptionalism was in other areas of the country, it was certainly true in terms of the light touch with which the government operated vis a vis business. Government would have broad regulations, but rarely pick winners and losers (outside of defense, which is very different for obvious reasons).

In this case, the government is playing the game on both the sell side and the buy side (and in another weird twist appears to be demanding a fee from the buyer?). There isn’t even plausible deniability into the government’s high handedness.

I suspect the evaporation of benefits the US has accrued over the past decades/centuries will be much greater than any short term gains it may see out of this and potentially any other similar future deals.

US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia are four of the “Five Eyes” surveillance community (the fifth is the UK) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

Yes. Given that it’s very surprising to see the UK not mentioned.

I had the same reaction, until I learned that the ByteDance founders are working to relocate[1] outside of China, probably to London.

1. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-bytedance-britain/t...

Didn't Microsoft become significantly more involved in donating to US politicians after they got hit with that anti-trust case? It'd be very interesting to follow the money here, not sure if there's enough publicly available data to DIY the digging though.

What are you supposed to do with an influence peddling racket? Microsoft is playing the same game as everyone else.

"Microsoft fully appreciates the importance of addressing the President’s concerns. It is committed to acquiring TikTok subject to a complete security review and providing proper economic benefits to the United States, including the United States Treasury." => So US Treasury will give MS money to buy TikTok (US market only)? And they have limited time to make this deal? So US Treasury will effectivelly own the US TikTok... and NSA will record every move on it and process it with BigData...

I read "providing proper economic benefits to the United States, including the United States Treasury" as just meaning Microsoft will make money (and hence pay tax) on this. Am I being naive?

Apparently yes:

A transaction of the type the president envisions could also prove more expensive than the one Microsoft described on Sunday. Trump said Monday that part of the amount paid to buy TikTok would have to come to the U.S. Treasury Department because it would be making the deal possible.

“It’s a little bit like the landlord/tenant; without a lease the tenant has nothing, so they pay what’s called ‘key money,’ or they pay something,” Trump said. “But the United States should be reimbursed or should be paid a substantial amount of money, because without the United States they don’t have anything, at least having to do with the 30%.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/03/president-trump-might-be-eas...

So, to summarise: the president of the United States is openly advocating applying illegal real estate extortion/bribery practices to major M&A deals with geopolitical implications.

> So, to summarise: the president of the United States is openly advocating applying illegal real estate extortion/bribery practices to major M&A deals with geopolitical implications

Well, yes, because he's spent his entire career doing that and now he's President. See the case the NY AG is building against him.

Is it any different than just having a tax on purchasing foreign companies?

It's the same as a tax on purchasing foreign goods, which is already in place for goods from China in the form of tariffs.

Forgive me if I'm not familiar with the process, but aren't taxes set by Congress?

I mean, if such a tax existed, sure (though such a tax would probably not be a great idea...). However, there is no relevant tax.

Tariffs aren't a tax on purchasing foreign goods. I can buy as many tons of steel as I'd like in China while paying no money to the US Government (as long as I can export the money, which is a different issue). Tariffs are taxes on importing foreign goods. That would only even conceivably be comparable if Microsoft were planning to relocate TikTok to the US; as it sounds like they're planning to relocate it to London, that wouldn't apply.

Trump seems to have some idea about the US being like a landlord in this deal, it's been widely reported:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/video/2020/aug/04/tru...

> Am I being naive?

Possibly.

Axios[0] quotes Trump as saying: “A very substantial portion of that price is going to have to come into the Treasury of the United States. Because we’re making it possible for this deal to happen. Right now they don’t have any rights, unless we give it to them. So if we’re going to give them the rights, it has to come into this country. It’s a little bit like the landlord/tenant”.

Make of that what you will, but it doesn’t sound like he’s talking about just taxes to me.

[0]: https://www.axios.com/trump-tiktok-banned-microsoft-fd45748d...

I'm probably being stupid, but how is that not absolutely terrifying for US companies? The deal seems to be that all acquisition of foreign companies has to have a kickback to the treasury because they could always just ban the company you bought otherwise?

This entire thing saddens me a great deal. It seems that you can just whip people up into a frenzy - even th HN crowd - simply by shouting "national security" and providing no proof to back it up.

Has everyone really forgotten Saddam's WMDs so quickly?

I too was surprised that the HN crowd supported Trump’s and Microsoft’s actions so much. The people here are fairly intelligent and tend to have a good education. We are no stranger to history. We know that “national security risk” has been used to justify terrifying programs like PRISM and the Patriot Act.

And despite having this in mind, so many folks here just openly supported what is effectively a hostile and coercive takeover of a foreign corporation.

If some of the most educated people in this country can fall victim to populist xenophobia then I don’t have much hope for us overall.

People are normally skeptical of the US media and of government claims. Yet when it comes to China-related topics, people eat it all up, with minimal critical thinking, and even amplify them. China is not without problems, but people react so strongly to China-related issues that the subject is the perfect distraction, the perfect propaganda tool.

Not really. We know private data is being weaponised, it’s just that we as a society have turned a blind eye to it when it’s domestic companies doing it. Right or wrong, possibly because we believe in the checks and balances here. When it comes to China, partly because of prejudice I guess, but also because of the evidence. There you get thrown into forced labour when electronic surveillance indicates you should be.

We are not quite that bad here. (Yet, I guess, if we don’t turn the tide.)

> We know private data is being weaponised

How? What security risks does the DM inbox of a 16 year old possess?

What do you have to hide? Nothing? Ok then, let's give all your data and social graphs to marketing companies, who will be careful custodians.

I'm no fan of that either, but where does the national security risk come in?

Giving random private companies Stasi like surveillance by default is in my opinion a national security risk for many reasons. It feels strange that I even have to point out that its ripe for corruption:

- people in the know can shape the narrative

- shady domestic or foreign powers can get access

- a future potential non-democratic dictatorship has a turn-key surveillance and propaganda tool already up and running

I think that's bad.

I thought this strong arm acquisition was happening because of national security. Are we walking that back to "personal privacy"? When does the US seize Facebook to protect our data and social graphs?

Fair point.

The US has already "seized" Facebook because it operates under US oversight.

I'm not sure I express myself clearly enough. The US (apparently, de facto) is OK with companies violating all sorts of personal privacy, as long as the US gov has the final say in how the data is used. If a foreign power is doing the same to US citizens, or even non-US citizens, the US is not as OK with it, because it would cede that advantage to some other country.

But there are countless small and large websites and app that collect private information, perhaps even more egregiously than Facebook because they're not in the limelight.

Why is that not a security risk? If it isn't, what's the minimum number of users you should have before you start becoming a risk?

There have to be some standards and arguments to justify a blanket ban. Just weaving the "national security" wand seems, to me, inconsistent and dictatorial.

I mean, I suspect that most companies will take the view that this is Trump talking nonsense like usual, and that no such tax actually exists. Given Trump's history, companies are unlikely to jump to "argh, the US is the new Russia; divest immediately!" That said, you can imagine there could be problems if this sort of rhetoric continues.

Trump's a blow hard. What he says means little compared to what he actually does. MS probably won't end up paying an acquisition fee. At worst it will be some tax pre-payment or some other nonsense that Trump can claim as a victory.

At least that partially confirms my long-held suspicion that Skype's acquisition by MS was also made for "national interests", only that they (the US Administration of that time + MS itself) used to cover it up better. The same goes for FB's acquisition of WhatsApp.

And people were laughing at Putin in 2012-2013 when he was saying in an interview that the Internet was CIA-controlled, not to mention the derogatory Western press headlines of when Putin's cronies took over control over VKontakte the same way as the US military-industrial complex is taking over control over the parts of TikTok they care about right now.

MS got gov money to buy Skype, it’s sort of an open secret if you follow the money. The web wasn’t as woke then though and didn’t connect the dots.

I guess that Russia has taken control over Telegram - because it is not banned by them anymore...

If this is a national security risk, having Microsoft purchase it is a terrible idea. Will Microsoft install this app next to Xbox Live and Candy Crush on your start menus? Is it going to end up in your startup-apps, launching every time you load your PC, added back to your startup-apps after every update regardless of how many times you remove it from the list?

I imagine Microsoft would also be tasked with tying up the security risks before publishing it anywhere near the Windows start menu

In fact, that is the whole point of the purchase. Microsoft would replace the entire US operations team with US employees, and vet all the code. There would be zero reasons left to ban Tiktok on the grounds of national security.

For some reason, I'm not seeing many people talking about this at all. Everybody is still talking about justifications about why Tiktok should be banned. I therefore suspect that the issue is more emotional than rational in nature.

Can someone explain me, if TikTok does not want to sell then what? Americans will need to use VPN for TikTok?! And why would they sell they have 800 million users? Instagram revenue jumped from close to 7 billion in 2018 to 14 billion in 2019, why would they sell how big is USA market?

> who saw value in an American company getting access to sophisticated TikTok algorithms

Caused me to spit-take.

Why?

I'm guessing they believe it suggests a reason the current administration is pushing for the sale is to have some control over said algorithms and thus what videos are served, possibly to the benefit of the current administration and their interests.

"The proposed transaction gained the blessing of senior Trump officials, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who saw value in an American company getting access to sophisticated TikTok algorithms that decide what videos users are served."

That's not how I interpreted it. Pretty sure they were referring to the "sophisticated" part as unlikely. Not saying I agree though. No clue how their algorithms work.

Prior TikTok/Microsoft discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24032667

I'm no fan of TikTok, but in general the US president doesn't get to tell US companies what to buy, and he doesn't get to tell US persons what internet sites they can or cannot visit. (Yes, I realize it does happen e.g. for gambling sites, but it's generally a game of whack-a-mole for the government because there is no Great Firewall of the US.) If ByteDance just told Trump to go to hell, what specific legal and technical actions could he take to stop Americans from using TikTok?

I'm worried about precedent here, and whether this is just a pretext for creating a GFoUS.

Sorry, a GFoUS?

Great Firewall of US, maybe.

The US president can probably compel Apple and Google to remove Tiktok from their app stores. Tiktok can appeal that action to the US court system and the US legislature, but those appeals would probably go nowhere.

So a technically inclined Android user or a user of a jailbroken iOS device can probably continue to use Tiktok, with effort, but will have much fewer people to interact with using the service.

If the president can't compel Apple/Google to install backdoors, he can't compel them to remove TikTok.

But would Apple and Google actually resist a TikTok ban?

It wouldn't be surprising to see them ban TikTok voluntarily and receive positive press coverage.

He could have the commerce department put TikTok on the Entity List, which would prohibit all US companies from doing business with them. It would be unprecedented though because putting a company on the Entity List is almost always tied to some actual criminal activity like trade violations or espionage (see HuaWei).

So there is away for him to do it, but TikTok could challenge it legally.

Google and Apple could arbitrarily agree to remove the app from their stores.

Even if it was still usable via some kind of side-loading it would completely destroy the userbase.

There is also something fishy about all the "algorithm" talk.

Are we supposed to believe that the algorithms that a bunch of Chinese blokes came up with for a viral video platform are so complex that the US Govt. wants to intervene and help Microsoft buy it?

Wonder if the Chinese government will retaliate and ban US companies like Tesla or Apple from selling goods there unless they fork over ownership to Alibaba, haha.

Haha. Nah. They still need them to run the factories that employ millions of people and show aspects of cutting edge manufacturing.

They probably will retaliate on American entertainment/content, considering those are more replaceable.

Intellectual property robbery

If Microsoft doesn't buy TT, it's going to be banned by Trump. Great deal for Microsoft.

TikTok is designed to be a separate firm somehow. Quite different from the arms of wechat, ... partially due to the censorship of china. But it also showed the fundamental problem. None of the media social or not get into china. Not even diplomat. But China earn the other way round. The unbalance is unimportant when USA feel safe. But when USA not the one way street is a bit of shock. How to handle this ...

For this case more important is us investor. Hence the strange deal. Otherwise it would outright blocked like india.

The missng of Uk or non-chinese world is strange though.

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