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Comment by knolax | Hacker News Reader

TikTok should just let the US government ban them. Teenagers can figure out how to VPN to Mexico and it's better PR for TikTok. "So good the government won't let you use it" is better optics than "TikTok, now owned by some Boomer company". As a hip youngster myself, just the name Oracle makes me think of beige and grey Windows Vista era software and shitty enterprise software.

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The problem is that with a transaction ban, no US companies can buy ads on TikTok, removing any financial point in running the service for US customers

So be it?

Proving that TikTok is just a money-making enterprise, not a CCP tentacle manipulating foreign elections. Otherwise they you just run it at a loss, like Voice of America or RT.

Upvoted for the perspective. Totally unrealistic view the average consumer is going to use a VPN to reach a particular service though.

The average consumer does not care(TM) and chooses convenience. And convenience will be brought by FB for example.

Most teenagers already use VPNs to get past network filters used in school WiFis and child filters on their data plans. Plus pornhub operates their own VPN so we know using a VPN to access just one service is something people already do. I think this idea of a mindless consumer is an unhealthy attitude tech people have that leads to so much shitty software. People who don't browse HN can use computers too.

I agree some might use VPNs, but most seems like a claim which needs some evidence.

A VPN wouldn't be necessary. Most of USG's totalitarian restrictions have been developed around commercial activity. Individuals are free to run whatever software we'd like, and talk with whatever servers we'd like. The user-facing choke point is Apple/Google control over software distribution.

No VPN would be necessary. The US has not proposed censoring the TikTok application, nor does the US president have the authority to censor otherwise legal speech.

> beige and grey Windows Vista era software and shitty enterprise software

That's not my image of Oracle at all. I think of a shark feeding frenzy.

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