Comment by eldavido | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eldavido | Hacker News Reader

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It really isn't hilarious. This is how the US loses its long-term reputation as a level playing field for business, a great place to work/set up shop, etc.

This whole process has been unbelievable. The president dusts off some obscure law to ban or block tiktok. Now a forced sale is about to happen and the administration gets a say in who buys it? And they want some kind of finder's fees!?

This stuff isn't supposed to happen in the US! We aren't Zimbabwe, with a dictator who runs around with suitcases full of cash making no compunction about awarding contracts to people closest to him! This is major, high-level corruption! Are we going to start judging other M&A deals by who donates the most to a campaign?

This whole thing is just a huge, stinking, disorderly mess. We can't decide whether we're going to ban Huawei or not. Then the whole mess with ZTE. Now Tiktok. It's capricious and corrosive to the rule of law. And what's worse, not only is it ham-fisted, but this administration makes such a big deal out of "freedom", when having a president stepping in like this is anything BUT freedom -- it is the very antithesis of it, where winners and losers are decided based on personal favorites?

On one hand, yes, this could indicate some kind of breakdown in the rule of law (not TikTok being sold to Oracle, but TikTok being forced to sell). What you need to consider is:

1. Is it a threat that this happens to you, as a non-CCP sponsored entity?

2. Is it likely that you will ever even be large enough to care about?

I'm not sure I can agree with the exact methods undertaken against TikTok/ByteDance, but I think most people who care can realize this is only happening because of TikTok's position and perceived (and likely real) Chinese agression.

This is major, high-level corruption!

It's not. The CCP is not playing by the rules. It's not a recent thing. It's been going on for ages. Stop defending CCP companies. We're not talking about EU, Japan, Indian, Australian, etc. companies. Stop conflating this with lack of freedom.

If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at the CCP and their absolute disdain for the rules by which everyone is playing.

We can't decide whether we're going to ban Huawei or not.

Of course we can. It's another CCP tool. We ban it. That's it.

This whole thing is just a huge, stinking, disorderly mess.

Only because you chose to make everything related to Trump a mess. Remove Trump from the equation, judge those companies for what they are: the leading edge in CCP cyberwarfare and espionage,

> Of course we can. It's another CCP tool. We ban it. That's it.

This is how to conflict quickly.

We are at conflict already. It's not standard engagement. It's not even Cold War engagement (yet). But there's definitely a war being fought in some fronts. Propaganda and economy, among others. And Huawei/ZTE/TikTok are the tip of the spear.

We may as wait for another 40 years till the CCP is prepared enough so no one can stop them.

E.g. https://kprcradio.iheart.com/featured/the-pursuit-of-happine...

Zhang Yiming, the founder and CEO of Tik Tok's parent company, Bytedance, has pledged to use his company to promote "Socialist values" and support the Chinese communist party's "Ideology, political thinking, and deeds."

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