Microsoft Statement on TikTok | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft Statement on TikTok

blogs.microsoft.com

150 pointsmyth17108 comments

Ongoing discussion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24464933.

Strange, it seems like they are in a way accusing ByteDance of not selling to them because MS was going to make changes to meet their "highest standards for security, privacy, online safety, and combatting disinformation".

Is it usual for a company to give out any statement when a potential acquisition does not happen?

I think if you are a publicly traded company you are even required by law (at least in Europe) to publish information about the failure of such an important acquisition as soon as you learn about it.

Edit: see for example Art. 17 of the EU market abuse regulation.

It was a political statement by POTUS to block and then later allow extension period for the sale of ByteDance to Microsoft. This is a political statement back on the results of the agreements. It is responsible that Microsoft publically posted this official notice, in addition to however else you may find it.

I don't think they're being as coy as the phrasing "in a way accusing" suggests. This is a very direct accusation that Bytedance is not on board with changes for privacy, security, etc.

with changes Microsoft claim to be for privacy, security etc. to the public.

> We are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok’s users, while protecting national security interests

Does anyone seriously believe TikTok is a threat to national security?

> combatting disinformation

There you have it. I've seen TikTok videos go viral being really critical of the US government including its foreign policy. The kind of video that would just be invisible or outright banned from Youtube or Facebook video. That's why they want to get rid of it.

I think the last four or so years have proven without a doubt that command of social media gives immense power to threaten the national security of others.

I have no thoughts on if they are a threat right now, but I think they are a very interesting and possibly powerful piece on the board for the future.

I think the main issue is this:

The US views Chinese social media apps as being able to spread criticism (and most likely propaganda) and the US can’t do likewise in China, so they’ll just not let Chinese social media companies operate in the US until that changes.

There will be 0 official, influential Chinese social media companies operating in the US on a permanent basis until the CCP let’s US social media companies operate in China. This has bipartisan support.

Have you seen the anti-US sentiment being stoked on TikTok among our nation's zoomers?

"All buildings matter" and "all days in September matter" are just two recent memes from the past month.

TikTok is doing a lot of harm to our national image. Zoomers that I know don't think it's important for the US to have a lead in tech and that we commit atrocities worse than China.

It's pretty alarming that we're being manipulated whereas China and Russia are impenetrable.

Social media in the hands of state actors may be one of the greatest dangers to democracy yet.

You’re probably right based on the amount of downvotes you’re getting. I don’t use TikTok or much in the way of social media, but if you’re saying it’s true, with a reasonable conjecture and you’re getting downvoted I think the probability of you being correct is increased.

It’s not so much that you actually are right, but that you’re exposing a contrarian idea that doesn’t align with either CCP apologists or certain leftists in the US, so they’ll try to silence comments like yours (and mine) to make it appear that they aren’t popular or worth discussing.

(you’ll see a subsequent increase in downvotes for me too for expressing interest).

All of my posts critical of the CCP get heavily downvoted before eventually climbing back into the positive. They're usually not countered with an argument, or if they are, they're usually nuanced and appreciate that this is a complex issue.

Too much nationalism is dangerous, but I fear we've slipped into a state of disaffection that will cause us to lose the lead.

I think there is a lot at risk if China's tech sector and export industry eclipses the West. Our jobs, standard of living, and strong democracy might be eroded.

Not everyone in America has the same experience or opportunity. But I felt like we were getting better. I can't see that progress continuing in a world dominated by a totalitarian regime.

Covid, extreme partisanship, and the growing threat of China make the future seem bleaker than it did half a decade ago.

"that will cause us to lose the lead." Good.

Are you advocating censorship? So much for the tolerant right!

Me? I voted for Obama both times, wanted Bernie to win the Democratic nomination both times, and will be voting for Biden this time around, albeit reluctantly.

TikTok might very well be helping spread this sentiment, but this generation has lived their entire lives in the post-9/11 era and all of the attendant fear culture, American quasi-imperialism, Snowden disclosures, etc. We invaded Afghanistan as they were starting to be born, almost 2 decades later this very weekend we're negotiating with the Taliban, again, for peace. Is it really that difficult to believe that a good chunk of them might have ended up with politics that reject a hegemonic US that hasn't seemed to do much for them, while still carrying on foreign entanglements that stem from an event they don't even remember?

That's not anti-US sentiment, it's satire critiquing the "all lives matter" crowd. Everyone who posts that message still thinks that 9/11 is a national tragedy - in fact, that's why the comparison to "all lives matter" is apt.

> "All buildings matter" and "all days in September matter" are just two recent memes from the past month.

What do you think these mean? I'm confused at how you would read those words and think that it has anything to do with "national image".

Presumably, he sees it as a flippant or disrespectful use of the 9/11 tragedy to make a point.

It's not just Zoomers.

A significant number of my fellow American, Millennial friends want to see China overtake us in all areas including economic and military.

Partly because they believe we need to be punished, and partly because it shocks boomers.

>A significant number of my fellow American, Millennial friends want to see China overtake us in all areas including economic and military.

>Partly because they believe we need to be punished, and partly because it shocks boomers.

Yeah but by doing that, you're letting an oppressive authoritarian regime grow in power, making the world worse off. It's essentially "cutting off the nose to spite the face".

"Zoomers that I know don't think it's important for the US to have a lead in tech and that we commit atrocities worse than China."

And we haven't? You could look at race relations, organized labor, communist party. Any of these, and more, could be looked at internally historically to the usa and show hypocritical views.

Zoomers have not been living under decades of Cold War propaganda. Maybe older folks should re-evaluate all of their assumptions about geopolitics hammered into their brain through decades of propaganda before venturing into criticism about the Zoomers and their view on things.

>I think the main issue is this: >The US views Chinese social media apps as being able to spread criticism (and most likely propaganda) and the US can’t do likewise in China, so they’ll just not let Chinese social media companies operate in the US until that changes.

Then why force them to sell to a US company specifically. Why wasn't Germany or any EU company with strong privacy laws allowed to buy them?

Hmm. I don’t seem to recall them trying? If a German (or EU) company wanted to buy that probably would have went through if it was the best deal.

But naturally they don’t want to offend China so why take the risk when you can try to play both sides as long as possible?

Like what company? No European company would make that acquisition. Europe doesn't even have any tech companies that are remotely as large as American tech.

SAP is on the same scale as Oracle and makes about as much sense.

Why didn’t they bid?

>Then why force them to sell to a US company specifically. Why wasn't Germany or any EU company with strong privacy laws allowed to buy them?

There is no one outside the US with both the tech skills and the cash to buy something the size of TikTok. Heck, there are very few in the US (adding the third requirement of no antitrust concerns).

If TikTok were a Canadian, British, French, German, Korean, Japanese, or Taiwanese company, the US government wouldn't have intervened in the first place.

> Does anyone seriously believe TikTok is a threat to national security?

This deceit was the fundamental legal premise of the forced sale.

Of course it's bullshit. But even though it failed to win, Microsoft was a willing and active participant in the bullshit from day one, and can’t really call the game out now without acknowledging it's willful collaboration in the deceit when it held the potential for profit.

Plus, it would anger the petulant and corrupt executive who they are currently counting on favoring them and opposing Google in other executive actions, and they don't want to risk losing favor on that.

>Does anyone seriously believe TikTok is a threat to national security?

Everyone who believes Facebook was used to influence the 2016 election should believe TikTok poses a similar threat. I'd agree that the threat is overblown, but many serious people, in good faith, seriously believe it.

I would say the possible threat is more than FB is assumed to have been responsible for, whether it is true or not is a different story.

While FB's perceived threat was(is?) targeting of users on behavioral models, for misinformation campaigns. Tiktok's goes beyond this, with a state actor pushing its propaganda with active blessing of the platform itself and curbing dissent against itself. Considering how we have seen companies self censor for CCP, I wouldn't say the curbing dissent thing is far fetched.

On a similar note, I used to consider SCMP reporting of high standard different from Xinhua/CGTN and free from interference as it was based in HK. But lately I have seen them publish stories to push CCP agenda without proper fact checking.

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't we already see censoring of any references to the Tiananmen Square massacre on Tik Tok back in July?

I am not sure if it was this July but yeah, there was news of them censoring content around Tianamen, Tibet and other topics sensitive to CCP

But then this is evidence that whether it’s an American company or Chinese company has little import on its ability to subvert elections.

It's not evidence of anything because it's possible Facebook's ability to subvert elections could have been even more damaging if it were controlled directly by a foreign power.

Current US intelligence officials [1] are among those serious people who seriously believe that social media is being used to influence American elections.

[1]: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/china-election-interference...

If you read any account of the history of the KGB and GRU (obviously the west does it too), so-called Active Measures are their bread and butter. It would be bizarre if they weren't trying to influence countries via social media

I believe that social media is being used to try to influence American elections, whether it actually being influenced is unclear, and I believe overblown. I've been party to enough multi million dollar brand campaigns to know the results are hard to measure, often less than believed, and generally a waste.

You think the threat of hyper-targeted propaganda is overblown? Can you elaborate on that?

I don't think it's overblown. We've seen what can be done flooding social media networks with propaganda-troll accounts and memes. With TikTok China owns the platform, and TikTok knows what you like (see any number of threads with HNers shouting the praises of how addicting tiktok is). And, we already see China's influence in media. Games and movies censored or tailored to not offend China, so we know they're mindful about even subtle messages. I don't think it's unreasonable to be concerned about TikTok as a propaganda machine.

A lot of creepy older men use TikTok to hit on underage girls [1], inevitably the long tail chat histories and browsing behaviors will provide ample blackmail material on future politicians, judges, and military members.

[1]: ask your nieces, daughters, or young female friends, about their experience if they ever set their Instagram or tiktok to public.

> Does anyone seriously believe TikTok is a threat to national security?

I think they are in the sense that they're collecting massive amounts of user data about their users and I believe they wouldn't hesitate to share that data with the Chinese government if asked.

On the flip side, I also think their threat to our national security is being made a bigger deal than it actually is by politicians who have an anti-Chinese agenda and companies who see an easy way to cripple a competitor.

I see this argument about Grinder having data that is blackmail material, but it seems less clear to me that the TikTok data itself would be that interesting if it all became fully public.

Though I say that as someone who has never used the app, and I'm not sure about other data concerns besides blackmail (maybe troop deployments?)

I don't use the app either, so I don't know the specifics, but I assume it has similar data collection to something like Instagram, so using that as my mental model I can think of a few things:

- I'm sure it collecting location data. In the past people have used data from apps like Strava to actually trace and map the layouts of military bases, so I'm sure you could do something similar.

- I believe the app has messaging as well which could contain private or sensitive data

- In that same vein, I know plenty of people who send things through snapchat and instagram that they definitely shouldn't (think military members taking pictures on base where they shouldn't to try and impress people or devs taking pictures in meetings with sensitive data in the background)

- You could use the app to sow discontent or push propaganda by showing or hiding certain content to certain locations or social groups

- You might (BIG MAYBE) be able to track certain high profile through the location data of their friends or family or running facial recognition on all videos

Some of the things I listed may not be feasible and I'm sure there are things you could do with the data is not listed. The things I listed aren't meant to be concrete examples that I'm saying we should worry about, but rather examples of ways that the data they have can be used in unexpected ways.

Yes. They’re saying the reason the Houston Chinese embassy was closed down out of nowhere was they were using TikTok data to target/provoke protestors via TikTok in regards to George Floyd protests. People were intentionally targeted to further fan the flames of unrest in this country.

It’s also been speculated that TikTok is using the data they get from the US to train their facial recognition and AI tools better.

Can you add more context and links, and more info about these claims?

Every major and minor news outlet and social media netowrk in the country was fanning the flames, including official POTUS statements.

There are many videos critical of US foreign policy on YouTube. The collateral murder video is on YouTube.

Do you think Facebook or Twitter are threats to national security?

I think even passively collected behavioral data (rather than, say, an active psyop-style intervention on social media) poses a threat, as it can be leveraged elsewhere.

Wait, you don't believe Tik Tok is a national security threat? Are we living in different worlds? Handing over content control to an arm's length foreign government controlled company of our youngest minds isn't a national security risk?

Did Russia influence the election?

Absolutely. If they can tweak the algo to hide the CCP critical videos, while promoting any US critical one, regardless the merit of the information, coupled to reach and spread, that's information warfare.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-...

> The kind of video that would just be invisible or outright banned from Youtube or Facebook video

What critique of the US government would be banned on those platforms?

> Does anyone seriously believe TikTok is a threat to national security?

I don't have enough information to know whether it's a threat, but yes, I think it's reasonable to be concerned.

> There you have it. I've seen TikTok videos go viral being really critical of the US government including its foreign policy. The kind of video that would just be invisible or outright banned from Youtube or Facebook video. That's why they want to get rid of it.

Videos such as? Seems to me that the kind of videos banned on Youtube, Twitter or Facebook aren't really the ones that are really critical of the US government, especially the executive branch.

I'm not saying this went viral, but I did encounter it while just normally browsing TikTok.

https://www.tiktok.com/@jperkinsauthor/video/686526224212490...

I think the US has more than a few skeletons in its closet that they'd prefer remain there, so having a means of exerting control over popular platforms seems like plain old common sense.

The same sort of content (including many re-hosted videos) is available on his Twitter page, so I'm not sure this is evidence for anything.

The ask was:

> I've seen TikTok videos go viral being really critical of the US government including its foreign policy.

I posted an example of a video that is critical of the US government including its foreign policy. This seems like reasonable evidence that one can find videos critical of the US government including its foreign policy on the TikTok platform.

Noteworthy is that TikTok is a distinctly different platform than Twitter in many ways. One might even go so far as to say that it's possible that TikTok may even have the possibility of being a more influential platform than Twitter, particularly for certain demographics such as young people, who often have impressionable minds and openness for new ideological beliefs.

A potential example of the power of ideological beliefs might be observing that intelligent, rational people in a forum will downvote someone who literally provides an example of what someone else asked for. Imagine what sort of mass behavior modification could be achieved with an ongoing campaign designed by people who have a deep understanding of human psychology, leveraging the capabilities of a platform like TikTok that is well proven at propagating memes.

> I've seen TikTok videos go viral being really critical of the US government including its foreign policy. The kind of video that would just be invisible or outright banned from Youtube or Facebook video.

Do you have any evidence of this happening? I've never heard of pro-US censorship before on any of these platforms (or any social media platform..)

Name one.

> Does anyone seriously believe TikTok is a threat to national security?

It's quite obvious since the CCP has control of it. I'd question anyone who doesn't seriously believe that the CCP is waiting for the right moment to exploit the information from TikTok and similar apps, if it isn't already.

Looks like they decided to sell to Oracle instead.

I wonder if this is Microsoft's way of saying, "It still won't be safe under Oracle".

Short, sweet, and to the point; you can feel the rage.

There's a Reuters article that claims the Chinese government prefers TikTok close US operations like in India than go through with a forced sale and asset transfer, and they're willing to use heavy-handed policy to make Bytedance do what they want. Makes sense. Acquisitions should not be made under the barrel of a gun from the US government. It will be very harmful to the Chinese economy if more companies are required to spinoff US operations.

So why haven't they closed down?

Yeah, it's like US companies buying UK companies and then massively profiting off them. Why should China subsidize startup costs for a company and then sell it so the US can make massive profits off it? It doesn't seem to be in their interests.

"combatting disinformation"

I.e., US govt doesn't want a popular social network that is not under its control.

Seems like killing tiktok would be the perfect way to turn out the youth vote.

Democrats like Chuck Schumer wanted to force the sale and asset transfer of TikTok too.

They found a higher bidder? Or did export restrictions from China hinder sale?

ByteDance announced they weren't going to hand over the recommendation algo for TikTok which seems like a bit of a dealbreaker.

~~https://twitter.com/verge/status/1305285085722292224~~

Right link: https://twitter.com/business/status/1305179144171421708

Your link has nothing to do with recommendation engines? Perhaps you pasted the wrong one?

Oh whoops, I picked the tweet next to this one: https://twitter.com/business/status/1305179144171421708.

This recommendation algo bit looks unnecessarily hyped up, it is not as if they have cracked a new superior recommendation method. From an article that was posted few days back, it seemed like collaborative filtering with more signals being collected about engagement. Didn't look like something which say FB or Snap won't be able to do.

Oracle? :)

It does look like it.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-drops-out-of-bidding-...

So stupid, really.

That's... disappointing. While Amazon may be the reigning modern incarnation of evil, Oracle has held that title for longer.

Is Oracle evil? I thought they were just shrewd business people and not stewards of OSS. I know they have a terrible history in open source but what are some of the evil act’s they’ve done?

Just genuinely curious. I’m a dev that’s only been around the last decade or so. Wasn’t around when they gained prominence.

Oracle is highly litigious. They also acquired and killed a number of products that had a cult following. Their consulting wing sucks, but honestly not much more than Accenture or the like.

That's so...odd. When I think Oracle, I think old suits selling boring old tech. Not 12 year olds twerking and/or pretending to be killed at Auschwitz(yes, a real trend).

yeah.. lots of head scratching when I saw that announcement.

Larry Ellison supports Trump and has raised funds in the past for him. Oracle also has hired lobbyists who were classmates of Pompeo or are related to advisors to Trump.

That may reduce the head scratching about how Oracle got its hand on TikTok. As to the other hand scratching of why, well, my guess is that it's selling for cheap enough that it doesn't matter and orcale wants to have a consumer product similar to the league of FAANG.

The reason for the purchase appears simple: They believe there is money to be made.

Of course that would rely on good execution.

It's looking like Oracle (of which Larry Ellison recently proclaimed his support of Trump) is now the front runner: https://twitter.com/jolingkent/status/1305290263632343040

Edit: "Oracle Wins Bidding for TikTok in U.S., After Microsoft Proposal Rejected" https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-drops-out-of-bidding-...

So can we now buy people's TikTok viewing data along with their credit card purchasing data that Oracle already sells?

This reminds me a bit of a wing-man situation not working. "Donald tried to hook us up on a date, but she wasn't interested."

Ultimately I feel that this deal is so skeezy and coated in the slime of Trumpist corruption that I wanted it to go to the worst possible company and it looks like this happened.

Yahoo had a similar decision some years ago, greedy corporates per se

Why would anyone invite cancer?

Womp womp..

So basically if you want to serve the USA market, you have to give up the shares of your company to ruling class of USA? This is eerily similar to how communist China operates.

So far it’s only been communist Chinese companies that have had to go through this (to my knowledge) in recent times. Tit for tat and al that. Maybe if China let Facebook, Twitter, etc operate then we wouldn’t have this problem.

There is no such thing as tit for a tat in a civilisation with rule of law. Either USA had privacy laws that forbid Tik Tok from participating in USA marketplace or USA doesn’t have rule of law and operates under some form of dictatorship.

The world is not black and white.

The law underlying this deal isn't a privacy law but a national security law that allows the President to force the sale of foreign-owned assets that pose a security risk. It's mainly intended to deal with war, near/imminent war, and quasiwar situations where the assets are active tools of opposing belligerent, and, even if this is technically within the letter of the law (about which there has been serious questions raised), it's seems clearly outside of the intended application and to be very likely premised on a bad-faith determination that is an abuse of power. But the Republicans in the Senate have already signalled a lack of willingness to hold the President to account for any abuse of power no matter how flagrant, so everything that isn't forcibly constrained by something other than the risk of impeachment is, de facto, licensed until the Senate and/or President are changed.

Nah there definitely is. There is no rule of law regarding international deals besides what can be enforced with violence or the threat of violence. That’s why, for example, the EU has different trade rules for different countries, protection mechanisms for domestic products and industries, etc.

Why is the UK working on a deal? Shouldn’t the EU provide the same deal to all countries? Nah. It’s “tit-for-tat”.

“There is no such thing as tit for a tat in a civilisation with rule of law.”

That’s not a general principle of which I’m aware. Plenty of countries have rules like “we treat you how you treat us”. Nothing about that is inherently incompatible with the rule of law.

So what should the US do when China does not allow some US companies to operate in China?

"Rule of law"? This is international relations. What "laws" do you speak of?

Strong economic, biologic, and anthropologic research shows that tit for tat is the very foundation of civilization.

https://ncase.me/trust/

If TikTok were a Canadian, British, French, German, Korean, Japanese, or Taiwanese company, the US government wouldn't have intervened in the first place. It's mainland China that concerns people and governments.

that's simply wishful thinking.

the US sanctioned Japan when it threatened its economic dominance too.

Storm in a teacup over a stupid vines app. Really.

Frankly, I don't give a shit about the national interest of the US or the national interest of China. As a user of tiktok, I enjoy the content and I will be saddened if it shuts down. We like to think of our country as our team, and to root for it in international struggles, but the reality is that it's the average consumer that gets harmed by these power struggles between nations. These economic proxy wars are just as much of a racket as conventional wars, and the sooner we stop allowing the few to rule the many, and play out their egoic power struggles with our lives, the better.

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