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Comment by rchaud | Hacker News Reader

Meta dominates the display ad market though, that is all they care about. Once TikTok is banned in America, they can grow it further.

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TikTok isn't getting banned, don't be silly.

Is it silly? It's already being banned from US and European government devices. It is just one more sentence away from being banned for general population in those huge regions.

There is big chasm between banning an app from fleet devices and banning both an app and a website in an entire country. Especially one that is so enormously popular.

I cannot recall the last time I've seen such a bipartisan push for something so monumental. Just within the past week, Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Mark Warner (D-VA) have been saying virtually the same thing: TikTok is an unprecedented national security threat.

they're literally just forcing them to build datacenters to keep the data for Americans in America (and Indians in India, etc). TikTok is already publicly hiring a ton of people for this

Once the data doesn't leave America this is going to go away.

This is not that much different than just complying with the type of regulations the EU has. The American version is just involving a lot more chest pounding and fluff because there's no existing laws to enforce to make them do this. So they just have to do it through threats and relatively minor policy changes (like banning on government phones).

I'm honestly more surprised that any social media apps were ever allowed on government devices.

Yes it is. The government is just trying to get the data to stay within the US. TikTok only needs facilities here (and maybe some sort of air gap) to comply.

Were US and European government officials/workers really big TikTok'ers to begin with?

TikTok got banned in India. I don't see why it can't get banned in US given CCP's complete control over Chinese companies

India regularly bans sites.

just last month https://www.npr.org/2023/02/14/1156726845/indian-tax-authori...

USA is different

TikTok's highly unlikely to get banned, and if it was then 10 new replacements would pop up overnight. Facebook isn't anything like TikTok and likely never could be. Instagram might get close but even then its not the same thing.

Also the display ad market is only useful if you've got people to advertise to. The more Facebook continues to turn into 'social networking for boomers' the less and less they'll make.

They have 2.9bn monthly active users.

Like, I left FB five years ago (after staying there for 5 years), and literally HN has been telling me that FB were doomed for all of that time.

I totally agree that TikTok is a very strong competitor, unlike what they've seen before, but writing FB off right now is probably not the wisest long-term decision.

How many in the US, and how many with desirable advertiser demographics. Selling reverse mortgage and pharmaceutical ads to boomer audiences turns you into television, where--at some point--the audience is going to pass on and leave it behind.

A bit hyperbolic to say HN groupthink => "FB doomed". More like FB is over valued and their product has stagnated and alienated their user base.

Facebook acquires IG (over ten years ago now), HN comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3817840

>and if it was then 10 new replacements would pop up overnight

https://www.youtube.com/shorts

already here

and not a chinese company

if Im gonna brainrot Ill use youtube

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