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Comment by markus_zhang | Hacker News Reader

Is September a fast track though? Outside of IT I feel everything is moving at slow motion. Sure they need armies of lawyers but I assume they already hired a lot? Why not a direct ban but requires the army of lawyers to request an appeal? I bet this would send motions faster -- they won't wait for 4 months.

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Because this has little to do with TikToc, bytedance or even China. The specifics of whether TicTok is or isn't an actual national security concern will not be considered. The issues at the supreme court will be about constitutional powers, about whether congress may or may not pass laws mandating the sale of single companies, if done in support of national security. Such decisions should never be made hastily.

Because due process.

ALso, the bill doesn't ban Tiktok. It forces Bytedance to sell Tiktok to a US controlled entity so the US security state can more easily threaten them and force them to censor their anti-imperialist content.

> It forces Bytedance to sell Tiktok to a US controlled entity

No, it does not. (It requires sale to a non-foreign adversary controlled person. A sale to an Indian, South African or Brazilian company would be fine.)

The sale must be personally approved by the President of the United States. Every buyer will be blocked until they find one that is sufficiently hostile to the idea that Palestinians deserve human rights.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/05/tiktok-ban-china...

> sale must be personally approved by the President of the United States

No, it does not. Your link doesn’t even say as much.

It requires the President determine, “through an interagency process,” that the app is “no longer controlled by a foreign adversary” [1]. That language invokes the APA [2], explicitly rules out personal approval, and provides an objective endpoint that can be challenged in court.

[1] https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20240311/HR%207521%20Up... § 2(g)(6)

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_Procedure_Act

"Through an interagency process" of people handpicked by the President is not meaningfully distinct from what I said.

> "Through an interagency process" of people handpicked by the President is not meaningfully distinct from what I said

No, this is again wrong.

Picked by the President, confirmed by the Senate and required to adhere to an objective end per the APA’s process. The APA seems to be where your knowledge is lacking. (Also, if Bytedance disagrees with the outcome of their process, they can have the courts review. The law is written specifically to suspend absolute executive deference.)

China announced years ago it would not support the divestment of China's interests in TikTok/Bytedance. So it's always been a de facto ban of TikTok hidden behind the justification that it's not a de jure ban.

Destroying the company rather than selling it for billions of dollars is a crazy stance for a supposedly independent business, and should be taken with a huge grain of salt. There is a good chance they are bluffing, which would be a reasonable strategy as they try to push back on the bill.

The only reason they would go through with burning the company down is for geopolitical reasons, which would show how beholden Tiktok is to the CCP and confirm one of the arguments for passing the bill in the first place.

Brand damage from the new owners + having reveal algorithm could easily be worth far more for TikTok than they'd get from selling. There's also the question of how a ban would even be implemented. For instance India "banned" TikTok but you can still use it if it's installed. And you can get the APK installer from their site for Android users, and Apple users can just change their region to download it normally.

Whatever the means chosen to ban it is, it'll probably face even more legal challenges.

China won't care that they give up a few billion in a one time sale if it creates a rift between a majority (or huge minority) of regular users and the US government. They'd probably consider it a bargain. Additionally, they have a very good chance of winning via our court system. This is not the first attempt at shutting down TikTok in the US using these tactics.

At the end of the day, China - or any government for that matter - won't sacrifice their alleged propaganda and cyber-warfare platform for a few hundred million in recurring revenue.

1. TikTok is actually not Bytedance's most profitable product.

2. If you sell, you lose. If you let it get banned, you might just need to wait out the current political climate (i.e. end of the Israel/Palestine war; no one really cares about teens' health or some vague Chinese risk - the US can ban it overnight in case war ever erupts with China).

3. Even if they were open to a sale, it's beneficial to publicly maintain that they aren't.

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