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Comment by abeppu | Hacker News Reader

> The outcome of the shutdown would be different from that mandated by the law. The law would mandate a ban only on new TikTok downloads on Apple or Google app stores, while existing users could continue using it for some time.

Does anyone have thoughts on why TikTok would choose to stop for existing users? I.e. why would they choose to do more than the minimum required by the law? It's nice that they want to point people to a way to download their data, but they could also keep showing videos after notifying people of that option. What's the rationale here?

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> Does anyone have thoughts on why TikTok would choose to stop for existing users?

What business would choose to keep operating if it can't gain new customers? Think about it. The law makes it impossible for tiktok to grow or be profitable. What advertiser would be interested in a platform that will lose users every day and won't gain more in the future?

The law was sneakily and intentially written to outright ban tiktok. It would be like congress creating a law saying you specifically cannot buy more gas. You can keep using the gas in the car, but you can't fill up your tank anymore. Would you spend thousands to fix your car? Change the oil or the tire? No. You'd either sell the damn thing or just throw it away.

Would you throw away a $100B asset? If TikTok was just a business and not an arm of the CCP then they would not be shutting down.

It's not being thrown away, it will work as normal in every other country except the United States.

I wonder how many countries you need to have to match the united states' revenue

Waiting for Trump to take office to cut a deal.

The obvious play would be to incite those active users to take action by letting their congress critters know their opinions in an effort to have them reverse their vote

those plays can easily backfire - like when tiktok first did it

although there are success cases, like prop 22 in california and uber

The threat of losing something vs actually losing something is not the same though. If TikTok did something with all of the tracking data they did for each user so they could show the contact information for their Rep and Senators to make it easy for everyone with clickable links directly to phone numbers/emails would increase that engagement. It would also just show how creepy AF their tracking is. So maybe just a screen like PH does that refuses access to their content with a screen that says talk to your reps.

no, i think the negative reaction in political places would be exactly the same if they did this again

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/krishnamoorthi-gallagher-ti...

again, I think you are not considering the loyalty to the incoming president and that his party now controls both houses of Congress.

> again

you didn’t mention anything about either of those two points in your previous comments, but sure

Sure I did, just not to you directly. Read the full thread and the time stamps

not sure how you expect me to take into account things you are saying in different threads after i made my original comment

They did try that last year though it did generate a lot of calls in absolute terms and it didn't actually work as political pressure for them to vote against the ban.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/07/tiktok-us...

Getting congress to reverse something seems much harder, in that they also have to get someone to introduce the bill, get it through a committee, get it scheduled for a vote, etc, in both houses.

> Getting congress to reverse something seems much harder,

The GOP is absolutely flip flopping on this issue since Trump has also reversed on the ban idea. That's why the TikTok lawyers' arguments to SCOTUS were to just delay the ban until after Jan 20 so the incoming administration could weigh in on the matter.

> in that they also have to get someone to introduce the bill, get it through a committee, get it scheduled for a vote, etc, in both houses.

I think you are forgetting that the GOP just took control of both houses. It will not be that difficult for them is that's what the orange man says he wants.

If there's an escape hatch, I think it's more likely that Trump directs the DOJ to defer enforcement, first temporarily. Some deal will be made where Trump stipulates some stuff about content moderation, including removing TikTok's ban on political ads. Once TikTok has agreed to act like X, Trump can direct the DOJ to delay enforcement indefinitely, but keeping the law on the books as a sword of damocles to keep leverage.

The Reuters article already states this will happen:

> If it is banned, TikTok plans that users attempting to open the app will see a pop-up message directing them to a website with information about the ban, the people said, requesting anonymity as the matter is not public.

Political pressure. There are more Americans on TikTok than voted in the last election. I think the parent company is calculating that they can draw attention to the government taking away something the users love and turn that into political pressure to undo the law. We’ll see what happens, but I’d imagine they are right. Taking away the opiate of the masses has not worked out for governments in the past.

Many of those users are not eligible to vote.

People in the US have the right to petition the Government, regardless of their eligibility to vote.

And I think I’ve been proven correct

Drawing attention to the stupidity and agenda-driven approach of the USG by causing pain to millions of users, is my guess.

The downloading your data thing is actually part of what is required by law.

> Does anyone have thoughts on why TikTok would choose to stop for existing users?

For the same reason Google or Facebook or many other major players might choose to stop operating in a jurisdiction that's trying to impose restrictions on them that they feel are unconscionable, rather than knuckling under?

The "national security" angle that FedGov is attempting to hang this all on is pretty bullshit... defense contractors that do classified work for the DoD can be foreign owned!

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