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Comment by TeaBrain | Hacker News Reader

The law didn't require them to shut the service off for those who already had the app installed. It just prevented new updates or downloads. Shutting off the app immediately was just theater and reinstating the app with no changes to the law is just the second act.

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The law says that US cloud providers are fined if they continued to provide services to Bytedance.

As far as we know, Tiktok is operated on US servers by Oracle. While it might have been possible to find another cloud provider and move all US data there, I can see them not wanting to do that given that there was no point if the app isn't distributed in the US anymore.

There's currently no evidence pointing towards Oracle shutting down cloud service to them though. TikTok appears to have just preemptively shut down the app before they were obligated to, complete with dramatic messages telling users what to blame and who to thank.

Even without following the letter of the law it's entirely rational behaviour for a popular market leader to foment outrage by fully blacking out services. 150 million users (in the US alone) is a very powerful political influence. Politicians frequently fold for a few thousand vocal people complaining on the internet.

It was a gambit used for net neutrality in 2014 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Slowdown_Day

Of course it's rational behavior. Nico was the one claiming that they were just "following the law", that's what this subthread was about. If you agree that TikTok was making a political point by shutting down, then you agree with the person you're replying to.

Not everything on the internet has to be a binary argument.

Sure that may be smart to forward interest.

Nico argued TikTok made the minimum change required by law.

Such compromises happen between companies as well when a particular app is popular. Facebook and Uber accessing private java apis which meant Google couldn't change the internals as these apps are popular.

I’m not sure this is correct. I see where you’re coming from, but there was a clear date that the law was going to be enacted by, and tiktok simply followed that date. Pretty much everybody expected tiktok to be required to shut down. The law is clear that there are penalties for tiktok continuing to operate past that date, so it’s not really surprising.

They were telling users who to blame and who to thank because in this specific case, the blame and the thank are pretty clear. The Biden administration approved the ban, and the Trump administration reversed it. Blaming one and thanking the other is also hardly surprising.

There's no evidence that they were obligated to shut off the app immediately at the time the law was enacted.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/oracle-prepares-start-shu...

Which is curious if the sourcing by The Information is legitimate, considering that the FTC hasn't yet begun enforcement.

If your cloud provider tells you they are shutting you down on date X, you want to fight as hard as you can until X and then shutdown gracefully to have a chance to explain to your users why your system is going down. If you wait until you get shutdown, you have no way of pushing a graceful shutdown anymore.

I'm saying that it is curious that Oracle would be acting before the FTC began enforcement, if this sourcing is actually accurate.

Oracle has no interest in running afoul of the US government at all. Their internal culture in many ways views them like that of a quasi-government institute. So in thus case they probably are feeling responsible to actually be the ones enforcing the law.

I imagine shutting down ByteDance is not like flipping a switch. They have a mountain of infrastructure and “shutting down” could mean nuking the data or otherwise getting it out of their cloud entirely. If it has to be done by a certain date you’d need to start nuking things well in advance to be absolutely certain you’re in compliance by the deadline. I’m surprised the shutdown happened as late as it did if this wasn’t a completely staged crisis.

That’s a trivial problem to solve though. Just push an update to the app that shows the „we were banned“ message if a specific API endpoint isn’t reachable anymore (and general internet connectivity is still there of course). Then you can operate as normal until your servers are forcefully shut down.

Help me understand then if they’re following the letter of the law what changed with the law between the shutoff and now?

Well, "the law" is a shorthand for "how the police behave" and there is a certain amount of realpolitik here. The basic argument here would be that the US Congress made a scary growling sound and TikTok folded immediately because the Congress is terrifying. But then Trump made more of a friendly sound and so they think they can operate a bit longer with some level of safety.

There is no question that TikTok is a politically sensitive app and the US/China are very nearly in the funnel to a major war so a lot of the usual niceties are questionable. Previously the US has attempted something that looked a lot like a black-bag kidnapping of a Chinese industrialist [0]. I'd imagine that the TikTok people are acutely sensitive towards how the law is actually going to be interpreted and enforced in practice.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meng_Wanzhou

This is basically the same tactic to the SOPA/PIPA protests [1]. I don't know why people are bending over backwards to pretend it was something other than a political stunt. Also, Trump's rhetoric has remained unchanged since well before this - a 90 day extension. They wanted to flex their muscle to show the US political establishment how many US users there were and how much sway they had to give them more leverage in their negotiations. That's about it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_SOPA_and_PIPA...

The timeline doesn't add up.

Jan 17: Biden administration says it will leave TikTok ban enforcement for Trump [1]

Early Jan 18: Trump says he will 'most likely' give TikTok a 90-day extension to avoid a ban [2]

Late Jan 18: TikTok makes app unavailable for U.S. users ahead of ban [3]

Midday Jan 19: TikTok begins restoring service for U.S. users after Trump comments [4]

They already knew what was going to happen. They also changed the message shortly after disabling it from "We're working to restore service in the U.S. as soon as possible, and we appreciate your support. Please stay tuned." to "We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Stay tuned!" [5]

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/biden-administrat...

[2] https://nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-likely-give-...

[3] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tiktok-makes-app-unav...

[4] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tiktok-says-restoring...

[5] https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/tiktok-sends-notice-to-users...

I believe Tiktok shut down the app in India in the same way without being "obligated to" either before the order came into effect, albeit without the dramatic messaging.

(The latter part is probably because Tiktok's banning was not particulaly divisive within the population as it is in the US.)

The dramatic messaging was entirely the point. India probably did not have an easily exploitable target for such a message, so there was no point in trying that there.

I don't know exact figures, but when Tiktok was banned, Instagram was really popular - due to being pushed by Facebook, which was really really popular in India by then. None of my friends were on Tiktok, but all where there on Instagram. The reels thing was not popular but Facebook linked the account automatically and you just keep adding Facebook friends there as well.

Tiktok had a better algorithm (to get hooked) but Instagram eventually caught up (with algo)..

Oracle did shut them down last night, if Google and Apple have to drop their apps on the apps store, Oracle and other providers have to drop them too. Btw, the app won't function even if parts of the infra is down. Btw, business is risk averse, they don't want to give any excuses for government to fine them. Bytedance should definitely shutdown everything and blocked all US users unless they have explicit, written and legally bidding instructions from the Justice Department. Only an executive order is enough. They asked Biden to give that, but Biden just smirked

Oracle was shutting them down shortly after the clock struck midnight Sunday GMT. [1]

[1] - https://www.reuters.com/technology/oracle-prepares-start-shu...

Yes there is.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/oracle-prepares-start-shu...

Is anyone but politicians to blame?

That's not true, distributors of the app are fined. Meaning, very specifically, app stores.

From (2)(a)(1):

> (A) Providing services to distribute, maintain, or update such foreign adversary controlled application (including any source code of such application) by means of a marketplace (including an online mobile application store) through which users within the land or maritime borders of the United States may access, maintain, or update such application.

> (B) Providing internet hosting services to enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating of such foreign adversary controlled application for users within the land or maritime borders of the United States.

Possession of and providing non-distribution ( / maintenance / update) services to a "Foreign Adversary Controlled Application" are not in any way a part of the "Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act". Operative services are specifically and intentionally excluded from the list, to ease the burden of enforcement.

Are you saying serving content to the application would not count as maintenance?

Legally, no, it doesn't

Are you a DOJ lawyer or Federal judge?

If not, what is your basis for your conclusion?

I don’t use TikTok but the “down” page mentioned you can still login to download data. What’s the cost and scope of providing that feature without US cloud providers?

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