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Comment by kelseydh | Hacker News Reader

I don't think it's unfair to China, I think it's unfair to European countries, Canada, Australia, and the rest of the world that uses TikTok who are watching the U.S. demand it is entitled to run and control TikTok.

This would be like the U.S. forcing Spotify's Swedish headquarters to accept U.S. ownership.

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Then Europe should grows some balls and ban TikTok. China is literally a foreign invader not just a foreign adversary, aiding in Russia’s conquest of Europe. And trying to destroy Europe’s car industry via state subsidized EVs

India literally banned TikTok overnight when China killed Indian soldiers in 2020

Every state to a different degree subsidizes its automobile industry.

Living in Australia now with access to Chinese EV's is eyeopening. It's great for the consumer. To the extent you accept EV's as a solution for reducing GHG's, the cheaper prices are making it easier to end our reliance on oil. Americans don't realize what they are missing out on.

Better than Tesla-quality vehicles for half the price.

Why exactly are they half the price? What are the externalities of Chinese EV manufacturing. They may be half the price, but I doubt they are half the cost.

> China is literally a foreign invader not just a foreign adversary

TikTok ban is not about vengeance on China, it's about violations of own citizens' freedoms.

> aiding in Russia’s conquest of Europe

Russia right now is weaker and has the least potential to conquer anything than literally ever before.

India still depends on Chinese imports and technology, regardless of how it feels about the country. The TikTok thing was an easy political stunt.

If banning Tik Tok is an easy political stunt then why has this spawned a couple several thousand comment posts in the last 48 hours alone?

Because if there are two subjects HN cannot resist pontificating on at length, it's social media/the modern web and Sinopolitics. Add a dash of red team/blue team sniping and it's the perfect storm.

Easy in India. I’m sure they also debated it at length there. But they went through with it and it largely did nothing.

You're really not going to enjoy history class when it comes to American empire

I think most Westerners would prefer the US remaining dominant than ceding that position of power to China, regardless of the US's foreign policy monstrosities over time.

And for those Westerners who do not, I think it would be useful to ask them why they think a country like China (or Russia, or North Korea) would be better for their interests than the US, even with someone like Trump in power.

> I think most Westerners would prefer the US remaining dominant than ceding that position of power to China, regardless of the US's foreign policy monstrosities over time.

I can't speak for most Westerners, but I fully believe the United States to be an empire in decline already. Who will take up that mantle once we're fully gone is an interesting question, I think China and India both could make a solid case for themselves.

> And for those Westerners who do not, I think it would be useful to ask them why they think a country like China (or Russia, or North Korea) would be better for their interests than the US

I don't really think about it in terms of "my interests." My ideal incoming superpower would be any superpower that's ready to deal with existential threats to our species like climate change, along with our global social ills like over-reliance on social media and the year over year alienation of everyone from everyone else. If that country comes with me needing to learn Mandarin then that's what has to happen.

I'm highly disillusioned with both the "West" as an idea (which can include any number of countries depending how racist the speaker is feeling at the moment). I still believe in Democracy, representative or otherwise, but I don't see any of those in your "West" anymore. I see a collection of ailing, aged empires full of greedy old men stealing as much money as they can so they and their families can coast out the collapse they have engineered. I contrast this with China, which certainly has problems too, and the CCP gets up to some nonsense, but their ability to exude top-down control also makes them more able to actually solve problems instead of endlessly bickering about them. And with respect to the notions of individual liberty and freedom that I do want to see in the world, it's clear that the West is too focused on maintaining the rights of the individual to do what they so please, and not enough on maintaining the planet upon which they would do it. How free is anyone if we can't leave our homes due to smog or unlivable temperatures/weathers?

Not saying it's an overall improvement. I am saying that the U.S. is on it's way out, and China is the likely incoming global superpower. We can do precious little to change this if we even want to, and I'm not rushing for a fire extinguisher here.

> Who will take up that mantle once we're fully gone is an interesting question, I think China and India both could make a solid case for themselves

With the exception of the USSR, every superpower’s decline in history has involved a burst of violence. China or India won’t take over if America collapses because America collapsing (versus slow fading over lifetimes) almost guarantees nuclear war resetting the table.

I’d prefer if there wasn’t any dominant powers. But that goes against human nature it seems.

Sure, that would be great. But we live in a world where that kind of thing is probably inevitable.

Why do we assume that would be great? The last time we had no dominant power it lead to ww1…

If anything, WW1 happened because there were too many empires rather than a lack of any dominant powers.

Unless you’re suggesting that what the world needs is a single dominant empire? Which would be an odd position to take because history has proven that monopolies are much much worse for abusing power.

Maybe if/when we colonise other planets we can think of the Earth as a single government with countries acting like states (kind of like the EU but with less sovereignty for each state). However that’s only going to happen if we work together and generally cooperation is viewed as counterproductive to empire building. So we come full circle back to my original point.

It's not very clear, but the US version is more freedom plus killing more people, and the Chinese version is more servitude plus killing fewer people.

I think people who have seen one up close claim to prefer the other (but thets meaningless) while people who have seen both start to lean toward servitude, unless they are highly religious.

Sounds like what a rapist would say about their victims

Since we all live in democratic regimes, maybe, just maybe, the will of the people should matter here at least a little bit? Banning TikTok is a deeply unpopular idea, across all party lines. It's only popular among the anti-democratic elites, from Trump (who first got this ball rolling), to Biden, to European leaders playing their "high-level" games.

This is simply false, at least in the US. A small majority favor banning it. It's not huge, but it's not a "deeply unpopular idea".

Here is a poll showing only 42% of Republicans and 24% of Democrats supporting the ban:

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2025/01/15/tiktok-ba...

I was a bit wrong in calling it deeply unpopular across party lines, but it's certainly quite unpopular overall, and deeply unpopular among Democrats.

You're lumping "not sure" in with "oppose the ban". You could just as easily lump "not sure" with "support the ban" and conclude that not banning it is deeply unpopular.

Here's the actual poll: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/05/support-f...

If you're trying to argue that a majority favors banning it, then, obviously, all opinions other than "favor banning it" have to be lumped together as "don't favor banning it"

It does not say they have to sell to the US. Only divest as to no longer be considered controlled by a `foreign adversary` of the United States.[0] The bill also gives this power to future administrations.

It was literally called Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.

Not, All your app are belong to us.

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

Does the law said it has to be sold to a US entity? I think it just can't be run by "adversary"

More fair would have been a restriction based on some framework like...

+ Public forum or utility

+ Userbase greater than 1% of the adult population

= Majority Ownership of corporate division and management, plus regulatory oversight, must be held within country OR a security partnered country (the easiest criteria for that might be they have an obligation to fight along side 'our' troops in some way).

That way it isn't specific about any given platform or company, and it allows anyone trusted as an ally to comprise the ownership or legal jurisdiction.

That's almost exactly how the law was written. Only the userbase was specified in absolute numbers (1 million MAU).

But if the EU or Canada or Australia bought it, that would fulfill the terms of the law.

EU countries are asleep at the wheel on matters of national security and sovereignty. Spotify is not a matter of national security. TikTok, and social networking in general, has been one for some time now. Misinformation, conspiracy theories, actual conspiracies to overthrow govt, etc have all found renewed vigor thanks to social networks.

US on the other hand now has its social media controlled by oligarchs, not much better maybe.

If that’s your position, then you would be fine if EU countries were to pull out all US telco infrastructure because of their previous abuses towards European citizens?

> would be fine if EU countries were to pull out all US telco infrastructure because of their previous abuses towards European citizens?

If I were the EU, I would. We hacked Merkel.

Well yeah, but she was totally asking for it.

I'd be mindful that having a NATO partner be able to spy is maybe better than having Huawei spy if you have to choose, but yes, I think it's a risk that EU countries should be aware of and probably are more aware of than with social networks.

What is your opinion on India's ban of TikTok a few years ago?

You do realize many US companies are not practically allowed to operate in some European jurisdictions? Uber and Amazon come to mind.

That has nothing to with them being US companies. Or are there any jurisdictions where Bolt/(other local company) is allowed to freely operate but Uber is banned?

Aren’t they for a different reason, like workers law protection?

Those are just examples. Whatever the reason for each, sovereign jurisdictions don't allow free access to their resources/markets just out of spite. That includes Europe.

That’s only partially true though. I don’t think Uber itself is not allowed to operate anywhere. Rather it’s business model is illegal in some cities/areas. Usually you can still use Uber to hire actual taxis there.

However exact same rules apply to its European competitors like Bolt. Make it entirely unrelated to this situation.

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