Comment by hopelite | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hopelite | Hacker News Reader

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I haven’t really followed things in great detail, but something that has stood out to be is the apparent linchpin that was pulled in this whole affair. Like it or not, TikTok is an American company with American employees and even running on American infrastructure and oversight that was established years ago now; not somehow the cabal in our government has simply eschewed rule of law and their own ideals, to basically strong-arm this deal because there was too much free speech, a fundamental right of Americans, which the government is legally prohibited from violating and doing so is as much of a capitol offense as it can get, violating not only the law of the Constitution, but also the rights enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.

I don’t see how a competent legal team could not shred this whole effort at disowning TikTok and at the very least make it extremely expensive politically and even to the core foundation of legitimacy of the current government in what is for some reason still called the USA in spite of gross patterns of consistent material violations of all the terms.

> an American company with American employees

While technically true, these articles give context about the level of decision-making control and data access from ByteDance, as of the time of their publication.

https://restofworld.org/2024/tiktok-chinese-us-ban/ (2024)

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-... (2022)

I don't get it, did you miss that this went all the way to the Supreme Court already? It's not "anti free speech", it's "anti Chinese platform".

What's changed in 2025 is that the Trump administration has illegally postponed the ban passed by Congress four times, despite the fact that the law does not allow the President to extend the ban. And, naturally, the fact that this is to facilitate purchase by a coalition of political allies.

This has less to do with anti china hawks and more to do with anti Israel content on TikTok. And information control in the US. They are openly buying out all US mainstream media and from the looks of it will probably take Warner brothers from Netflix as well.

I'm the first to say they should have been shut down the day the original deadline ran out, and if new leadership comes to the WH they should aggressively prosecute all the platforms that broke the law under promises of the corrupt DOJ (Google, Apple et al). But that's between your joke of a constitution and political leadership, it hardly sways the case one way or another.

> TikTok is an American company with American employees

Those American employees are required to basically uphold the interests of the CCP. This is done as part of an agreement around their stock grants apparently. From https://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/2025/01/14/exclusive-d... there are details on what executives of TikTok have to agree to in writing:

> “You shall comply with applicable laws and guidelines and abide by public order and good customs, the socialist system, national interests, legal rights of other citizens, and information authenticity requirements,” the purported Douyin agreement reviewed by the DCNF states.

> The document also lists a number of prohibited activities for employees, including “overthrowing the socialist system,” “inciting secession,” “undermining national religious policies, or promoting cults and superstitions,” as well as injunctions against “meaningless information or deliberate use of character combinations to avoid technical censorship.”

And in fact, they’re required to report to a ByteDance management team in China, and acknowledge that they’re employees of ByteDance (and therefore NOT the American company):

> TikTok executives also sign agreements with ByteDance consenting to digital surveillance and report to China-based leadership, according to other documents and audio recordings supporting Puris’ lawsuit.

> Other documents also seem to indicate TikTok ultimately considered Puris to be a ByteDance employee.

> While onboarding in 2019, Puris was allegedly required to sign one hiring document reviewed by the DCNF affirming: “I am a director, executive officer or general partner of ByteDance LTD.”

> TikTok is an American company with American employees

All tiktok code is written by ByteDance engineers in china.

Context for the non-beleivers. I work on the TikTok USDS team.

This isn't true. You should ask friends who work at TikTok before you write comments like this.

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You wrote "All tiktok code is written by ByteDance engineers in china." While historically that might have been true in the old codebase, it isn't anymore. There is a significant TikTok office presence in South Bay, with many job listings open.

https://lifeattiktok.com/search

I find all this very interesting from a historical perspective because we are ramming into the control matrix that has been constructed around America for around 150 years now at minimum, the notion of universal equality; and it is causing the inevitable and predictable collapses that are caused by its inherent contradictions.

We wanted diversity and equality because it served a narcissistic ethnic group, and now that they’ve started realizing that their whole short sighted, self-serving system is turning on them, they’re blowing huge holes in it and getting ever more draconian… as is typical of narcissists, especially malicious and grandiose types of extreme narcissists.

You will not be able to convince these toes of people with things like facts, because what they promote or support is an emotional level conviction similar to a religious one. The whole China ruse itself is just a lie and the ones who used and deployed that lie for strategic ends know this. All those who promote it are just the worthless foot soldiers on a battlefield of and over the mind.

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