Hacker News Reader

balolaon Tech Monopolies Are the Reason the US Now Has a TikTok Problem

You probably don't know that Google and FB's ads businesses in China are kinda huge, they never left despite the ban, in fact you can still access a special version of Google Maps, their Analytics and Ads both are fine in China.

Chinese apps, games and e-commerce have always been their customers.

As for Tiktok, it was spending like crazy on big platforms at the time, and the product didn't seem popular back then, so why not take that sweet money as much as you can.

balolaon 5G Just Got Weird

It's such a myth that 5G can replace optic fibers, afterall 5G itself relies on it, if it requires setting up expensive(controversial) cell towers really really close to homes, why bother making it wireless.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/12/5g-as...

>Noting the dense deployment of cell sites that millimeter-wave spectrum requires, he commented: "This means that a wireless company almost needs to become a cable company to make it work."

balolaon Twitter, TikTok Have Held Preliminary Talks About Possible Combination

It's a fatalism, escapism and defeatism catch phrase in China, boils down to: if you can't single-handedly and immediately change the status quo or make it better, then you are not entitled to judge/criticize, shut up and eat the shit up.

I suggest an immediate ban.

balolaon UPI: India's Unified Payments Interface

A unique challenge for US dollars is that as the defult choice of all kinds of dirty money, it has a huge laundering problem. This is not the case for Chinese Yuan and, I presume, Indian Rupee.

In China the gov doesn't care about any amounts of transation or cash, you can walk in banks and deposit millions of dollars of cash and will be treated as VIPs, "all-cash-bill" buying of condos is normal. I think it kind of has something to with corruption, since you don't know who is behind this money and what trouble will get you if you dig too deep.

Also the protection others mentioned, once the money got to other accounts, which usually happens instantly, it's almost impossible to get it back.

balolaon How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

I didn't read the article until now, it reads exactly like what I said, a capital play.

Yet shocking still, it mentions Youth Motors/Qingnian Automobile/青年汽车 as Saleen's neighbor and former plant owner, my god, this is beyond stupid.

Youth Motors made the news last years after its "tech breakthrough of cars powered by water", which in reality is just ineffcient water-to-hygrogen onboard, it became a national joke, it also received huge amounts of government investment and apprently still doing fine right now.

This is the result of local governments not having to pay their debts, it's a feast.

balolaon How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

It seems he fell into a classic trap, the Chinese partner never intended to make cars, as the only product they ever produced is a Smart-like "mini-four-wheel-car", which was itself stolen from an HK student design.

So the plan is quite apparent, the Chinese partner just wanted his reputation and brand recognition, in exchange for promised access to the China market, to leverage huge land quota (state controlled lucrative resource, highly coveted) and bank/government loans. It never planed to make any real cars, it's just a capital play to game and profit off of the system, like pennies for grands.

balolaon US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

Your Chinese employees will be fine, but foreign personel coming in should indeed be very careful not to pique the party's attention as it will actively be seeking pawns.

balolaon TikTok and the Sorting Hat

You gotta give the masses a sense that the party is doing something for them, usuallly something unrelated to party affairs and politics, like civil criminal cases, that's when the censorship turn "lenient", and these specific cases that got public attention usually get to be solves quickly. But you never see sensitive matters being allowed to even exist, and any account who dares to challenge this boundary is quickly terminated..

That's the magic of censorship, to make the masses feel good, coz ignarance is bliss, the news are harmonious and bad apples are handled by the dear gov.

balolaon TikTok and the Sorting Hat

Chinese who master both English language and US culture are quite rare in China.

balolaon Trump gives Microsoft 45 days to clinch TikTok deal

This is exactly what the general public in China are jesting ByteDance about right now, mocking it as an out-of-favor American lap dog. The CEO actually got labeled as traitor for his past liberal comments.

balolaon TikTok: Logs, Logs, Logs

The establishment of "Chinanet", such as Alibaba and Tencent, do pledge allegiance to (and are owned in part by) the party in name and action, in return they benefit from the protection and favorable policy it ensues.

I personally don't like ByteDance mainly due to its product philosophy of reducing users to mindless eyeballs (it's a general indifference to social consequences in China tho ), but can't help but clarify that ByteDance isn't like those.

Having billion-dollar app killed by the party without recourse is just not a remote possibility for the Chinanet establishment, but it is a reality for ByteDance. This is not to say it's impervious to CCP influence, but the dynamics is more nuanced. Old comment:

>The CCP high officials don't really care about anyone but their own relatives and cronies, while your assumption is mostly right as in the cases like Alibaba and Tencent, ByteDance isn't exactly like them, it has a kind of autonomy and internationalization those companies wouldn't dare to dream of. ByteDance isn't as beholden to the party as those two since it's a startup capitalized on the app economy, it's growth is organic, didn't rely on government policies and protection. >In fact ByteDance already has blockbuster app Neihan Duanzi killed by Chinese authorities overngiht.

balolaon TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

Isn't this whole new cold war all about the US trying to contain China? the failed "prosperity then freedom" China policy for the past thirty years all about? It's perfectly normal to not care, but "Policy makers" care.

balolaon TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

Don't anymore since Huawei and COVID-19, it has always been a minority and got smaller.

balolaon TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

Don't have to, but unless the policy is seperate the people and the party and win over the people.

https://www.state.gov/communist-china-and-the-free-worlds-fu...

>He was a brilliant student of China, a fierce cold warrior, and a tremendous admirer of the Chinese people, just as I think we all are.

>We must also engage and empower the Chinese people – a dynamic, freedom-loving people who are completely distinct from the Chinese Communist Party.

>So to somehow think that we ought to ignore the voices of the people of China seems to me the wrong approach... But it seems to me we would dishonor ourselves and the people of China if we ignored them.

balolaon TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

It's still what I said, the CCP doesn't care that much about who has data on its citizens, the amount they have could never match the party's anyway, and the measures being taken made it so that potential subversion is unlikely. It's a different story outside China and still the US's to lose.

When 95% of the comments on Weibo are like what I said, I think it's pretty safe to say it is public opinion.

balolaon TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

When billions of people believe something, it will become a "fact".

Right now the public opinion in China (not mine) is that India and America are hypocritical bullies and abusing the "national security" excuse, while China "never banned" any foreign web services, those "simply refused to comply with Chinese laws regarding terrorism" and their "inaccessibility" totally justified.

You see, here's the logical trap, Tiktok ostensibly didn't refuse to comply with any foreign law, and it will do any "dirty work" if being asked to (unlike foreign companies in China), so by this logic, it's a model citizen and the ban is unjustified and ridiculous. This plays right into the party's hands, right into its "century of humiliation" ideology.

>why should US allow Chinese?

So here's the catch, the CCP sabotaged and overthrew the Chinese Nationalist Party (now Taiwan) government exactly by exploiting its liberal constitution and free speech, the lesson they learned from that epic success is that never allow these freedom, China never touted freedom and rights so it doesn't matter, while the US being the democracy beacon breaching it has everything to lose.

balolaon TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

This is a game America can't win, either way the CCP gets to keep the upper hand, everpresent threat or discrediting entirely.

balolaon Zoom Security Exploit: Cracking private meeting passwords

It's never allowed, part of the reason is you need to install Chinese IME to begin with.

balolaon Public asked to report receipt of any unsolicited packages of seeds

Seeds are a common e-commerce scam, coz by the time you knew what it turned out to be, it's too late to do anything.

balolaon Public asked to report receipt of any unsolicited packages of seeds

In China they usually need to pay 1 to 1.5 dollars for someone willingly doing it for them, it's open secret and an entire industry, it feeds platform's ranking/recommendation system to get ahead, sometimes platforms actively encourage it.

You may have heard of the Singles Day shopping event, it's common for sellers to boost their revenue that day to meet requirements from platforms, like selling a cheap T-shirt for $150 then refund it upon receiving the package.

balolaon Public asked to report receipt of any unsolicited packages of seeds

The thing is, platforms don't really care, it adds to their GMV and fees, in turn it boosts their valuation.

balolaon The TikTok War

Says every Chinese internet company, they are all "foreign" companies.

balolaon U.S. looking at banning Chinese social media apps, including TikTok

The CCP high officials don't really care about anyone but their own relatives and cronies, while your assumption is mostly right as in the cases like Alibaba and Tencent, ByteDance isn't exactly like them, it has a kind of autonomy and internationalization those companies wouldn't dare to dream of. ByteDance isn't as beholden to the party as those two since it's a startup capitalized on the app economy, it's growth is organic, didn't rely on government policies and protection.

In fact ByteDance already has blockbuster app killed by Chinese authorities.

balolaon U.S. looking at banning Chinese social media apps, including TikTok

Does this hurt the CCP? No. It only hurts ByteDance and its investors , which are mostly private entities; while the CCP gets to gloat that look told you, they are no better than us.

balolaon TikTok to pull out of Hong Kong

I think ByteDance is in an unresolvable situation, on one hand they absolutely can't afford losing the China market, that means they have to stay Chinese and loyal to the party; but on the other hand, if they don't sever with China completely, a global ban looks inevitable.

As for the public opinion in China, the majority thinks this is unfair, coz FB, YT and Twitter "wasn't banned, they themselves pulled out coz they don't want to respect Chinese laws".

balolaon China suppression of Uighurs meets U.N. definition of genocide, report says

Population decline is more of economic reasons.

balolaon China suppression of Uighurs meets U.N. definition of genocide, report says

https://www.statista.com/statistics/250650/number-of-births-...

The trend is clear, the limit was loosened late 2015, and it's not working coz people don't want/can't afford 2 kids.

China didn't care minorities having 10 kids before, why bother now?

balolaon China suppression of Uighurs meets U.N. definition of genocide, report says

The difference is now the population growth is collapsing, even after they loosened the limit to 2 kids per family, China desperately needs more babies.

balolaon China suppression of Uighurs meets U.N. definition of genocide, report says

#VICENewsTonight China’s Vanishing Muslims: Undercover In The Most Dystopian Place In The World

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7AYyUqrMuQ

balolaon India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

If you can't contain the hostile players, limiting youself is only going to speed up your own death.