Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft is reportedly in talks to buy TikTok's US operations

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 546 posts

Re: Microsoft is reportedly in talks to buy TikTok's US operations

#91

Post by ogre_codes »

fermienrico wrote: post #61
ogre_codes wrote: post #43

This is not good. Facebook or Google would be worse, but Microsoft is only marginally less bad here.

This is far better than having facial recognition data in the hands of CCP. I am not a fan of US gov, but if I had the choice, I wouldn't side with CCP. The genie is already out and we've failed to put laws in place to stop all this data collection way back in 2004. Surprisingly, I feel comfortable with Microsoft having this data. What a world we've created. For those who are skeptical, just watch the Vice doc on how…

I'm just against it getting gobbled up by one of the existing internet giants. Getting it out of China is fine by me.

Re: Microsoft is reportedly in talks to buy TikTok's US operations

#92

Post by tempodox »

hakka-nyu-su wrote: post #69
jtmarmon wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking personally, here's why TikTok concerns me: TikTok is a Chinese business, and China has shown no limit to how much it will meddle in the affairs of and even take control of Chinese businesses for the furthering of the Chinese state's agenda. Simultaneously, TikTok has captured the daily attention spans of millions of Americans, many of them especially young and impressionable. They've captured their attention…

Does China really identify as "a country that views the US as its enemy (politically, economically, philosophically)" or is that just a projection of how the US feels about China?

Absolutely. China does not recognize even the idea of Human Rights, let alone their implementation. What do you think the Great Chinese Firewall is for? Shutting out all those ideas from the rest of the world that are deemed hostile to the ruling party's ideology.

Re: Microsoft is reportedly in talks to buy TikTok's US operations

#94

Post by techntoke »

mullingitover wrote: post #27

I never really understood the panic over TikTok. Is the fear about security, or is the fear that China might actually have successful social media product in the US?

TikTok has been caught violating COPPA. One of my kids recently signed up for TikTok without any age verification using their Android Google account, which then shares their email address with TikTok which is clear violation of COPPA. Nothing is being done to prevent this. TikTok actively caters to underage youth and most of the community is about producing provocative dance videos. In the end, TikTok is full of underage kids being provocative and is a cesspool and playground for pedophiles.

Re: Microsoft is reportedly in talks to buy TikTok's US operations

#95

Post by pageandrew »

thrownaway954 wrote: post #82
jtmarmon wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking personally, here's why TikTok concerns me: TikTok is a Chinese business, and China has shown no limit to how much it will meddle in the affairs of and even take control of Chinese businesses for the furthering of the Chinese state's agenda. Simultaneously, TikTok has captured the daily attention spans of millions of Americans, many of them especially young and impressionable. They've captured their attention…

"Imagine China subtly promoting videos to create outrage and civil unrest in the US, or to feed anti-US propaganda to germinate terrorist groups in the US." our president is doing a fine job of that now with his twitter account.

Right, but we have the ability to vote him out of office. We don't have the same oversight of the content the Chinese Communist Party wants to put in the minds of young Americans, besides banning the app.

Re: Microsoft is reportedly in talks to buy TikTok's US operations

#97

Post by ferest »

In short, only American companies can have access to the brains of Americans.

There is no law to prohibit an app of being used in US, and there is no evidence TikTok broke any existing law operating within US. All the talking point being so far is because it's a chinese company.

This is literally how black people was treated.

It's interesting to see how protectionism change the country brand of equal business opportunity and spirit of the law.

Re: Microsoft is reportedly in talks to buy TikTok's US operations

#98

Post by devenblake »

grezql wrote: post #57

Not sure if this is good. There is now a new trending app that is eating up TikTok users, its called Triller. Same concept but US made I think. What happens if MSFT buy TikTok only for the users to migrate to the new flavour of the social media app.

I use TikTok a lot (there are >1M combined views on my videos) and I've never heard of it. A lot of good TikTokers from before the app really took off went to Byte (made by the dudes that made Vine) and it seems like Byte is the logical successor.

I expect most users will migrate eventually. TikTok had its charms because it was completely mismanaged. The discover feed had a mix between popular (>1M likes) and very unpopular (1-30 likes) videos and very odd videos, like someone slowly crushing a hornet to death inside a syringe, get popular often. Microsoft tends to have a "digital gentrification" effect on the services they take over; for example, when they bought Minecraft, they stopped adding `- removed Herobrine` to update logs. To a lot of fans it showed a lack of respect to the game and its culture. Many older players even refuse to play any Microsoft-created Minecraft versions because they changed a lot of core gameplay mechanics.

This same effect will probably hit their acquisition of TikTok. They'll make it so pro-equality posts make it to the feed more often (TikTok has a semi-4chan-ish culture around its humor rather than an "accepting" environment, though a minority of users are actually bigoted), polish the horrid UX, make good video effects rather than the very odd choices available now, and I expect they'll make it so videos can be longer (the default length is 15 seconds but you can make videos up to 60). This would ruin TikTok. The limitations imposed by TikTok's designers are crucial for fostering creativity (in my opinion, but I've made literally hundreds of videos on the platform). Without them, TikTok is just another video app.

One more thing- most TikTok users despise America. America, to the youth, is a rich bastard bully of a country with military bases across the world despite no other country having bases in America. They believe being spied on by China is preferable to being spied on by America; if you're spied on by China, what are they gonna do, try to send you propaganda? If you're spied on by America and they don't like you, they just send cops in plainclothes to your house to shoot you, and the cops don't even get charged. Even if Microsoft doesn't hurt TikTok, TikTok's further association with America alone will be enough to make users move.

Re: Microsoft is reportedly in talks to buy TikTok's US operations

#99

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

franklampard wrote: post #58
emptysongglass wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly it. There's widespread fear that China is buying its way into the personal data of billions through its state-sponsored businesses like Huawei and ByteDance.

Is TikTok really state-sponsored? Do you have any source?

The CEO and cofounder has gone on record (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/05/tiktok-..., linking to a parent source https://chinamediaproject.org/2018/04/11/tech-shame-in-the-n...) pledging that he'd run the company in accordance with socialist values and the principles of Xi Jinping Thought. The degree of financial relationship is unknown and probably unknowable, but it seems clear that ByteDance feels obligated to behave how the government wants.
Post reply on HN