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Microsoft and Bytedance Put TikTok Talks on Hold After Trump Signals Opposition

wsj.com

101–110 of 118 posts

Re: Microsoft and Bytedance Put TikTok Talks on Hold After Trump Signals Opposition

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m so confused. Didn’t I just read several submissions where almost every person was cheering the government threatening to become involved in Big Tech?

It's a very different matter when a government acts within the bounds of its authority. In the case of the congressional hearings, that is well within their bounds, and antitrust law is established law. This is a president asserting executive authority in a way without precedent as far as I know.

Yes it is. Anti trust law has never been

A) used against a company that has at most 50% market share (Apple)

B) In the US always been focused on consumer harm and based on does a “monopoly” cause consumer prices to go up. Facebook/Google costs consumers nothing and no one can honestly claim that Amazon/Apple prices have increased because of anything they have done. (Disclaimer: I work for AWS)

C) The republicans were more worried about Facebook/Google’s “bias against conservatism” and in the case of Facebook, one Republican representative grilled Zuckerberg about Twitter’s policy that affected Don Jr. and the administration has repeatedly gone against Amazon because Bezos owns the Washington Post.

Re: Microsoft and Bytedance Put TikTok Talks on Hold After Trump Signals Opposition

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep hearing this mostly from the conservative side when Trump got elected mostly by bypassing traditional media and using Twitter and social media. What do you propose? More government involvement to tell tech what they can do on their own platform? Isn’t it kind of hypocritical that the anti regulation party wants regulation when it suits them?

Corporate censorship bites both ways; see Apple's reluctance to approve HKmap.live for its platform.

What exactly does that have to do with US policies?

Re: Microsoft and Bytedance Put TikTok Talks on Hold After Trump Signals Opposition

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free Market for me, not for thee

Is China a free market for non-Chinese companies?

Don't know why this is getting downvoted - it's a legitimate (albeit rhetorical) question highlighting that China has never allowed western companies to compete fairly in their market.

See: Google, Facebook, etc. etc.

Re: Microsoft and Bytedance Put TikTok Talks on Hold After Trump Signals Opposition

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporate censorship bites both ways; see Apple's reluctance to approve HKmap.live for its platform.

What exactly does that have to do with US policies?

Nothing, that's the point. Censorship is not a "US conservative complaint", it's a problem independent of nationalities or political parties.

Re: Microsoft and Bytedance Put TikTok Talks on Hold After Trump Signals Opposition

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free Market for me, not for thee

Is China a free market for non-Chinese companies?

Does China even pretend to be?

What comes to your mind when you think of China - Adam Smith or Karl Marx?

Re: Microsoft and Bytedance Put TikTok Talks on Hold After Trump Signals Opposition

#106
post #78
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Security" also happens to be the favorite purported justification of most authoritarian measures in evil regimes. Just look at China: ubiquitous surveillance, censorship, concentration camps, suppression of dissent are all justified internally as "security measures".

Should white nationalists be allowed to march and exist in the public space?

Why not? They look like idiots doing it, people nearly always counter protest. It's always nice to see proof that the master race they ain't.

Re: Microsoft and Bytedance Put TikTok Talks on Hold After Trump Signals Opposition

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is China a free market for non-Chinese companies?

Don't know why this is getting downvoted - it's a legitimate (albeit rhetorical) question highlighting that China has never allowed western companies to compete fairly in their market. See: Google, Facebook, etc. etc.

Thank you. I have resorted to asking rhetorical questions as we are now at a stage where stating obvious true facts about certain topics is taboo.

We are now witnessing the beginnings of the great social media struggle session.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session

https://www.wsj.com/articles/get-ready-for-the-struggle-sess...

Re: Microsoft and Bytedance Put TikTok Talks on Hold After Trump Signals Opposition

#108

Why doesn't TikTok just move out of the US completely? As far as I know, Trump does not have the authority to block foreign websites that he doesn't agree with (for example, the webpages of foreign terrorist groups or criminal organizations are easily accessible). The whole authority for Trump to block this is that ByteDance (a Chinese firm) is investing in TikTok (a US company). If TikTok was run abroad, and had no…

That was my initial line of thinking as well, until someone reminded me of some government list that TikTok could be added to which would require that they’re pulled from the app stores.

Progressive Web Apps are a thing on all major platforms now. Is there anything TikTok does that wouldn't be possible on using Web APIs?

Re: Microsoft and Bytedance Put TikTok Talks on Hold After Trump Signals Opposition

#109
post #71
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for there being this joker called "national security" which magically allows practically anything to be ordered by the executive, because you can obviously reframe anything into a matter of national security, even short video clips of dancing teenagers.

"Security" also happens to be the favorite purported justification of most authoritarian measures in evil regimes. Just look at China: ubiquitous surveillance, censorship, concentration camps, suppression of dissent are all justified internally as "security measures".

There is an important difference in this instance - the US is applying these to a foreign company, not on its own citizens like China.

Re: Microsoft and Bytedance Put TikTok Talks on Hold After Trump Signals Opposition

#110
post #60
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Treating foreign media as a "national security issue" is extremely scary. This is not something that free societies do.

> Treating foreign media as a "national security issue" is extremely scary. Not really. RT and Al Jazeera has (rightfully) suffered much of the same scrutiny. There's a fundamental difference between something extremely partisan (think Breitbart or HuffPo) and something state-sponsored . Let's not bury our heads in the sand here.

But this is tantamount to banning Americans from accessing the Al Jazeera website. It’s obscene.
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