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

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

#591

Post by innagadadavida » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 6:39 AM UTC

jewelry wrote: post #580

albacur wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comment wasn't specific to TikTok, but rather OP's assertion that the U.S. is a hostile actor, whereas China is just being China. Regarding TikTok, foreign-owned companies must follow U.S. laws, which are subject to due process. Additionally, they must not pose an imminent threat to national security. For better or worse, the government tends to be tight-lipped about matters of national security and isn't compelle…

Cannot believe the president has the power without legal battle to ban business activity. If it's national security, let out the cat. Otherwise how could people believe if this won't happen to SAP, Volkswagon, Sony next time.

There really is no guarantee these things won’t happen to those companies - just like how there is no guarantee that CCP won’t have HKers or Uighurs or Tibet. You just have to be mindful of the authority of nations and hope you don’t get unlucky.

This one of the better/saner things this administration has done, if anything, these should have been accelerated to avoid another USSR style Cold War with China.

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

#592

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 6:51 AM UTC

getmeoutofhere wrote: post #488

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google trying to re enter China has no bearing on whether or not they were banned or are banned. And actually, I was living in China when Facebook stopped working, and I was living in China when google.com stopped working, and when google.cn stopped working. And you are right, they were never officially banned, China would never admit to that, they just used the GFW to make them stop working and commenced a lot of wo…

You just ignored what I said and straw-manned the specific nature of being banned. As I said in my previous post, both can operate in China if they choose to comply with Chinese laws. Hotmail and iCloud do, and both works fine in China. Google and Facebook being banned is no different than if they'd been banned for not complying with GDPR in EU.

Again, China doesn’t officially ban Facebook or google, they won’t tell them what laws they aren’t following and anyways, China doesn’t really do rule of law. Google can’t go to a judge and say, ”hey, I want to prove I’m doing things right, see this Chinese constitution guarantees freedom of speech!” Nope, China doesn’t work like that, officials make opaque arbitrary decisions on what to allow or not.

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

#593

Post by chillee » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 6:52 AM UTC

jbgud wrote: post #587

billfruit wrote: post #195

As someone from the third world this leaves a very bad feeling if it happens. I do expect it runs into legal hurdles before that. Neither Apple nor Google have found TikTok problematic enough to delist them from their app stores. Neither is there charges that TikTok may have broken US laws. Banning something which hasn't broken US laws, on arbitrary grounds shouldn't be possible. The President shouldn't have authorit…

>>Neither Apple nor Google have found TikTok problematic enough Security researchers have found it grossly problematic though. 1. https://www.proofpoint.com/us/blog/threat-protection/underst... 2. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/tiktok-flaws-...

Did you read the articles?

From the first link:

> All in all, TikTok should be treated like any social media app: one that can be used with relative safety if you’re aware of the information it gathers and what it does with the data.

The second one seems like a security vulnerability found in TikTok - what separates that vulnerability from say, this one that allowed any user to delete any YouTube video?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/qz.com/374892/google-fixed-a-vu...

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

#594

Post by vertis » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 6:54 AM UTC

albacur wrote: post #454

wildrhythms wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rationale in your comment is unconvincing to me. If Tiktok is breaking the law, that should come to light and be actioned like any other company breaking the law; likewise TOS violations on respective app stores. I haven't seen any reports to suggest that Tiktok is breaking U.S. law, have you? And if the rationale is, as you suggested, a retaliation against 'bad behavior for decades', what precedent would banning…

My comment wasn't specific to TikTok, but rather OP's assertion that the U.S. is a hostile actor, whereas China is just being China. Regarding TikTok, foreign-owned companies must follow U.S. laws, which are subject to due process. Additionally, they must not pose an imminent threat to national security. For better or worse, the government tends to be tight-lipped about matters of national security and isn't compelle…

The US is not really better for those of us that are not US citizens though. Yes, in theory, US stands for freedom and democracy, but any protections are protections for US citizens, not for Australian or EU citizens.

So from a purely rights and spying perspective having the app be a US app vs a China app makes little difference to me (not that I'm young enough to be a TikTok user anyway).

As soon as you add 'national security' clauses and hide everything away, you don't really have due process any more. You have two paths. The public one, and the one where it's possible to assert (possibly falsely) that it's a matter of national security.

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

#595

Post by jjcc » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 6:54 AM UTC

asdfadsfgfdda wrote: post #478

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IIRC, Foreign companies need to have majority-owner Chinese partner entities to "own" business operations in China. You recall incorrectly. You're describing the situation about 30 years ago, in the early stages of China's opening up. In the intervening time, restrictions have been dropped from most sectors (including the automotive sector - Tesla's Shanghai factory is a demonstration of this). The Chinese market i…

Tesla's factory was the very first foreign-owned car plant, without a domestic partner. This certainly has not been the norm in China in the past 30 years: https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2154674/tesl... China may be open to goods (ignoring the capricious enforcement of customs laws). But even politically benign services (banking, finance, insurance) cannot easily be "exported" to China. It's obviousl…

There are a lot of foreign-owned companies long before Tesla. In my home town Changzhou there was a famous US company called METTLER TOLEDO which exists since 1992. I lived there 20+ years ago. I had a lot of friends worked for the company. All the town knew it was a wholly owned(独资）US company. Here's the only source I can find but in Chinese. http://www.bioon.com.cn/show/index.asp?id=11583

It mentioned 独资。There are other companies had Chinese partners called 合资 which means joined-adventure. They are different but 独资 exist as opposed to MSM claimed.

Now I know you don't believe it. There are many people know the other side of story but they have been eventually down-voted out of HN to tell the truth. This one seems not quite offense to many HNer's beliefs so I'd like to provide some information.

http://www.bioon.com.cn/show/index.asp?id=11583

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

#596

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 6:59 AM UTC

albacur wrote: post #454

wildrhythms wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rationale in your comment is unconvincing to me. If Tiktok is breaking the law, that should come to light and be actioned like any other company breaking the law; likewise TOS violations on respective app stores. I haven't seen any reports to suggest that Tiktok is breaking U.S. law, have you? And if the rationale is, as you suggested, a retaliation against 'bad behavior for decades', what precedent would banning…

My comment wasn't specific to TikTok, but rather OP's assertion that the U.S. is a hostile actor, whereas China is just being China. Regarding TikTok, foreign-owned companies must follow U.S. laws, which are subject to due process. Additionally, they must not pose an imminent threat to national security. For better or worse, the government tends to be tight-lipped about matters of national security and isn't compelle…

[deleted]

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

#597

Post by schuke » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 7:03 AM UTC

fermienrico wrote: post #589

schuke wrote: post #586

I wonder if anyone know that TikTok is currently actively blocking access from Chinese users. Even with a US Apple ID, even with a VPN/Shadowsocks service, you cannot sign up TikTok as long as your phone is using a Chinese SIM card. I have to use an iPad. What you have is something the internet has never seen: unlike Google having to censor its content within China, you now have a allegedly independent US company act…

Umm...there is nothing remarkable about this. CCP wants their citizens to use a vetted service, that’s in full control and has surveillance capabilities. They already ban YouTube, Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc. amongst many other sites. Tiktok has a local version for Chinese users I believe and Tiktok wants to make sure Chinese users do not sign up for international version of Tiktok app. Tiktok is owned by ByteDa…

They used to do this within Chinese jurisdiction. Now they're doing it on United State soil.

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

#598

Post by publicola1990 » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 7:04 AM UTC

albacur wrote: post #454

wildrhythms wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rationale in your comment is unconvincing to me. If Tiktok is breaking the law, that should come to light and be actioned like any other company breaking the law; likewise TOS violations on respective app stores. I haven't seen any reports to suggest that Tiktok is breaking U.S. law, have you? And if the rationale is, as you suggested, a retaliation against 'bad behavior for decades', what precedent would banning…

My comment wasn't specific to TikTok, but rather OP's assertion that the U.S. is a hostile actor, whereas China is just being China. Regarding TikTok, foreign-owned companies must follow U.S. laws, which are subject to due process. Additionally, they must not pose an imminent threat to national security. For better or worse, the government tends to be tight-lipped about matters of national security and isn't compelle…

That additional specious condition on threat to national security is what is problematic.

1. Expert opinion seems to be that the perceived threats indicated in the case of TikTok are vague and over hyped, and there is no concrete evidence produced.

2.Federal Government may not have sufficient authority to promulgate such a ban, even on grounds of national security. May be possible to squeeze out the cash flow of the company through trade restrictions, may be able to mandate that this app cannot be used by federal employees while on duty, may be even possible to disallow their usage on federal government premises, but it cannot ask Apple and Google to take an app down from the app stores.

3. If that is the case then we are moving into a government-licencing regime in the US, effectively. That is, you can have your app distributed only if you have the necessary license/authorization from fed government which can be revoked at any moment. I don't think that is the right direction. So to have such special powers for ostensibly national security purposes is undesirable and detrimental to the very system that US is claiming to champion.

The whole episode is wrapped up in a frenzy of reactionary whipped up paranoia that is reaching an alarming cacophony considering the commentary here.

This is obviously a nuanced matter, and needs to be approached as such, not with a coldwar-era Hollywood Manichaeian dualism.

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

#599

Post by mcji » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 7:07 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #321

billfruit wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really this move seems nothing related at all to US companies not having sufficient access to China. If then why this 10 year gap from action to reaction. Many here seems to take this particular view of this move being a retaliation of some sort, but I feel that is a naive view of what US is doing here and how it will be perceived around the world. Put in specific data protection/privacy laws and regulations applicab…

How else would you negotiate with a bully like China? America is a bully too, but without Uighur concentration camps, fleets of fishing vessels farming the sea to extinction, outrageous claims over the South China Sea, etc. You can only turn a blind eye so long to a competitor’s unreasonable actions (in this scope, IP/trade secrets and the like). As a US citizen, I endorse any actions intended to remove or subdue CCP…

[flagged]

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

#600

Post by mcji » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 7:10 AM UTC

chrischen wrote: post #368

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that it justifies our behavior, but I can’t help but cringe a bit when considering how China locks American companies out of its market but expects better access for Chinese companies in the American market. America-Chinese relations started going downhill in 2009 when China thought it prudent to start blocking most Americans services, America just took a decade to follow up with similar bad behavior.

Because we believe in the free market and they believe in a controlled market? I mean, are you suggesting we also move the planned economy model because China is right? It’s not like we adopted a free market model for the benefit of foreign interests... it’s simply a better model (in our belief) for creating a healthy economy.

While US corps predominate，free market is better. Otherwise, controlled market is better. /s