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

#661

Post by toomuchtodo » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 3:16 PM 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…

dang, apologies this was flagged for your attention, I don’t understand why it was flagged but I’m actively seeking alternative forums [1] where this sort of discussion is welcome.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24028512

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

#662

Post by mistermann » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 3:19 PM UTC

glaive123 wrote: post #630

publicola1990 wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact is that Apple/Google hasn't found them in serious infringement of anything. The article from CNN seems to echo the view in point 1: "Although leaders like Pompeo have described TikTok as a clear and present danger, many in the cybersecurity community say the reality is more complex. While TikTok could become a clear threat to US security under certain scenarios, they say, the danger is currently largely hypo…

https://thehill.com/opinion/cybersecurity/480251-the-tiktok-... China has an extensive track record of influence operations and election meddling in other countries and has used social media trolls to target political protests in Hong Kong. Last August, Twitter disclosed a significant Chinese “state-backed information operation” aimed at the protests, dismantling a network of 200,000 accounts that aimed to sow politi…

> While there are no known cases yet of TikTok spreading propaganda to meddle in foreign elections

It's odd how so few people seem to see (and by the dimness of your comment, even downvote it) the potential for TikTok to be used for propaganda purposes.

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

#663

Post by mistermann » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 3:27 PM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #656

speleding wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US left the moral high ground some time ago. (About 4 years ago)

This line of thinking is absurd. Where are the US's death and labor camps? Global IP theft apparatus? Religious persecutions? Actual territorial expansion? Oh, but we have a leader that says mean things. Totally on par with China.

> This line of thinking is absurd.

It seems there is a kind of "conceptualization mode" that different people operate in when evaluating a scenario. If you consider this situation as a binary rather than a spectrum, then the respective behaviours do seem the same. Similarly, the same thing can even happen when two people are both looking from a spectrum-based perspective, but have differing levels of detail (number of included variables) in their spectrum.

If something like this is indeed in play, then it's not surprising how two different people can come to diametrically opposed conclusions, yet both have extremely high certainty that their conclusion is objectively correct...because they are (or at least plausibly can be) both "right", from the specific perspective each person is operating in.

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

#664

Post by getmeoutofhere » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 4:00 PM UTC

nsporillo wrote: post #650

getmeoutofhere wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China's actions are actually legal under 1. WTO rules which allow developing nations to have some sort of protectionism to foster their own industries, and 2. Their own laws, which companies can choose to abide by. Google and Facebook were never wholesale banned by China. You can see this with the fact that Google tried to re-enter China with project Dragonfly (a China-law compliant search engine), until it internall…

At what point is China no longer considered a developing country? I think the argument is since they're now at least the second largest economy in the world, they no longer deserve all the special protections.

On a per capita basis, China is still very much a developing / middle income country. I agree that special amendments should be made because a country of 50,000 people with Chinas gdp per capita faces a very different economic situation than China, though.

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

#665

Post by speleding » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 4:01 PM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #656

speleding wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US left the moral high ground some time ago. (About 4 years ago)

This line of thinking is absurd. Where are the US's death and labor camps? Global IP theft apparatus? Religious persecutions? Actual territorial expansion? Oh, but we have a leader that says mean things. Totally on par with China.

The reasoning you display here, "we're not as bad as China", is exactly what I meant with the "USA has left the moral high ground". There was a time when they aimed to lead by example.

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

#666

Post by manquer » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 4:05 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #545

manquer wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grindr was a national security problem . The precedent is there.

That's a problem for people with security clearance. For the other 99% of Americans, how is it a national security issue?

Compromising the people with nuclear codes is a security problem for the rest of us.

I am just saying such apps having Chinese ownership being considered national security has a precedent

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

#667

Post by ptx » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 4:37 PM UTC

glaive123 wrote: post #631

vertis wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 'nationa…

Apparently you are not aware of China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, which requires that “Any organization or citizen shall support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work in accordance with the law.” Unlike American companies who receive requests from the U.S. government, ByteDance simply has no recourse when faced with orders from China’s authoritarian government.

US companies similarly have to comply with secret orders[1] from the US government, so I agree with the parent that it looks pretty much the same from the perspective of us foreigners.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter

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

#668

Post by ktln2 » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

pknerd wrote: post #46

US is doing with China what China did with them. American VCs and business men used to criticize and mock Chinese government for it. Since US is following the footsteps of China, I wonder whether Chinese will be doing what US VCs did?

Chinese always has the freedom to criticize and mock US government - as long as you are not targeting Chinese government you are fine ;-)

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

#669

Post by tannedNerd » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

xdavidliu wrote: post #643

tannedNerd wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of response on being called a troll is pretty deafening. I think it is easy to see this account is a byte-dance or ccp paid troll.

> The lack of response on being called a troll is pretty deafening. I think it is easy to see this account is a byte-dance or ccp paid troll. You're not allowed to actually say that here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, e…

The CCP loves this rule. When’s the last time you saw HN step in to moderate what have been clear astroturfing attempts of the front page? Also interesting how every person questioning this account has been Silenced by flagging?

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

#670

Post by tannedNerd » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 4:44 PM UTC

tom-_- wrote: post #637

tannedNerd wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it’s not. He/she has a brand new account. Hacker News isn’t exactly a new site so users with new accounts need to prove they are trustworthy. It’s the exact reason why they flag new accounts, because if you are using a throwaway account you are doing something you don’t want tracked back to you. What’s your defense on that? Or are you rushing to defend another ccp account?

A flawed assumption: A new account does not mean it's a throwaway. The heretofore anonymous user may simply have found a topic worth commenting on. Secondly, my user is over 6 years old and I've not made any comments in favor or against the CCP in my entire history. I simply commented on what I find to be a logical fallacy. So I'm curious what you base your assumptions on.

Then why has every person questioning this account has been Silenced by flagging?