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US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

asia.nikkei.com

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Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#941

Post by MattGaiser »

Cookingboy wrote: post #937
unishark wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It ceases to be reciprocal if you distinguish groups at an only slightly higher resolution: Chinese businesses like TikTok and WeChat and American businesses like Google and Facebook in addition to the Chinese and American governments. This is pretty much exactly how reciprocity works in other areas like travel and immigration. We treat their nationals as they treat ours. You can see examples worldwide right now wi…

There are no Chinese restriction on U.S. companies. Why do you think iMessage and Skype are popular in China? If FB/Google doesn't want to operate in China because they don't want to comply to the same law that applies to everyone, then good for them. There are no explicit bans on Facebook and Google. >It's not arbitrary to counter that benefit with a loss of access to the US. Xiaomi and Huawei competes against Samsu…

> There are no Chinese restriction on U.S. companies.

Try accessing Facebook, Netflix, Twitter, Google, etc...

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#942

Post by xster »

cwhiz wrote: post #685
tannhaeuser wrote: post #324

I don't get it. It's US companies standing to loose their stronghold (near monopoly) on social, advertisement, and other forms of monetizing the web if the US creates a precedent for "national security" in this way, as in "we're welcoming social networks and free speech as long as it benefits the US and can be searched without warrant." Quite predictably, governments all over the world will be pressurized to question…

China doesn’t allow many western companies to operate in China. Why should the US allow Chinese companies to operate in the US?? This is an outrage that we should not allow. They steal our intellectual property, create state funded companies that are given monopoly access to their markets, and then unleash their stolen products on the world market. And if American or other western companies try to compete on the grou…

I think too much brain-cells are devoted to debating this point based on non-factual premises. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tiktok-china-state-medi...

According to Lee Kai-Fu who launched Google in China: "Chinese laws are clear about what foreign companies can do to operate in China. In TikTok's case, though, the company was left no choice but to consider a forced sale."

China doesn't not allow western companies to operate. Google proactively made the choice to exit China. I'm not arguing that they should have elected to follow Chinese laws but the actions the Chinese government took with western companies was not to either tell them to stop existing in the Chinese market or abdicate their ownership to a domestic company.

Let's debate on non-imaginary premises.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#943

Post by draw_down »

hintymad wrote: post #381
tannhaeuser wrote: post #324

I don't get it. It's US companies standing to loose their stronghold (near monopoly) on social, advertisement, and other forms of monetizing the web if the US creates a precedent for "national security" in this way, as in "we're welcoming social networks and free speech as long as it benefits the US and can be searched without warrant." Quite predictably, governments all over the world will be pressurized to question…

Isn't this just reciprocity? China banned a long list of media companies: FB, Google, YouTube, Twitter, Netflix, and every traditional media. Now the US is banning two apps made in China.

Repeat after me: it’s okay when they do it.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#944

Post by holler »

rswail wrote: post #316
holler wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure, Facebook fatigue is real and TikTok built a better product.

Facebook just introduced "Reels" to Instagram. Instagram is not Facebook and is used by the same audience as TikTok.

yeah I'm still not convinced... I don't use TikTok but my gf does and from what I've seen, they've really tapped into young millenials/zoomers and created a product that people love. Facebook fatigue _does_ seep into IG (owned by FB). The most obvious sign of it is feature creep. FB is adding every feature to IG that they can to stay relevant, but ultimately that's going to bloat the app and turn it into Blue V2, which is no longer en vogue.

TikTok works because it isn't suffocated by ads and is hyper-focused on one format, aka it's a well-designed but simple experience.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#945

Post by bradleybuda »

sidlls wrote: post #892
bradleybuda wrote: post #731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because allowing Chinese companies to operate in the US is good for American consumers. This isn’t a zero-sum game.

How is it good for American consumers? Their privacy is further eroded in service of a violently oppressive totalitarian state. Also, the companies these Chinese companies compete against do not have equal access to Chinese markets, providing a significant advantage to Chinese companies: the supposed benefit to the consumer (reduced prices due to competition) erodes quickly in such an environment.

The fact that TikTok has something like 70 million monthly active users in the U.S. is prima facie evidence that its existence is good for American consumers, who have chosen to consume it, regardless of any potential privacy issues.

I don't mean this to trivialize China's oppressive behavior. And sometimes the right way to punish regimes like China is with economic sanctions, even when those sanctions harm us as a side-effect - I don't know if that's the right answer in this case or not. But from a purely economic point of view, tit-for-tat trade sanctions are an own goal.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#946

Post by moate »

baddox wrote: post #878
moate wrote: post #871

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then how do you stop China from doing the bad thing?

Is that relevant? Do you think this will make any difference in China’s internal policies?

One assumption as to why "do the bad thing" is "because it will make China behave in the manner we want".

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#947

Post by fragmede »

jdietrich wrote: post #835
hintymad wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this just reciprocity? China banned a long list of media companies: FB, Google, YouTube, Twitter, Netflix, and every traditional media. Now the US is banning two apps made in China.

>China banned a long list of media companies That's not a wholly accurate characterisation. The internet is regulated in China, in the same way that broadcast media is regulated in the US. You might vehemently disagree with the specifics of Chinese media regulation, but the regulatory principle is the same. Foreign media companies that choose not to go through the Chinese regulatory system are blocked from operating…

Calling China's firewall "regulation" is a bit of an understatement, and framing it as Facebook and Google have "chosen not to operate" is very clever. At best it's an oversimplification rather than straight up propaganda but either way it's not one would call especially accurate because the principles aren't the same. While I'm sure the FBI, DHS, and DEA would love to get their hands on everyone's private communications, the courts, even at their most egregious, have resisted legalizing the blanket dragnet of the plaintext of American citizens' private communications that the Great Firewall is designed to enable of Chinese citizens. (Which is their right to do as a sovereign nation.) Thus calling it the same thing is like saying that a card board box is the same thing as a McMansion - they both provide shelter, but upon closer inspection, they're clearly not, in any way, equal, unless you wilfully ignore the details.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#948

Post by swordsmith »

Wechat is used by a vast majority of overseas Chinese (and increasingly non-Chinese as well), and a lot of the employees would message each other about work matters over WeChat because of convenience. All these messages are routed through Tencent's Chinese servers.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#949

Post by jariel »

u801e wrote: post #662
jariel wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's only reciprocity if you divide the world into two tribes, the "China tribe" and the "US tribe". Someone from the "China tribe" did something bad to the "US tribe", so now we're going to grab a random member of the "China tribe" and punish them for it, even if they're not the one responsible. I used to think the Western world had abandoned that kind of collective punishment, but apparently not." So no - this is…

> Now enter the security issue, which is very real The national security trope really only affects the government. The global pandemic has had a far greater effect on the economy and has caused far more deaths than any national security incident or terrorist attack.

I think by 'trope' you mean another word ('canard'?) but it doesn't just affect 'government'.

The opposite - it affects everyone.

China is using their networks to steal anything they can get their hands on, influence and bully politicians, students, expats, companies, administrators, researchers.

They are surveilling and collecting information on anyone and everyone for the purposes of pursuing their strategic objectives.

For example - if you have ever spoken out against treatment of Uighurs - you may never be able to enter China. You may get various accounts banned. You may get your peers in trouble (ie WeChat requires someone to 'vouch' for you - if someone vouches for you, and you do something bad, they could face problems).

Depending on how important you are, they could lobby to have your research defunded, slander you in the press, use political leverage. You may never get a chance to work at a Chinese-owned firm.

If you have IP they will nab it, or use leverage information against you should you wish to export into China.

If they can influence your elections, or buy your politicians - they will. See: Belt and Road corruption. [1]

If you know or interact with anyone in HK, and they can use that information in any way to leverage against and compromise the democracy movement, they absolutely will.

Their strategy is bald-faced, it's right out there for everyone to see, there's nothing hidden. The only surprising issue is that there are so many Westerners who weirdly want to believe China is playing the 'modern global citizen' game - when they are obviously playing hardball realpolitik. It's fine if they want to do that, but we have to adjust accordingly.

[1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/15/the-belt-and-road-initi...

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#950

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

xster wrote: post #942
cwhiz wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China doesn’t allow many western companies to operate in China. Why should the US allow Chinese companies to operate in the US?? This is an outrage that we should not allow. They steal our intellectual property, create state funded companies that are given monopoly access to their markets, and then unleash their stolen products on the world market. And if American or other western companies try to compete on the grou…

I think too much brain-cells are devoted to debating this point based on non-factual premises. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tiktok-china-state-medi... According to Lee Kai-Fu who launched Google in China: "Chinese laws are clear about what foreign companies can do to operate in China. In TikTok's case, though, the company was left no choice but to consider a forced sale." China doesn't not allow western compa…

The Chinese government forces foreign companies to do business with a domestic company, which they then use to raid the foreign company's intellectual property, develop a localized state-backed clone product, which they then allow to "compete" and inevitably crush the foreign company's product.

It's not as straightforward as outright "abdication of ownership to a domestic company," but the end-result is similar, and I'd argue it's more morally reprehensible.

At least TikTok is going to get a check.

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