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US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

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Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#91

Post by _akhe »

brigadier132 wrote: post #80
_akhe wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Blizzard didn't "work with" NetEase, they basically gave them the IP and ability to sell the game in China as well as ownership of all servers that host Chinese players. My dear bro, this is called "working with". > Microsoft did the same thing with their Office suite and Azure cloud services... because they aren't allowed to independently operate in China. You're the one actually being manipulative with words here…

And the law of the US is that tiktok can't be owned by a Chinese company. Easy, they should just operate under that rule.

ByteDance is owned by international investors including Carlyle Group, General Atlantic and Susquehanna, 3/5 of the board are Americans, and the company - TikTok - isn't operated in the US by a Chinese company, the servers are owned by Oracle.

Without the deal with Oracle they would have to form an American company for their American operations like every international company has done since the 80s.

To use an example from back then, Sony Computer Entertainment started out in Tokyo but expanded to the US. They had to form an American company - Sony Computer Entertainment America. Imagine not doing it this way, every payment in a foreign currency, handling lawsuits, employees, etc.

Speaking of employees, given many of them are equity shareholders, if you ban ownership based on nationality, what does that mean for companies with employees all over the world? Simplified example: Remote culture, no office, the 2 co-founders are in China and NY respectively, they own equal shares of the company, it's registered in China and incorporated in the US, there are employees in both places, following all laws of each. Is that a "Chinese company"?

Under this law, would the Chinese founder have to sell his share to the American founder in order to continue operating in NY?

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#92

Post by seanmcdirmid »

nearbuy wrote: post #90
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all of them? Microsoft had to divest its Chinese cloud to a Shanghai water utility company (they do sewers, water reclamation and Microsoft Azure cloud!). All the auto companies that setup in China had to do it as 49/51 JVs so Chinese companies could learn lots of "how to make auto" IP, well, Tesla is the first one that was allowed to come in whole.

> Microsoft had to divest its Chinese cloud to a Shanghai water utility company (they do sewers, water reclamation and Microsoft Azure cloud!) Odd mix. Do you have a source for this?

Well, I was working for Microsoft in China at the time. Here is an article about it at the time:

https://www.wired.com/2012/11/azure-goes-to-china/

It gets a bit confusing:

https://learn.microsoft.com/bs-latn-ba/azure/china/overview-...

So from what I heard at the time was that this was spinning out of a Shanghai water utility, but ownership gets mixed up a bit, Shanghai blue cloud is owned by Beijing based 21vianet, but I’m pretty sure there was some deal that involved the Shanghai municipal government. Ah here we go:

https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/21vianet-teams-wi...

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#94

Post by Reubend »

elfbargpt wrote: post #47

I'm surprised this passed (in the house at least) at this point in the election cycle. My suspicion is that ByteDance will in fact refuse to divest, and TikTok will get banned. Which I don't think the electorate will like very much

> My suspicion is that ByteDance will in fact refuse to divest, and TikTok will get banned.

ByteDance will sue, and the court case will likely go to the Supreme Court. If they left the USA without any legal contest, then they would be walking away from a huge amount of money.

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#95

Post by seanmcdirmid »

scotty79 wrote: post #22
wcunning wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also ban TikTok -- the Chinese version doesn't push the type of content TikTok does and doesn't mix international user data into the local version. Notably, several other countries with mediocre relationships with China also ban TikTok, for example India.

Maybe that type of content is illegal in China but not it the US?

China makes companies practice self censorship that is heavily based on current cChinese context, they won't tell you what content is illegal, you just better not have content that they deem illegal after the fact. This makes the Douyin model very different from Tiktok in the rest of the world, where illegal content is generally well defined (no nudity, sex...erm, but Douyin-no-no Winnie the pooh is OK).

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#96

Post by tharmas »

sgent wrote: post #83
C6JEsQeQa5fCjE wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm surprised this passed (in the house at least) at this point in the election cycle AIPAC is willing to sacrifice Biden's re-election chances for this short-term victory because the other candidate and his whole party is also going to be favourable for them, possibly even more so.

Not sure what AIPAC has to do with this. The tiktok bill was brought up as a separate measure, just voted on the same day.

Tiktok has videos of the effects of the war in Gaza. Young people watch these videos. Hence young people don't support Israel.

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#97

Post by scotty79 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #95
scotty79 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe that type of content is illegal in China but not it the US?

China makes companies practice self censorship that is heavily based on current cChinese context, they won't tell you what content is illegal, you just better not have content that they deem illegal after the fact. This makes the Douyin model very different from Tiktok in the rest of the world, where illegal content is generally well defined (no nudity, sex...erm, but Douyin-no-no Winnie the pooh is OK).

I think nudity content is not illegal in the West. It is avoided due to self-censorship, but it's the advertisers not the party that content providers fear.

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#98

Post by jokethrowaway »

api wrote: post #27
Mindless2112 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't even have to go that far. TikTok isn't available in China. (There's a Chinese app that's similar, but it isn't TikTok.)

They realize that engagement farming not-actually-social media is toxic brain rot.

I think it's the actual content.

Tiktok promotes mental illness, fake influencer tricks and stupid dances, Douyin promotes heroic 3 year olds cooking eggs with chopsticks on a giant wok for their sick brothers.

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#99

Post by seanmcdirmid »

scotty79 wrote: post #97
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China makes companies practice self censorship that is heavily based on current cChinese context, they won't tell you what content is illegal, you just better not have content that they deem illegal after the fact. This makes the Douyin model very different from Tiktok in the rest of the world, where illegal content is generally well defined (no nudity, sex...erm, but Douyin-no-no Winnie the pooh is OK).

I think nudity content is not illegal in the West. It is avoided due to self-censorship, but it's the advertisers not the party that content providers fear.

Nudity isn’t illegal in itself, but presenting nudity to minors, or worse, nudity of minors, is very very illegal. It isn’t self censoring Winnie the Pooh at that point, it is a clear rule that everyone has strategies to follow.
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