I’m not comfortable with this. I understand that TikTok may represent a national security concern but it’s also a platform that younger generations use for protected speech. What’s the message that we’re sending to this group?
It seems especially sketchy that USG is forcing TikTok to store it's data with Oracle, a company with close ties to the CIA.
The timing of this move is also suspect. TikTok is the probably the #1 platform currently where users and creators are outspoken in opposition to U.S. foreign policy in Israel/Palestine. And now the government is forcing them to sell to new owners.
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
Why are the Hacker News comments on this so different than when this topic came up a few years ago? I feel like a few years ago this site was inundated with posts arguing largely "Anyone anywhere on earth should be able to do business in the U.S. and own U.S. subsidary companies, no exceptions." These seem largely absent today.
Opinions change as the situation in reality changes. Especially with the rising geopolitical tensions and the Ukraine war, not to mention now with Palestine, there's a fair portion of people who might have been more neutral that are now more hawkish.
My perspective is that if one truly cares about these ideals of freedom or such, would they be better fulfilled through keeping US Congress in line or a dominant CCP? If the CCP "wins", if they establish economic hegemony, just like we see with the censorship with Taiwan, whatever talk about defending freedoms right now against ourselves would be irrelevant at that point to an external adversary.
The West was greedy and saw a trillion dollar opportunity in welcoming China into the WTO in 2000 and gave China massive leeway (this is my opinion, and probably not a majority opinion). In my opinion (only speaking for Germany, as I follow mostly the politics here) nobody was very keen on asking questions and making demand when the Chinese were producing our shit for pennies on the dollar but buying our premium Merc…
I think the hopes were that China, once prospering in the global marketplace as a big player, would turn democratic. Over the last decade or two, we've come to realize the opposite has happened and the Western powers are adjusting. Of course Western companies have made a lot of money off China with cheap labor and massive marketplace, so it wasn't entirely an altruistic endeavour.
Western powers still make deals with authoritarian/non-democratic states. At this point is naive to think that the grievances with china are because “they are not democratic”.
I think the hopes were that China, once prospering in the global marketplace as a big player, would turn democratic. Over the last decade or two, we've come to realize the opposite has happened and the Western powers are adjusting. Of course Western companies have made a lot of money off China with cheap labor and massive marketplace, so it wasn't entirely an altruistic endeavour.
Western powers still make deals with authoritarian/non-democratic states. At this point is naive to think that the grievances with china are because “they are not democratic”.
>At this point is naive to think that the grievances with china are because “they are not democratic”.
No, the kid gloves are off because "they are not democratic." It's like being nice to the weird kid in school and the weird kid steals your lunch. No more being nice to the weird kid.
Also, consider if they were democratic, we might not be having the grievances we are currently having.
There would no problems at all if China continues to make shirts, shoes etc... But China started to make some high end stuff, such as Computers, and it did those so well that it could probably render US competitors irrelevant in the next a couple of decades. So all drama started.
No, it hasn't. Never seen anything relatively nice from a Chinese company, even when it's another one of their piles of manure with a different name like OnePlus.
Don't mistake the crap they make without any quality control then sell on Aliexpress by shady shops with the serious stuff their industry is perfectly capable of design and produce.
Now we could debate that millions of people buying the former contributed also to the latter, that is probably the case, but one sure fact is that they can make extremely advanced stuff at very convenient prices. Denying that because of one's nationalistic views won't change anything, unfortunately. We need to understand how to counter that in a positive way, that is, being better, not blocking their products.
Now, how do you develop an industry compared to the Chinese without transforming workers into underpaid drones with no civil liberties? That's likely the one question no western politician would like to hear, because they'd have no answer.
Why are the Hacker News comments on this so different than when this topic came up a few years ago? I feel like a few years ago this site was inundated with posts arguing largely "Anyone anywhere on earth should be able to do business in the U.S. and own U.S. subsidary companies, no exceptions." These seem largely absent today.
My opinion is still the same. If TikTok represents a threat, let the DOJ or FTC or whoever look into it and present a case to the courts and to the American public. Congress can get the voters on its side by writing a bill requiring stronger privacy measures on iOS/Android for example. But they won't because this would adversely impact Google and Facebook. A government ban is an authoritarian move that will inevitabl…
This isn't about privacy, this is about influence. CCP having direct chain of authority to control what Americans watch isn't a thing many want.
Why are the Hacker News comments on this so different than when this topic came up a few years ago? I feel like a few years ago this site was inundated with posts arguing largely "Anyone anywhere on earth should be able to do business in the U.S. and own U.S. subsidary companies, no exceptions." These seem largely absent today.
> These seem largely absent today. I still hold the same stance today, but I am just tired of arguing for it on HN. I noticed the same thing with the prevailing opinion on the issue changing on HN as well. However, it wasnt because there are better arguments for the ban now or some new relevant info got discovered that would affect it. Nope, it literally devolved into tit-for-tat arguments only, except this pretty mu…
Tit for tat is actually the known optimum solution for these game theoretic interactions.
> These seem largely absent today. I still hold the same stance today, but I am just tired of arguing for it on HN. I noticed the same thing with the prevailing opinion on the issue changing on HN as well. However, it wasnt because there are better arguments for the ban now or some new relevant info got discovered that would affect it. Nope, it literally devolved into tit-for-tat arguments only, except this pretty mu…
Tit for tat is actually the known optimum solution for these game theoretic interactions.
Tit for tat, but start out nice. Second part is very important, that way we have nice relationships with most of the world.
Why are the Hacker News comments on this so different than when this topic came up a few years ago? I feel like a few years ago this site was inundated with posts arguing largely "Anyone anywhere on earth should be able to do business in the U.S. and own U.S. subsidary companies, no exceptions." These seem largely absent today.
Who was president a few years ago? Who was banning it a few years ago?
Yeah, political opinions change so much just by having a different person doing them.