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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

#181

Post by ImJamal »

C6JEsQeQa5fCjE wrote: post #77
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

> 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.

There was talk about banning / divesting from China well before the current flair up in Israel/Palestine. I don't think it has anything to do with AIPAC.

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

#182

Post by red-iron-pine »

staticman2 wrote: post #139

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.

> Why are the Hacker News comments on this so different than when this topic came up a few years ago?

* Tiktok competes with FAANGM (MMANGA?) type companies, which happen to be heavily represented here, and those people may have pointed thoughts

* apropos of FAANGMs, China recently banned or set strict rules for FAANGM companies in China. If they're not going to play nice + make dubious demands, why shouldn't the US behave similarly?

* GPT is a thing... and was then, too. all available bot power may be focused on elections / Trump trials / Israel / Ukraine / etc., when it wasn't before, and rapid changes to viewpoints may reflect that; the 50 Cent Party has bigger fights to pick, etc.

* sort of a corollary to the above, it's an election year, a big one in several ways, and that drives the (real, human) commenters out in droves

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

#183

Post by red-iron-pine »

Reki wrote: post #172
Clubber wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

So how do you explain our relashionship with countries like Saudi Arabia? Because forget the bully, thats like being friends with the school shooter.

that school shooter is rich af, and as much as everyone hates them, can lever that over the whole school.

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

#184

Post by shortsunblack »

fragmede wrote: post #132
nearbuy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a security concern compared to everything else we get from China, or are we just holding TikTok specifically to an unattainably high standard? We get so many products from China that could potentially be used for spying that we've never tried to ban due to security concerns. Who can say the ESP32 Wifi module doesn't have a hardware or software backdoor hidden in it? AFAIK, there has never been any evidence or r…

> Who can say the ESP32 Wifi module doesn't have a hardware or software backdoor hidden in it? That is why Huawei gear is not allowed in US telcos.

No. Huawei gear is not allowed in US telcos because American telco kit suppliers lobbied for such a ban.

American crusade against Huawei happened the same year Huawei broke the record for most phones sold, surpassing Apple.

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

#185

Post by guntars »

cynicalsecurity wrote: post #49
c-smile wrote: post #36

Politics aside, how that in principle is different from "hostile takeover" ( https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hostiletakeover.asp ) ?

Nice try, but politics can be just put aside. Today you ignore politics, tomorrow it's banging at your door with an automatic rifle. The matters of national security have always been more important than economic freedom, everywhere in the world. Chinese authoritarian government doesn't allow American companies to freely operate in China, but they want freedom for the Chinese companies in the West? That's a little hyp…

Which is also why national security (and think of the children) is used to justify whatever they feel like. Any mention of either turns off the critical thinking parts for a large fraction of the population.

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

#186

Post by Gormo »

kgdiem wrote: post #124

This is really difficult for me. I have an app that is available in every country except for China because it isn’t allowed to be published there. In that vein it seems fair and probably doesn’t go far enough — Chinese citizens are free to publish whatever they want in the US while we’re severely restricted on conducting trade in China. On the other hand, I’d love access to that market and would prefer trade negotiat…

The US isn't China, and our government is explicitly prohibited from attempting to censor or otherwise curate public media.

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

#187

Post by Gormo »

cynicalsecurity wrote: post #49
c-smile wrote: post #36

Politics aside, how that in principle is different from "hostile takeover" ( https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hostiletakeover.asp ) ?

Nice try, but politics can be just put aside. Today you ignore politics, tomorrow it's banging at your door with an automatic rifle. The matters of national security have always been more important than economic freedom, everywhere in the world. Chinese authoritarian government doesn't allow American companies to freely operate in China, but they want freedom for the Chinese companies in the West? That's a little hyp…

> Chinese authoritarian government doesn't allow American companies to freely operate in China, but they want freedom for the Chinese companies in the West? That's a little hypocritical, don't you think?

Not really, no. Our government operates under our constitution, not China's.

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

#188

Post by kjhcvkek77 »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #158
filoleg wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That's not quite right. Always defecting is game theoretically optimal.

However, under realistic conditions, where many agents are predisposed to cooperate but some do not that's where a tit for tat strategy can work incredibly well.

That people are predisposed to cooperate is an assumption you have to make, it cannot be derived from the rules of the game itself.

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

#189

Post by sdwr »

staticman2 wrote: post #139

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.

The werewolf is coming:

http://sdwr.ca/link/30

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

#190

Post by ksec »

staticman2 wrote: post #139

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.

The political spectrum of HN largely shifted from ~2013 to 2022, and since then gradually shifted back.

For most people it takes some time to burn off all the good faith for certain things before reality set in.

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