Live data from Hacker News

A TikTok ban would deal a blow to creators, businesses and the American economy

forbes.com

31–40 of 112 posts

Re: A TikTok ban would deal a blow to creators, businesses and the American economy

#31

Lol, they realize it's a sell-or-ban bill, right? Kind of a moot point when you realize that TikTok as we know it will continue, just without a connection to the CCP. Even if they do ban TikTok the company, the engineers/ML scientists who developed the recommender system powering TikTok still exist, so worst comes to worst someone makes a new company, hires the engineers, and off to the races

Beijing has a veto on the sale, and are likely to exercise it. From their point of view, allowing the US to force a Chinese company to sell itself off as soon as it achieves success would set a very bad precedent, and encourage a torrent of other blackmail efforts.

They'll be willing to let Bytedance take the L on this. Bytedance can console themselves that TikTok can still operate elsewhere on the world, just making less money.

Re: A TikTok ban would deal a blow to creators, businesses and the American economy

#32
post #3
post #2

Staying away from the politics, anybody who has a business model completely dependent upon a single service’s algorithm should question what kind of business they have.

Many successful businesses specialize in a niche. Mastering the algorithms of a single, popular platform can be a strategic advantage. Think of SEO experts or social media marketing firms.

This can be true at the same time the parent comment is. Advantages can be short-lived. I suppose the key is just not to take them for granted, or be surprised when they disappear.

Re: A TikTok ban would deal a blow to creators, businesses and the American economy

#33
post #18

This almost sounds like a paid article by TikTok. TikTok has also “weaponized” their users to spam senators and house reps [1] [1] https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/7/24093308/tiktok-congress-b... TikTok is a scummy business

Yes. How dare a company encourage people to contact their representatives, and ask them to represent them. So utterly discourteous to the congressmen and lobbyists.

Re: A TikTok ban would deal a blow to creators, businesses and the American economy

#35
post #18

This almost sounds like a paid article by TikTok. TikTok has also “weaponized” their users to spam senators and house reps [1] [1] https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/7/24093308/tiktok-congress-b... TikTok is a scummy business

I am old enough to remember US internet companies spamming users to support net neutrality, even those who aren't American and can't do anything about it. And net neutrality was heck of a lot less of an existential issue for them.

Re: A TikTok ban would deal a blow to creators, businesses and the American economy

#36

Lol, they realize it's a sell-or-ban bill, right? Kind of a moot point when you realize that TikTok as we know it will continue, just without a connection to the CCP. Even if they do ban TikTok the company, the engineers/ML scientists who developed the recommender system powering TikTok still exist, so worst comes to worst someone makes a new company, hires the engineers, and off to the races

What a wild take. You know they spent multiple billions of dollars on advertising to get their userbase? Which without, algorithms don't work. The best algo in the world means nothing if there are only a million people using the thing.

Re: A TikTok ban would deal a blow to creators, businesses and the American economy

#37
post #18

This almost sounds like a paid article by TikTok. TikTok has also “weaponized” their users to spam senators and house reps [1] [1] https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/7/24093308/tiktok-congress-b... TikTok is a scummy business

Who cares if it is a paid article because it's true.

Re: A TikTok ban would deal a blow to creators, businesses and the American economy

#39
Do they think TikTok's user base will disappear overnight? There are a thousand competitors out there, and one of them will fill the gap. There may be a temporary disruption, sure, but that is still better than having a key chunk of the American economy (and young American eyeballs) directly controlled by the CCP.

Re: A TikTok ban would deal a blow to creators, businesses and the American economy

#40

Lol, they realize it's a sell-or-ban bill, right? Kind of a moot point when you realize that TikTok as we know it will continue, just without a connection to the CCP. Even if they do ban TikTok the company, the engineers/ML scientists who developed the recommender system powering TikTok still exist, so worst comes to worst someone makes a new company, hires the engineers, and off to the races

Of course! That’s why Instagram/Meta/Reddit/Twitter/etc’s clones of TikTok’s UI/UX and reels has already killed TikTok usage. /s
Post reply on HN