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Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

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Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#181

Post by cvoss »

slg wrote: post #75

>The "Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act" was approved as part of a larger appropriations bill that provides aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Regardless of your opinions on TikTok, this type of thing is incredibly frustrating and routine practice in American politics. Can't actually get support for the legislation you want? Just add it on to some other completely unrelated piec…

Well, they're not completely unrelated. The TikTok issue and the defense spending issue are both framed as national security concerns.

But secondly, I don't actually mind this aspect of the US political process. It's part of compromise and negotiations which are indispensable in an environment where not everyone is on the same page about what's important.

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#182

Post by PurpleRamen »

dwnoble wrote: post #22

Fun fact: according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma... , tiktok.com has been blocked in mainland China since 2020.

Funny list. I'm curious why something like swiggy.com, a food ordering and delivery platform is there. Do they even operate in china?

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#183

Post by slg »

encoderer wrote: post #83
slg wrote: post #75

>The "Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act" was approved as part of a larger appropriations bill that provides aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Regardless of your opinions on TikTok, this type of thing is incredibly frustrating and routine practice in American politics. Can't actually get support for the legislation you want? Just add it on to some other completely unrelated piec…

No, in the house they voted on this bill by itself and it passed overwhelmingly - 360 to 58

And that wasn't expected to happen in the Senate. Also that is the vote total for this bill, not the previous one that passed the House last month.

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#184

Post by brentm »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #160
spiderfarmer wrote: post #63

If I were Bytedance I would cut off the US. I certainly would not sell to a competitor. And I’d probably do a licensing deal for the content with a new entity without US based shareholders.

> If I were Bytedance I would cut off the US This is economically irrational to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. If Beijing truly does this, it somewhat cements the argument that TikTok was a CCP policy tool.

I think it is reasonable that Beijing will not allow any sort of sale just for posture purposes. They don't want to be see as forced by Washington to do something and they care less about private economic outcomes than we do here, at least on the surface.

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#185

Post by autoexec »

tracerbulletx wrote: post #31
willio58 wrote: post #7

I can almost hear the Meta execs cackling in their bathtubs of cash. Seriously though, this decision just feels unsubstantiated and rushed. There are so many claims of manipulation and our data being used by China via TikTok but I can't help but feel a company like Instagram does the exact same thing but it's not a Chinese company so we are just... okay with that?

Not letting foreign governments control media in your country is definitely a thing that governments do, and I imagine the intelligence agencies know more than we do about what involvement the CCP has with TikTok. Any public hearings or debate are just for show.

> Not letting foreign governments control media in your country is definitely a thing that governments do

Except that china never controlled media in the US, they just offered one option out of many. The fact that the option China offered was widely preferred over those made by US companies seems to be the problem. I'd rather have an open internet where we can get access to information from companies in other countries. We shouldn't be blocked from accessing Chinese Youtube anymore than we should be blocked from Chinese websites or the media at bbc.com or abc.net.au

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#186

Post by henry2023 »

trevoragilbert wrote: post #120
slg wrote: post #75

>The "Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act" was approved as part of a larger appropriations bill that provides aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Regardless of your opinions on TikTok, this type of thing is incredibly frustrating and routine practice in American politics. Can't actually get support for the legislation you want? Just add it on to some other completely unrelated piec…

Historically this is just how it works. You want law x passed and I'm ambivalent about it, I want law y passed and you're ambivalent about it. We both need each other to pass either of them, so we agree to pass both as part of a larger law. This isn't a new thing and has been happening since the 1800s. As early as the decision to make DC the capital we've traded goals through compromise. The process does get abused a…

“it’s ok because it has always been like this” is both a fallacy and a really bad argument.

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#187

Post by j0ba »

ok123456 wrote: post #60
dwnoble wrote: post #22

Fun fact: according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma... , tiktok.com has been blocked in mainland China since 2020.

Shouldn't the US prove it's better than China by its self-consistent actions with its espoused virtues of freedom of the press?

Please, US doesn't need to prove anything w.r.t freedom vs. China.

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#188

Post by JumpCrisscross »

deepfriedbits wrote: post #175

Why target TikTok only? They should ban any Chinese social media app or network, and that should remain in effect until China agrees to open its domestic audience to Instagram, Google, Facebook, X, etc.

> should ban any Chinese social media app or network

The law permits the President to similarly designate any entity that meets the law's thresholds for a covered company [1] controlled by a foreign adversary [2].

[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521... § 2(g)(2)

[2] Id. § 2(g)(1)

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#190

Post by btown »

yayr wrote: post #14

If I read the bill correctly, any entity with an at least 20% chinese ownership stake (by a person or company) falls under this law... What are the other 2nd and 3rd order effects of this?

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/815/... is the relevant text of the bill presented to the President. It's restricted to companies with 1M+ MAUs that allow users to create profiles and share content, and only then if the President makes a public notice and public report to Congress of that determination for a specific company.

Covered countries are here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840...

In theory, this could be used more broadly. Not a lawyer, but there's a reading that it would give a president the ability to unilaterally force divestiture in companies that have as little as a "choose your username for your online account" functionality. It's unlikely to affect B2B supply chains, though. Presidents have many existing tools at their disposal anyways if they want to disrupt those.

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