What does this mean for their US employees, their job security, and even office morale?
Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest
211–220 of 1001 posts
Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest
#212I think people are conflating way too many issues here with politics vs actual threats. China and Russia are not our allies. The CCP and Kremlin do not have our best interests in mind or even our most basic needs. They want to be global super powers and spread dictatorships. Democracy is a threat to absolute power. For years, the CCP and Kremlin authorities have been spreading disinformation to polarize politics in our country. TikTok, Twitter (X), Facebook, and Truth social have been abused and leveraged to manipulate many into thinking conspiracies are all real. This also includes media outlets and corporations that allow foreign Chinese (CCP) and oligarch investors. The difference with TikTok is that its owned by the CCP and they are very intent on getting everybody to dislike our government and splinter our democracy. While TikTok is mostly garbage, I think there are many that leverage the platform for income and have been quite successful off it. I still think it should be moderated in a way that doesn't turn citizens against each other and their own government. The only way to do this is to ban or sell the corporation. I'd also add disallowing foreign investors that are not Allies to the US.
What Does Free Speech Mean? https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-re...
Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest
#213The work "ban" is in scare quotes for a reason. The law doesn't ban TikTok. Rather, it bans TikTok from having Chinese owners. If the law stands, the end result will likely be that TikTok will be sold to US owners, rather than TikTok going away. It's surprising to me that this this pretty significant distinction has been glossed over both in media reporting and in general comments here on HN. To be clear, I'm not sup…
The reason it is kind of wild is because a company being forced to sell basically the only thing it has in order to stay relevant in the second most major region of the world is kind of big news, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they just took the ban and then only started working in Europe and China. Is bytedance even known for anything other than tiktok? What do they do other than provide the service for tiktok?
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Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest
#214Biden signs bill into law giving $60 billion to ukraine and $26 billion to israel. Isn't that what the bill actually does. The tiktok part is just legal distraction as it punts the tiktok issue to the next administration.
> Isn't that what the bill actually does
The bill actually does multiple things, and it's okay to talk about the components in isolation.
Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
So you're saying the USA is better and thus it never needs to be compared in any aspect related to 'freedom'? That's a nice way of never having to challenge your assumptions.
Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
If TikTok truly is a Chinese psyop, the most effective thing they could do is spend their remaining days sewing discontent with the government, refuse to sell, and let the whole thing burn down, thus riling up "the youths" and teaching them that their own government is a problem. They could also tell TikTok users to install a VPN and access the servers in China directly. I actually see this as a silver lining. I want…
> I actually see this as a silver lining. I want young people to realize the government effects them and can directly ruin things they enjoy. Would you also consider it a win if young people realize the dangers of social media apps owned by geopolitical competitors able to alter the mindset of the population?
"alter the mindset of the population" is such a vague boogeyman. Literally anyone with an internet connection has the capability to "alter the mindset of the population".
Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest
#217I wonder if Ellison and Elon could swing a deal for it.
Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest
#218I think people are conflating way too many issues here with politics vs actual threats. China and Russia are not our allies. The CCP and Kremlin do not have our best interests in mind or even our most basic needs. They want to be global super powers and spread dictatorships. Democracy is a threat to absolute power. For years, the CCP and Kremlin authorities have been spreading disinformation to polarize politics in our country. TikTok, Twitter (X), Facebook, and Truth social have been abused and leveraged to manipulate many into thinking conspiracies are all real. This also includes media outlets and corporations that allow foreign Chinese (CCP) and oligarch investors. The difference with TikTok is that its owned by the CCP and they are very intent on getting everybody to dislike our government and splinter our democracy. While TikTok is mostly garbage, I think there are many that leverage the platform for income and have been quite successful off it. I still think it should be moderated in a way that doesn't turn citizens against each other and their own government. The only way to do this is to ban or sell the corporation. I'd also add disallowing foreign investors that are not Allies to the US.
What Does Free Speech Mean? https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-re...
Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest
#219If 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.
Depends. If you model this as a reputation game, depending on who is the sane and who is the crazy sender, the PBE might might be a pooling equilibrium(i.e makes sense to build the reputation of being a predatory firm).
Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest
#220I 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?
I doubt instagram will replace it. Just like Youtube Shorts, they will fail to grab its audience. People who are using instagram/youtube are there because they like the format, and if they wanted tiktok, they 'd go to tiktok
YouTube Shorts is not really a replacement product for TikTok. They inherently have a different content creation and discovery model. Reels is much closer to TikTok.