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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

#291

Post by kube-system »

LordShredda wrote: post #59
returningfory2 wrote: post #38

The 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…

This is pretty much a ban. Why would the company convert their main product into a competitor? Majority of congress isn't stupid and knows what they want to happen.

We didn't call the baby-bells an AT&T ban.

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

#292

Post by blodstone »

grumple wrote: post #285
returningfory2 wrote: post #38

The 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…

China has signaled that they would block a sale.

Which makes the case of china interference seems more plausible now.

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

#293

Post by nebula8804 »

hhjinks wrote: post #286
nebula8804 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>China and other countries do far worse to us than just requiring local ownership of businesses; and if they feel that is in their national interest, why can’t we return the favor when we feel it’s in our interest? This is bigger than China for a lot of people. TikTok has given an alternative voice to groups typically marginalized on pro-Western platforms. We typically see hypocrisy from the West when it comes to Isr…

>TikTok has given an alternative voice to groups typically marginalized on pro-Western platforms This has to be substantiated, because it seems blatantly absurd on its face. Are you saying TikTok is an anti-western platform? That, in and of itself, justifies the divestment, considering the owner, no? Furthermore, what "pro-western" platforms are you talking about? I haven't seen anything from TikTok that wouldn't fly…

It allows you to see content typically hidden on other platforms. There should be freedom of choice. Its not like TikTok is the only game in town so if you are that triggered by the content that is on there then you should just log onto Meta platforms and leave the settings to restrict certain political posts that they quietly pushed to the "ON" setting.

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

#294

Post by JumpCrisscross »

cwyers wrote: post #238

I feel like if TikTok didn't want this to happen, they should have not had their CEO commit perjury in front of Congress. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2023/05/30/tikt...

Or literally having the Chinese embassy lobby on their behalf [1]. I guess we can laugh now that we're on the other side of this ham-fisted fiasco.

[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/17/china-lobbying-tikt...

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

#295

Post by kube-system »

PurpleRamen wrote: post #182
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?

To protect local competitors (and local control)?

> Do they even operate in china?

If they were going to, they won't now.

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

#296

Post by sethammons »

vyrotek wrote: post #267

@dang, Am I imagining things or did something unusual happen with the ranking of this submission? Shot up and then dropped despite votes and comments.

He has previously said that there is governing logic in place to put the breaks on rapidly progressing stories to act as a dampener on potential contentious posts

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

#297

Post by Spivak »

blodstone wrote: post #292
grumple wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has signaled that they would block a sale.

Which makes the case of china interference seems more plausible now.

No it doesn't, were the roles reversed with say Facebook the US wouldn't think twice before blocking the sale.

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

#298

Post by stale2002 »

LordShredda wrote: post #59
returningfory2 wrote: post #38

The 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…

This is pretty much a ban. Why would the company convert their main product into a competitor? Majority of congress isn't stupid and knows what they want to happen.

> Why would the company convert their main product into a competitor?

Thats easy to answer.

The reason why is because they'd get paid 10s of billions of billions of dollars for it, and otherwise their investment would massively lose a large amount of value otherwise.

Also, bytedance wouldn't be competing with tiktok anymore in those markets as they'd have sold it off.

So the choice is either to make a bunch of money, or to instead have their investment become worthless.

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

#299

Post by mrtksn »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #289
mrtksn wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is not straight up a ban but it is a ban. Maybe Musk will buy it for pennies ona dollar and will turn my TikTok feed to my Twitter feed, which is full of lunatics, conspiracy theories, racist, dog whistle racist, conman and Tesla boys. Maybe Zuck will buy it and will start showing hot girls, meals and tourist attractions like they do on Instagram? Since I'm not it the USA, maybe I will be able to use the…

> this is not straight up a ban but it is a ban It's really not. ByteDance isn't being sanctioned. TikTok.com will remain accessible to everyone in America. This is simply saying if it can't be sold to an American (EDIT: non-Chinese) buyer within a year, it gets removed from U.S. hosting and U.S. app stores. > you can't claim being "the free world" by imitating China Good thing we're not.

Right, will be interesting if France demands that Instagram be sold to LVHM, UK demands that Twitter be sold to Virgin, Spain demands that Shopify be sold to Inditex, Turkey demands that Snapchat be sold to Erdoğan’s son-in-law or else. Totally not banning though, simply be removed from the AppStore if fail To sell.

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

#300

Post by falleng0d »

NegativeLatency wrote: post #239
duxup wrote: post #113

I'm not opposed. Granted my basis would be that China effectively bans such social media apps from the outside ... I'm ok with doing the same for them.

Just because some other country suppresses what content their citizens see doesn't mean we should too. I think it's pretty clear that the establishment doesn't like the content on tiktok and that's a large reason for the ban.

This is not about suppressing content. ByteDance will be able to sell the company and even profit from it.
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