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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

#351

Post by hot_gril »

segasaturn wrote: post #331
efitz wrote: post #179

I see the feedback here is overwhelmingly negative. My biggest problem is that it’s too narrowly targeted. I have worked for several US businesses with global footprints and working with China (and some other countries) required whole or part ownership of the business by entities within that nation. So we partnered with businesses in China to set up and operate our infra, and had to manage everything through contract…

>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? By the looks of it, it seems like you want the US to be more like the CCP than the other way around. Imitating authoritarian governments harms America's global reputation for "freedom and democracy", if that reputation even still exists.

I view it like trade. They block our social media there, we block theirs here. EU did the same when we put tariffs on their steel or something.

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

#352

Post by jtriangle »

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…

It bans American companies from providing services that distribute, maintain or update any sufficiently popular apps where a company is headquartered in, or has more than a 20% ownership share of the company held, in a country that has been determined to be a foreign adversary.

It is much, much broader than a 'tiktok ban', it applies to any company that fits that criteria. So to put it bluntly, if the CCP bought 20% of reddit, reddit can't be distributed, maintained or updated by any US company. It's not just a ban, it simply won't exist on the internet for US users.

There are probably a bunch of companies that will be subject to this if it's upheld in court, and the law very likely could be weaponized by the CCP to get things banned that they don't even own yet. It'll also likely result in Chinese interests devesting down to >20% from US companies that they do not want banned, for much the same reasons.

Basically, this is the result of a bunch of tech-illiterate politicians who have no idea how any of this works, passing a law that looks good in news headlines without regard to the potential consequences. So business as usual on the hill.

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

#353

Post by meowtimemania »

rfoo wrote: post #337
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…

Or maybe TikTok decides to exit US in protest because they don't want to comply with the law. We've been seen this 15 years ago.

what happened 15 years ago?

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

#354

Post by winternett »

wmf wrote: post #311
danieltanfh95 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because it doesn’t say “ban” doesn’t mean its not one. It is well known that China lists algorithms and AI models trained on citizen data as a non-export so tiktok will never be able to sell to anyone other than a Chinese company unless they retrain the model etc. The CEO has mentioned that they will simply pull out of the US market.

So not only does TikTok have to be sold but they also have to remove the addiction algorithm? This deal just gets better and better!

I'm looking forward to more regulation of social media to be honest... All of the algorithms only end up working against the entertainment and educational factor of it all anyway. I'm thoroughly convinced that the social media mega-platforms have all moved out of algorithms to just pushing sponsored ads all day. Many of these ads repeat far too often every time I log in, and it's been making me want to ban all the apps anyway...

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

#355

Post by nebula8804 »

Buttons840 wrote: post #129
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 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…

Gen-Z is already a pretty rockstar generation having seen their older Millenial siblings grow up post 9/11 and then get totally screwed in the 08 crash only to then graduate themselves into a pandemic and a market that is valuing their debt laden college skills less by the day. They started off cynical and so far have been a lot more active than Millenials when they came of age. They might be the group that finally enacts meaningful change. It is too early to tell though but I remain optimistic.

Hopefully the scars from Gaza remain with them and they take a different stance with Israel. A TikTok ban killing off one of the most desired career paths of this generation (TikTok influencer) will have a lasting impact on them when they take the reigns.

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

#356

Post by JumpCrisscross »

nemothekid wrote: post #314
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…

> the end result will likely be that TikTok will be sold to US owners Why does everyone assume this is likely? The CCP has already said they would block a sale of TikTok. This happened a while ago - so the US saying TikTok must be sold is an effective ban. The misdirection of the wording of the ban is just dishonest.

> misdirection of the wording of the ban is just dishonest

Ban usually means you can't use it anymore. Take, for example, Google in mainland China. Banned without unusual circumvention. If TikTok refuses to sell to a non-Chinese owner, on the other hand, they get removed from app stores. Their website still works without any circumvention. Not banned. Even in the worst case.

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

#358

Post by eganist »

segasaturn wrote: post #331
efitz wrote: post #179

I see the feedback here is overwhelmingly negative. My biggest problem is that it’s too narrowly targeted. I have worked for several US businesses with global footprints and working with China (and some other countries) required whole or part ownership of the business by entities within that nation. So we partnered with businesses in China to set up and operate our infra, and had to manage everything through contract…

>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? By the looks of it, it seems like you want the US to be more like the CCP than the other way around. Imitating authoritarian governments harms America's global reputation for "freedom and democracy", if that reputation even still exists.

> By the looks of it, it seems like you want the US to be more like the CCP than the other way around. Imitating authoritarian governments harms America's global reputation for "freedom and democracy", if that reputation even still exists.

There's a wild difference between unfettered access to a company's assets, systems, networks, data, etc. vs policywork to simply require that companies be owned at the very least by a country that isn't either Russia, China, North Korea, or Iran.

Yes, I did read the bill. They did specifically single out ByteDance presumably to make sure there wasn't a way ByteDance could claim they weren't under Chinese influence. But they made a point of calling out Foreign Adversary Countries and pointed to https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/4872 in doing so.

Bill raw text: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/815/...

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

#359

Post by jtriangle »

hot_gril wrote: post #351
segasaturn wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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? By the looks of it, it seems like you want the US to be more like the CCP than the other way around. Imitating authoritarian governments harms America's global reputation for "freedom and democracy", if that reputation even still exists.

I view it like trade. They block our social media there, we block theirs here. EU did the same when we put tariffs on their steel or something.

And eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.
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