Honestly, the loon who lit himself on fire the other day might have been onto something. The bill that the President just signed seems like an attempt to alienate at least 50% of voters under 30. It almost feels like the current administration is trying to give people a reason to vote for the other guy.
Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest
361–370 of 1001 posts
Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest
#362Earlier 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…
I'm not seeing any issue with those voices finding a space elsewhere say on X/Twitter - believe me, I see enough of the slop over from it. The level of direct control the US Government has over US Social Media platforms pales in comparison to the control China has over TikTok.
Saying the word "cis" is enough to catch a ban on Twitter. Somehow in America, uncensored only means that far right white supremacists can say n**er freely.
Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest
#363If 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.
Then you’d be wasting a huge amount of money for no good reason. If TikTok gets banned Meta will probably vacuum up the audience with Instagram Reels. It would be posturing with no real purpose.
If Reels was any good wouldn't it have become a meaningful force in its own right by now? As it stands from my point of view it is mostly stolen recycled week old TikTok content. That TikTok "magic" is made on their platform because of what their algorithm rewards. Meta does not have that "magic".
Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest
#364The 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 law doesn't ban TikTok. Rather, it bans TikTok from having Chinese owners.
My prediction: China would absolutely throw away a few billion to enjoy the chaos that results from the country that preaches free speech painting itself into a corner and banning it. Enacting a ban on the most popular app among Gen Z would cause a huge uproar.
It would be like taking away terrestrial radio from boomers. It's that popular.
Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest
#365I don't use TikTok, but I strongly disapprove of this. Feels like we've stooped to China's level when it comes to free speech? All this has done is validate them banning Google and Facebook.
What a petty move. I understand the theoretical security concerns, but this feels like total overkill.
Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest
#366I don't use TikTok, but I strongly disapprove of this. Feels like we've stooped to China's level when it comes to free speech? All this has done is validate them banning Google and Facebook. What a petty move. I understand the theoretical security concerns, but this feels like total overkill.
They already banned Facebook and Google. We should reciprocate everything they do to us.
Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest
#367The 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 law doesn't ban TikTok. Rather, it bans TikTok from having Chinese owners. My prediction: China would absolutely throw away a few billion to enjoy the chaos that results from the country that preaches free speech painting itself into a corner and banning it. Enacting a ban on the most popular app among Gen Z would cause a huge uproar. It would be like taking away terrestrial radio from boomers. It's that popula…
Yeah. This is really a generational thing. That's why the ban was bipartisan... nobody in Congress is of the age that uses TikTok. However, the youth in this country are going to be enraged, far more than I think a lot of people expect. I don't use TikTok but the people I know who use it are extremely passionate about the app.
Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest
#368The 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%…
> So to put it bluntly, if the CCP bought 20% of reddit, reddit can't be distributed, maintained or updated by any US company.
Provided they have more than 1 million MAU (which they do, obviously). The president would also have to affirmatively ban it and report to Congress about the specific threat that company poses, and what assets need to be divested. TikTok is the only company written into the bill by Congress that doesn't require affirmative action by the president, or the report.
> the law very likely could be weaponized by the CCP to get things banned that they don't even own yet
Only if the president believes they should be banned.
Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest
#369[flagged]
So are the pro-american bots. You can literally watch the vote counts go up and down in near realtime and as far as I know they don't follow the Reddit style of obfuscation. There aren't many topics where I tend to see this on HN so its fascinating to watch.
Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest
#370Earlier 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…
>I haven't seen anything from TikTok that wouldn't fly on discord or reddit, for example.
You only need to compare TikTok to it's US rival Reels. A majority of the pro-palestine is suppressed on Reels. The loss of TikTok is the destruction of Americans to access content that isn't filtered through US hegemony.
[1] https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/...