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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

#571

Post by codedokode »

georgeecollins wrote: post #548
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…

A US company would never be allowed to own any kind of social media company in China. You can't own a broadcast station in the US as a non-US citizen. Rupert Murdoch had to become a US citizen to buy Fox. I don't know if I agree with this but you can't say there is no precedent for it in the US or in China.

> You can't own a broadcast station in the US as a non-US citizen

Because freedom of speech doesn't work in practice?

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

#572

Post by MaxHoppersGhost »

luyu_wu wrote: post #462
MaxHoppersGhost wrote: post #251

[flagged]

Genuinely don't see them (this is the 20th post I'm on or so?) Is it further down? Also, just out of curiosity, is bots ironic or not. I don't really see any reason for a government to send literal bots to Hacker News. Pretty sure changing our opinions aren't worth that much.

Changing American opinions and perceptions is worth everything.

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

#573

Post by gpt5 »

codedokode wrote: post #571
georgeecollins wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A US company would never be allowed to own any kind of social media company in China. You can't own a broadcast station in the US as a non-US citizen. Rupert Murdoch had to become a US citizen to buy Fox. I don't know if I agree with this but you can't say there is no precedent for it in the US or in China.

> You can't own a broadcast station in the US as a non-US citizen Because freedom of speech doesn't work in practice?

Because freedom of speech is less protected (in practice) for foreign entities.

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

#574

Post by LordDragonfang »

temporarely wrote: post #322
Aloisius wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law doesn't ban them from having Chinese owners. It bans American companies from providing services that distribute, maintain or update any sufficiently popular apps substantially owned or controlled by foreign adversaries. TikTok could host APKs from CCP headquarters if they want to.

Is this just a distribution ban or will US actually block the app at net/protocol? I have never used the thingie but this ban business motivated me to download it the other day.

The most essential advice I can give to any new user of TikTok is to be EXTREMELY liberal with the "long press > not interested" feature. The default FYP ("For you page", the algorithmic feed) is initially tuned towards the average teen, with lots of garbage (pranks, half-dressed women, and assorted other trashy content). The algo is pretty good at picking up what keeps your attention, so be careful what you give your attention to.

If you tune it right, there's a lot of good content on there, though.

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

#575

Post by loteck »

uejfiweun wrote: post #569
madeofpalk wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I don’t think ‘totalitarian government does it, so should we’ is a super compelling reason.

Give me a break... what, you'd rather just let said totalitarian government pump their propaganda into the US? This is a great example of following your moral principles right off the cliff.

What makes you think the propaganda won't be pumped in if the US app is sold to a different company?

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

#576

Post by [deleted] »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #372

I hope this will show the severity of threats countries face from social media and that things are no longer business as usual. Every European country /and/or EU/ECC as a block, as well as every other nation or block, should follow this up as soon as permitted to have all social media apps operated by a foreign country be subject to the same legislation. TikTok will have to sel to the US, Netherlands, France, Germany…

[deleted]

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

#577

Post by didjxhxhsvc »

codedokode wrote: post #571
georgeecollins wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A US company would never be allowed to own any kind of social media company in China. You can't own a broadcast station in the US as a non-US citizen. Rupert Murdoch had to become a US citizen to buy Fox. I don't know if I agree with this but you can't say there is no precedent for it in the US or in China.

> You can't own a broadcast station in the US as a non-US citizen Because freedom of speech doesn't work in practice?

Maybe you can expand on what you’re trying to say because freedom of speech is protected afaik.

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

#579

Post by deciplex »

notresidenter wrote: post #443
tonymet wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is communist. That is not the bar we are holding ourselves to.

China is absolutely not communist, it's probably the most capitalist country nowadays !

China's national bourgeoisie has a seat at the table, but there are plenty of recent examples of them being brought to heel by the CPC. So, while they definitely have some capitalist productive relations I'd hardly call them capital-C Capitalist in the "ruled by capitalists" sense of the term.

Compare with the US where the capitalist class not only has a seat at the table: they are the table. And the chairs around the table, the room the table is in, the building the room is in, the property the building is on, the people who go in and out of the building, and the bullets that shoot anyone who tries to enter the building who isn't supposed to. The US is "more capitalist" in all the ways that count - what might be confusing you is that China has more sustainable and powerful relations of production which is why they're overtaking the US. But that doesn't make them capitalist.

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