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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

#581

Post by ZoomerCretin »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #401
EasyMark wrote: post #394

I wonder if they couldn't sell to a more "friendly" to China country somewhere in Europe and then backdoor info out of there? Away from NSA/SS/FBI scanning and FISA courts. That would seem to be the best of all worlds for ByteDance if they could make it hard to audit the potential company and if the court challenge fails to have the whole thing dismissed as unconstitutional.

> wonder if they couldn't sell to a more "friendly" to China country somewhere in Europe and then backdoor info out of there? It only counts if "the President determines, through an interagency process, would result in the relevant foreign adversary controlled application no longer being controlled by a foreign adversary" [1]. So presumably if a pair of Hungarian millionaires show up and place a bid, there would be a…

So this is almost certainly to ensure it lands in the hands of pro-Israeli censors.

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

#582

Post by alisonatwork »

THENATHE wrote: post #150
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 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?

ByteDance did a ton of stuff in China before getting into short videos, which was a hype cycle with a whole bunch of players until eventually they consolidated to one or two.

The amusing thing looking at this from China perspective is that ByteDance has been hit by the government over and over again for appealing to the mainstream.

The first big success they had was a social media platform centered around memes/jokes, and because the CCP doesn't have a sense of humor they crushed this platform when it started getting too popular.

Their second big success was a news aggregator that focused on surfacing news people actually wanted to read instead of the news the CCP wanted people to read. Which is to say mostly lowbrow gossip and sensationalist storytelling instead of long and tedious treatises about how great the party is. The Xi administration crushed that too, mandating changes in the platform that made it just as sanitized as all the other Chinese "news" outlets.

TikTok getting popular overseas seems like the result of a very well-timed purchase of musical.ly. The small number of western Gen Z youth I'm in contact with say they came to TikTok through musical.ly. Either way, we all see how successful that has been. Once again, ByteDance figured out a product that gave the "low end population" exactly what they wanted, and once again the government is punishing them for it.

At this point you wonder if these guys should just throw their hands in the air and pivot into oil or pharmaceuticals or some other addiction industry that's totally in the government's pocket. I guess the suspicion of some in the US government is that that's already happened and that's why this fun app that everyone loves is actually a tool of the CCP.

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

#583

Post by tamimio »

phailhaus wrote: post #562
tamimio wrote: post #549

All of this just to limit the spread of Palestinians contents in the young generation, since the ADL has a strong “influence” on all other big social media except TikTok (there’s even videos of ADL’s CEO complaining about tiktok Palestinians contents and young generation not supporting Israel), AIPAC came to the rescue and asked its puppets in both red/blue parties to pass the bill, while they also make some cash out…

India banned TikTok in 2020, so this conversation has been going on way before the current conflict in Gaza. Not everything is a conspiracy related to the issues you care about.

What I listed above are facts, not a conspiracy, you are welcome to look them up.

> India banned TikTok

I don’t know much about India and I’m talking about the US, but I know India has a law to control the contents of social media and requires these companies to hire local employees that will be held as “hostages” if the content in question is not removed, something Elon mentioned few times too about twitter in India.

> before the current conflict in Gaza.

The war on Gaza has been going for more than 16years and the Palestinians issue for more than 70years. You can read more about the issue here (1) Additionally, when the senators invited TikTok CEO last year, several senators (and I remember Ted Cruz specifically) mentioned the anti-israel contents back then, which you can also look it up, it’s just you don’t pay attention or lack the ability to connect the dots.

(1) https://ifamericansknew.org

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

#584

Post by ZoomerCretin »

extr wrote: post #379
danieltanfh95 wrote: post #332

It is maddening to see people who usually are pretty serious and mature turn into zombies parroting whatever political propaganda the state decides to push out this year. Some key facts: 1. Tiktok isn’t allowed to sell because their AI models and algorithms are trained on Chinese citizenry data. These items have been marked as non-exports for some time now, and this is a well known fact by the people pushing for the…

Don't really see what any of this has to do with the core objection that via TikTok a foreign nation, a global power, has the ability to directly and completely opaquely manipulate american voter at an unprecendented level. Would be insanely easy to identify swing counties/demographics and slightly tweak their algorithm to influence votes. You can be sure some chinese data scientist has already run the numbers on thi…

Both major presidential candidates are very anti-China. What exactly would they gain from election interference?

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

#585

Post by ZoomerCretin »

whyenot wrote: post #459

US lawmakers are deeply concerned that TikTok might exploit some of the data they collect on their users, ...yet they turn a blind eye to the fact that GM not only collected driving data on their users, apparently in some cases without consent, but they sold it to others, including auto insurers, who used the information to increase the insurance rates of those who were spied on.

Poor drivers who are likely to cause accidents should pay higher rates. If you don't like it, you're more than welcome to drive a 10 year old clunker.

There is no difference between what GM did and what any social media company does. At least with GM selling driving data, there is significant public benefit to making bad driver pay for their poor driving instead of the rest of us having to pay for it.

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

#586

Post by sillypuddy »

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?

If the ban was based on the context of the speech it would violate the constitution, but ownership of corporations is fair game to regulate. It's not uncommon for countries to have foreign ownership restrictions on other industries like banking, utilities, railroads, etc.

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

#587

Post by freeopinion »

This, to me, is one of those defining actions that will stand forever as a sign post for what America is at the moment of the event. As such, it is incredibly discouraging to me.

I don't write this in defense of TikTok or China. I'm just sad for the United States.

I imagine a scene where a wagon train of poor pilgrims is surrounded on all sides and all the poor children are crouching behind anything they can find. As the camera angle widens out you see a U.S. Cavalry officer order a rescue team to single out attackers and pull them out of their perches. They go around inspecting attackers one at a time, checking their footwear. Anybody in mocassins is pulled off the line and sent packing. Anybody wearing boots is left in place and encouraged to keep shooting. Especially if they are wearing a cavalry uniform. Just before the scene ends you see somebody in mocassins run back to their horse and pull out a pair of boots, hurrying to get back into the action.

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

#588

Post by ddp26 »

josu wrote: post #447
ddp26 wrote: post #425

I looked into this, and here's what I think will happen [copied from another thread where I posted this]: - ByteDance will challenge the ruling in court (>95%), but they will lose (80%) - They then will succeed in selling TikTok US to a US company, despite what ByteDance execs and China are saying (75%) - The sale will be for $30-50B (CI 50%), it won't include important ByteDance IP that will have to be recreated by…

>The sale will be for $30-50B (CI 50%), it won't include important ByteDance IP that will have to be recreated by a US-based company, likely Snap or X. Why replicate it? Can't ByteDance license the IP to the US company?

Maybe. Steve Mnuchin said he wants to partner with an AI company to replicate it. The CCP might prevent ByteDance from licensing it?

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

#589

Post by cscurmudgeon »

madeofpalk wrote: post #564
intellix wrote: post #64

if you've been to China, you'll know that they ban all western products: facebook, google, etc etc and replaced them with their own variants. If they want to run around free-range without any restriction with their own products then they should respond by loosening restrictions in their own country. This is an absolute no-brainer. If you want Tik Tok in the US, lower your middle finger. Am I missing something?

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

Tolerance shouldn’t tolerate intolerance.

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

#590

Post by ZoomerCretin »

abvdasker wrote: post #371
danieltanfh95 wrote: post #332

It is maddening to see people who usually are pretty serious and mature turn into zombies parroting whatever political propaganda the state decides to push out this year. Some key facts: 1. Tiktok isn’t allowed to sell because their AI models and algorithms are trained on Chinese citizenry data. These items have been marked as non-exports for some time now, and this is a well known fact by the people pushing for the…

It's genuinely remarkable to witness the Democratic Party spurn their base of young people for no discernible gain. Who exactly is the constituency for this legislation other than China hawks?

Israel, who is mad that there exists a major social media app which does not censor pro-Palestinian content.
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