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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

#641

Post by vitorgrs »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #617
benced wrote: post #615

The WTO allows China to ban American social networks - which would otherwise be required to be allowed under its general principle of parity - because of its "public morals" exception ( https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/repertory_e/g4_... ). I personally don't think that exception should exist and I'm OK banning it solely on trade parity grounds.

China doesn't actually ban American social networks, not officially at least. They just don't work for some reason due to technical issues. China has never said "we ban Facebook and Google", you just wake up one day and they aren't working anymore.

And as far I know, if you go there with roaming ON with your phone, these social networks still work as well.

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

#642

Post by ladzoppelin »

onjectic wrote: post #467
mullingitover wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

If I were China this is the move. I’m suspect this is the intention of the bill from the US end as well.

lol, you really think the US has "free Speech" and this is some unprecedented action that will tear us apart?

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

#643

Post by throwawaymaths »

mandeepj wrote: post #565
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.

> The CEO has mentioned that they will simply pull out of the US market. Nope! He has said - TT is not going anywhere and vows to fight back legally. I was a bit shocked to find court put a hold on Trump’s ban of TT

He'll lose, since the US already has done this sort of thing.

Very big example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merck_%26_Co.

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

#644

Post by Aunche »

dluan wrote: post #619
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China doesn't actually ban American social networks, not officially at least. They just don't work for some reason due to technical issues. China has never said "we ban Facebook and Google", you just wake up one day and they aren't working anymore.

in practicality it doesnt matter because you can easily circumvent it with a VPN and nearly every single person does

Every Chinese person a Westerner may talk to has a VPN, but you can't compete with Chinese-owned social media without the other 90% of the population. Also, China has been very aggressive with VPN throttling and random outages, since the pandemic.

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

#645

Post by tptacek »

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.

Ownership restrictions on media companies generally are commonplace throughout the developed world.

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

#646

Post by ericmay »

hahajk wrote: post #594
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.

I didn't see the parent say there was no precedent. But anyways, I like to hope that the US is better than China. If US citizens are abused while in China, I would be appalled to see Chinese citizens abused in the US as retribution.

I think it would be a poor argument to liken the US banning Tik Tok to US (or other) citizens being abused in China with supposed retaliatory measures.

We don’t need to overly moralize this and somehow find the US on a pedestal with impossible to reach and shifting standards of behavior that are only applicable to the US when it’s convenient for various bad actors and despotic regimes (Putin, Hamas, CCP, Iran, North Korea).

America can be “better” than China without having to accept disadvantages. Likewise China could allow American social media companies to show that it is sincere in being interested in free and fair business. That doesn’t mean that there can’t be regulations but there’s simply no good argument to allow a Chinese social media company to operate in the US without reciprocal activity and nothing, nothing is lost by banning Tik Tok.

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

#647

Post by hi-v-rocknroll »

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's somewhat of a sinophobic/red scare dogwhistle and provincial protectionism insecurity gasp of declining global influence because it doesn't necessarily matter who owns it when day-to-day operations are led by the same people with the same interests and allegiances as before. Domestic politicians compete to look tough by seeming to attack convenient, distant foreign adversaries in symbolic ways.

US news media is able to spin headlines to maximize drama and outrage for the chumbox sales while misinforming readers. The reason is Americans, in aggregate, are under-educated compared to the rest of the world and so US mainstream news media doesn't have to seek excellence in evidence, integrity, accuracy, or precision.

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

#648

Post by kromem »

danieltanfh95 wrote: post #301
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…

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.

Theoretically they could sell "TikTok" to a US company who then licenses algorithm processing to the Chinese entity, no?

The US entity isn't beholden to the CCP and can decide to switch algorithm providers if they suddenly notice it's getting very propaganda-y, which provides a degree of independent oversight appeasing US concerns while not necessitating actually switching from the current systems.

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

#649

Post by ClumsyPilot »

0xB31B1B wrote: post #625

If the security angle is the real issue here, how would "divestment" improve security here at all? Tiktok engineering in the US is like 90% chinese H1B holders, they speak mandarin at work broadly across the company including in work meetings to the extent that many people say you can't work there without mandarin knowledge. The codebase is massive. I don't think it is possible for any amount of auditing or reviewing…

> create sufficient separation between US/tiktok and China/Bytedance

What are the code standards for American social media anyway? It’s not like Twitter has to meet any criteria on being free of Bias, they could suppress all bad news about China tomorrow and they wouldn’t be breaking any laws

I think it’s plain as day, this is simply a trade war, along with noises about China dumping cars and what not. All the stuff about security is just a cover story.

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

#650

Post by hi-v-rocknroll »

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.

Exactly. Leadership isn't following with tit-for-tat pettiness.

What would be US leadership would similar to what Ro Khanna is saying with data and personal information privacy standards like a nationwide US GDPR but with the teeth of something like HIPAA. Data brokers should be put out of business.

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