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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

#711

Post by jdjshdvegj »

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.

Within the past week China told Apple to take several social media apps off their App Store. It’s an official ban.

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

#713

Post by [deleted] »

robot_no_421 wrote: post #663
bdd8f1df777b wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US bans TikTok citing the same reasons China bans foreign social media, to avoid influence from foreign adversaries (people below says that China never official bans it, but China is inconsistent on that). It is only fair from a business perspective, but it also means that China's ideology wins over American in the end. The China's own social media is full of posts ridiculing people like me who have believed in t…

This is a really poor argument. You are equating banning one social media app with the GFW, which is obviously a huge hyperbole which has nothing to do with reality. The Great Firewall operates by checking transmission control protocol (TCP) packets for keywords or sensitive words. That is a violation of freedom of thought at the infrastructure level. As an American, you are still free to visit Chinese hosted website…

[deleted]

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

#715

Post by ajross »

rhaps0dy wrote: post #406
jtriangle wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%…

Is this going to impact Riot Games' games (League of Legends, Valorant), the wildly popular American video game company which is owned by Tencent?

As people are pointing out, no. This isn't a blanket law, it requires per-case executive action to enforce.

What the law absolutely does do is make "Chinese Ownership" an existential risk to companies with software products with large numbers of US users. Riot, Epic et. al. will be strongly incentivised to get their PRC shareholders to divest, and in the future other companies will be disincentivized from accepting that kind of investment.

And surely that's intentional.

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

#716

Post by faeriechangling »

hi-v-rocknroll wrote: post #647
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…

If this is Sinophobic, China must be pissing its pants terrified of the United States. It's a shame for the two of them I guess.

>The reason is Americans, in aggregate, are under-educated compared to the rest of the world

Objectively wrong. It's one of the most educated countries in the world, just mediocre compared to the rest of the OECD. They're more educated than China, no matter how well a small number of urban Chinese students do on international standardised tests.

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

#717

Post by janalsncm »

themgt wrote: post #135
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?

The story back in the ancient history of ~1989->2021 was our free open liberal system was so obviously superior that we were just going to wait around for China to realize their dumb mistake and join us at the end of history. Their great firewall would cripple their economy until then. The new story is we're copying China's tactics because China did it first and it works great. I mean, sure, go with that. But it does…

I don’t see this as reciprocation, I see it as a continuation of an existing policy that requires US media to be owned by Americans.

I do agree with you though that the capitalism=democracy experiment was a pretty obvious failure. You can have pretty free markets with or without democracy. The US emerged from the Cold Wa with ideological battle scars which prevent us from doing what’s best for the people because that might be communism. We are gradually finding out that concentrated corporate power is potentially an even greater threat.

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

#718

Post by symlinkk »

danielhep wrote: post #542

The way I see this is that democracy is extremely susceptible to tools that can change public opinion en masse. This of course applies to Western social media as much as TikTok, and I'd love to see regulation around all social media algorithms to ensure they're unbiased. I see this as a good start to counter a real threat, which is China's ability to influence US elections through TikTok.

You’re saying you don’t believe in freedom of speech.

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

#719

Post by whatasaas »

If you told me Facebook directed some AI chatbots here to discuss how great this is, I'd believe you. It seems the initial comments are positive, followed by a lot of arguing. It's usually pointless debates, like whether it's a ban. Yes, it is effectively a ban, similar to imposing a million-dollar tax per gun, or required to be age 85, which essentially bans something protected by an amendment. Then there are those calling for regulations and bans, which is strange. I can manage my app usage and my kids', but I can't control safety regulations for trains carrying toxic chemicals. And then there are the trade war advocates; at what point does this back-and-forth justify losing rights and access? I don't care if China becomes like North Korea. The bill also mentions website and service providers, meaning it could block access through websites too. We should have rights to privacy, encryption, and anonymous whistleblowing without government interference in every social media platform.

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

#720

Post by ken47 »

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.

It should be openly banned on the tit-for-tat principles. The paranoid speculation towards TikTok by some media is embarrassing. Instagram is in the same class of brain-melters. Let's stop the nonsense and call this what it is: protectionism.
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