Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

731–740 of 1001 posts

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

#731

Post by intrasight »

remarkEon wrote: post #323
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 US has already done this with a different company, without passing a law [1]. I don't know what else to say, other than the TikTok algorithm must be some secret sauce and actually is being manipulated by Beijing and that's why they're making such a big deal about a forced sale in this case. Otherwise, this would just be a giant liquidity event for these senior business executives and that would be that. Instead,…

What's different is that it's owned by a communist country. Otherwise, it would just be a giant liquidity event.

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

#732

Post by spiderice »

budududuroiu wrote: post #727
SuperHeavy256 wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you are missing something. Because you're seeing tiktok as a product, not as a community of millions of people. There are tens of thousands of small family-owned businesses that are only able to survive because of Tiktok. For a lot of the younger crowd, Tiktok is part of social culture. Cutting out a part of someone's life like that is not a decision that should be taken lightly at all. Peace.

There’s tens of thousands of families that depend on income from meth production or trading. Meth is part of the social culture for a significant subset of people.

Are you giving an example of a false equivalence? Because if so, you nailed it.

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

#733

Post by budududuroiu »

Golden_Wind123 wrote: post #730
budududuroiu wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not about you and your kids’ usage, it’s about the general population. Let’s not be naive, TikTok is the 2020s version of “Radio Free X”, a state-backed propaganda tool where anyone can run targeted ads with pinpoint geo accuracy, and cause division and social unrest. And unlike Facebook or YouTube, you can’t hold a company owned by a near-peer geopolitical adversary liable in the US.

At this point Tiktok is getting more regulatory action against it than Facebook has....and Facebook's lax moderation spread the wildfire of genocide in Myanmar.

As it should. This might sound insensitive, but we’re drifting back to an era of realpolitik in geopolitics. Facebook fanning the flames of a genocide in Myanmar has little effect on US citizens, TikTok does.

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

#734

Post by stubish »

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

It is not easy. One day your VPN stops working, and you need to ask your friends for a new recommendation, and maybe they have if theirs didn't start failing last month, and set that up and hopefully it keeps working for a while longer, maybe until your original routes around the issue. It is high friction, and was a constant pain trying to maintain a functioning satellite office behind the Great Firewall.

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

#735

Post by deviantbit »

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.

You haven't been there then. Google, YouTube, Twitter are all banned there. They are blocked completely. You cannot download the apps. In fact, the Google Play Store doesn't work there. They have cracked down on all VPN's now as well. We could only access western social media through a corporate network.

One side note, the United States Embassy has free Wi-Fi if you're close enough to it. You can get access to everything through it.

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

#736

Post by intrasight »

tristor wrote: post #196
themgt wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 That story worked out fine until US companies started sending all their IP over to China for manufacturing which resulted in 3 key outcomes that broke the initial strategy: 1. It funded and supported the buildout of China's man…

> US companies started sending all their IP over to China

That's how capitalism works. And it worked extremely well and to most everyone's benefit.

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

#737

Post by spiderice »

markus_zhang wrote: post #461

Since we are already being controversial, can we simply ban or regulate all short videos -- similar to the duration cap the Chinese government put up for gaming for people less than 18? My wife has been doom scrolling for hours every day. At least get something good in return. Even if Tiktok decides to leave US, there are a whole lot of other short video apps that can fill in the blank.

Maybe your wife should be a big girl and gain some self control instead of needing the government to take it away from everyone. Just because she has a problem doesn't mean actual adults need their freedom taken away.

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

#738

Post by dareal »

It's absurd that people are rationalizing this by saying "oh, China doesn't allow US companies to enter their market either," which has been this case in the past 50 years, or "backdoor used by CCP bad bad" without any evidence other than the company being Chinese. It shows how easy people will buy into whatever you feed them when everyone else is saying the same thing.

China is never a country with free market. The hypocrisy is glaring when one claiming as a free market while passing a law that outright rob a company in the day light, under the name of "national security". American people should be embarrassed by this. The government is using to the same tactics as a so-called authoritarian communist country, if not worse.

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

#739

Post by k12sosse »

alisonatwork wrote: post #582
THENATHE wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

CHINA already has the fentanyl market covered. They'd crush that too.

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

#740

Post by DaveExeter »

hot_gril wrote: post #395
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?

I was always in favor of banning it for this reason, but I'm concerned that Biden is now banning it for a different reason. The timing is interesting. Certain lobby groups have been urging Congress on this due to TikTok videos about the war in Gaza. Then again, Trump was also trying to ban it for his own reasons.

That's the real reason!

AIPAC wants Tiktok gone because young people are getting objective information rather than the propaganda of mainstream "responsible" media. [1]

Tiktok is not a good thing for Genocide Joe either! He has been an Israeli puppet for decades. Thanks to Tiktok, being an Israeli puppet has become a political liability because Israel has lost its control over American minds.

[1] https://twitter.com/SweatieAngle/status/1725897178038595901

Post reply on HN