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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

#751

Post by djur »

willio58 wrote: post #7

I can almost hear the Meta execs cackling in their bathtubs of cash. Seriously though, this decision just feels unsubstantiated and rushed. There are so many claims of manipulation and our data being used by China via TikTok but I can't help but feel a company like Instagram does the exact same thing but it's not a Chinese company so we are just... okay with that?

This has been in the works for at least 2 years, so "rushed" doesn't seem right.

The difference is that Mark Zuckerberg will put on a suit and go and get yelled at by members of Congress for a few hours.

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

#752

Post by seanmcdirmid »

throwawayq3423 wrote: post #689
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.

I thought you were going with "China doesn't ban American companies, American companies simply refuse to obey Chinese law". The laws in question are becoming a subsidiary of the state, of course.

The laws don’t exist. China has a constitution that guarantees freedom of speech, assembly, press, religion, etc…so actually writing a law that censors the internet isn’t very feasible. The official class just controls the courts (no judicial review allowed) so can do whatever.

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

#753

Post by spaceman_2020 »

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.

To be fair, China never claimed to be the bastion of free market capitalism.

America did. Still does. And now it’s banning and regulating superior products off the market.

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

#754

Post by djur »

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?

The law doesn't technically prohibit this, but the President has to sign off before the app becomes un-banned, and the law does specifically call out "any cooperation with respect to the operation of a content recommendation algorithm" as the type of thing that the executive might take into account. So just renting a black-box recommender from ByteDance would likely be a no go.

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

#755

Post by raincole »

deviantbit wrote: post #735
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.

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 everyt…

You didn't read the parent comment right then. Let me paraphrase it:

Yes, you can't use these services in China. But unlike the US's TikTok ban, China will not officially tell everyone what they banned. It just suddenly stops working.

They banned, allowed and banned again GitHub. Without any explanation. Your parent comment is correct.

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

#756

Post by trimethylpurine »

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 freedoms apply to US citizens. It works just fine.

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

#757

Post by djur »

andy99 wrote: post #602

I'm very late to this - how do you ban something on the internet? Can't they just keep operating and people will learn how to sideload the app or use a VPN to get it or whatever they need to do? Presumably it will mean some friction but couldn't the company just call the bluff?

The value proposition for TikTok for the vast majority of existing users is that it provides a zero-friction source of Content. Maybe 5% of them have even heard the term "sideload" and most of those wouldn't bother. A VPN will not matter because TikTok is not being blocked at the network level.

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

#758

Post by seanmcdirmid »

deviantbit wrote: post #735
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.

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 everyt…

I lived in China for 9 years through most of the banning. I remember the day Twitter stopped working because the US embassy in Beijing was posting embarrassing AQI readings on their Twitter account (“crazy bad” for a reading that was so high they didn’t expect the label to ever be used). I was there when Facebook became blocked and when google became blocked. YouTube, however, was already blocked in 2007 when I started working there.

None of those services need apps, I never used apps to access them.

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

#759

Post by LeafItAlone »

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.

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

How about “make economic power and one of our main competitors” does it? Just because China is a totalitarian government didn’t mean they can do the “right” thing.

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

#760

Post by djur »

BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #539

Look, I think this is potentially oversimplifying things, but imo this is just a reaction to the youth seeing pro-Palestinian positions on social media. The fervor around banning tik tok was reignited around the time that it started being more common to see such things on the app.

Congress has been working on this for 3+ years. This really started heating up after Shou Zi Chew's poorly received testimony to Congress in March 2023.
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