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U.S. investors, Trump close in on TikTok deal with China

wsj.com

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Re: U.S. investors, Trump close in on TikTok deal with China

#531

Post by bitmasher9 »

ivape wrote: post #525
mullingitover wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like the microwaved corpse of the original 2020 deal. Bytedance keeps all the IP, sells Oracle the nearly worthless right to operate the US infra. They can't even call their franken-app Tiktok. The US user data already sits in the US but they'll expect everyone to forget about that so they can brag about this token win. They'll probably get what they really want, which is an admin console for the algorithm…

This shit is crazy that it’s really happening. The double whammy is that the youth is not prepared intellectually and will continue contributing their data to this platform.

Some will. There’s a good chance any modification to the algorithm will make it less sticky and the youth will migrate to another app.

It’s part of a larger trend of the buying platforms for obvious propaganda. It seems to be a successful strategy.

Re: U.S. investors, Trump close in on TikTok deal with China

#532

Post by Spooky23 »

gpt5 wrote: post #205

Key details: 1. New, US-specific TikTok App, separate from the main TikTok app in content and users. 2. 80% owned by a U.S. investor consortium led by Oracle, Silver Lake, and Andreessen Horowitz, 20% by Bytedance. 3. Board will include one U.S. government–appointed director. 4. All U.S. user data would sit on Oracle infrastructure in the US. 5. Algorithm will be initially licensed, but has to be reengineered to comp…

Cool. Chuck Schumer will clutch something and say “this may be a sign of something not good.”

Re: U.S. investors, Trump close in on TikTok deal with China

#533

Post by aurareturn »

morkalork wrote: post #60
aurareturn wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory is that it highly depends on the few random people who view New posts and if they upvote/comment. The exact same post with the exact same title can either be completely ignored with no comments and no upvotes or be the top post with 500 upvotes and 300 comments.

Exactly. Depending on the traffic in newest, stories can slip in disappear in the flow

I think just like how new comments can go to the top of a post, I think HN should change the algorithm such that new posts can sometimes go to the top of HN as a way to quickly test if the post is worthy or not.

A lot of high quality posts have 0 upvote and 0 comment.

Re: U.S. investors, Trump close in on TikTok deal with China

#534

Post by jakelazaroff »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #523
yibg wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea agree. The US used to be good at making the world believe they're all about freedom and rights etc. Now they don't seem to even bother trying anymore.

I read a lot of anti-American comments like this one, mostly on American websites like Hacker News and Youtube. I'd say the anti-American comments outnumber the pro-American ones something like 10 to 1. The US may not be preaching about freedom and rights. But it seems to be practicing it, at least in the narrow sense that anti-American content isn't being censored or suppressed.

Have you not been paying attention to what's been happening in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination? The government been foaming at the mouth and clamping down on everyone who dares say anything other than obsequious praise about him. ABC just tonight cancelled Jimmy Kimmel at the behest of the head of the FCC!

And I mean, it's not like this is new. The past two years have seen intense crackdowns on pro-Palestinian speech. Look at what happened to Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk.

Re: U.S. investors, Trump close in on TikTok deal with China

#535

Post by palmotea »

Zigurd wrote: post #292
palmotea wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eh, quality of life has gone to the moon in China in living memory. Not nearly as much a positive delta here in the US. The Chinese rural population still isn't eligible for local equivalent of social security in their old age (that's only for city folks), and IIRC there was a huge unwillingness to provide financial assistance to individuals during COVID.

A few hundred million of that rural population have become city folk.

> A few hundred million of that rural population have become city folk.

Not legally, IIRC China has an internal passport system, and workers who migrate to the city from the countryside typically remain must registered in the countryside (and are therefore denied access to city benefits).

Re: U.S. investors, Trump close in on TikTok deal with China

#536

Post by palmotea »

jerojero wrote: post #184
palmotea wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oracle owning TikTok is one of the most unintentionally funny things to ever happen. I'm hopeful. With any luck they'll ruin TikTok and it will die, a satisfying result.

why do people hate TikTok as a product so much? if TikTok dies then one of the alternatives: instagram reels or youtube shorts would take its place. the brainrot will be the same. I guess people think tiktok's algorithm is particularly pervasive over Google's or Meta's? But I don't see why.

> why do people hate TikTok as a product so much?

That's like asking why to people hate heroin a product so much. After all, most its users can't get enough! Must be good, eh?

Re: U.S. investors, Trump close in on TikTok deal with China

#537

Post by tomhow »

hereme888 wrote: post #186
volleyball wrote: post #41

So Larry Ellison just took over Paramount group which is now looking to bid for Warner Brothers and CNN. And now Ellison is going to take over TikTok. Paramount(being run by Larry Ellison's son) is looking to install the pro-israel-propagandist who has variously masqueraded as a liberal, a conservative and anti-woke free-speech champion, Bari Weiss[1] as CBS's editor-in-chief or co-president[2]. It also bears mention…

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Re: U.S. investors, Trump close in on TikTok deal with China

#538

Post by palmotea »

jfengel wrote: post #291
gpt5 wrote: post #205

Key details: 1. New, US-specific TikTok App, separate from the main TikTok app in content and users. 2. 80% owned by a U.S. investor consortium led by Oracle, Silver Lake, and Andreessen Horowitz, 20% by Bytedance. 3. Board will include one U.S. government–appointed director. 4. All U.S. user data would sit on Oracle infrastructure in the US. 5. Algorithm will be initially licensed, but has to be reengineered to comp…

Board will include one U.S. government–appointed director. Why? The nominal reason for all this is that we didn't want a Chinese company controlling an important social media outlet. I don't love that reasoning, but fine, whatever. So they're forcibly selling it to an American company. Which should solve the problem, right? Are we going to be putting government-appointed directors on all social media companies? Or ju…

> Are we going to be putting government-appointed directors on all social media companies?

That wouldn't be a bad thing. How good has unchecked Zuckerberg been for us, really?

> Or just the one that used-to-be-Chinese?

Or the one where there's some level to force on them, like here. If Zuckerberg starts needing government cash to keep Facebook going, I'd expect a similar deal.

Re: U.S. investors, Trump close in on TikTok deal with China

#539

Post by yibg »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #529
yibg wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't speak for others. My "anti-American" comment is due to the difference between what's preached and what's practiced. "Leader of the free world", "greatest country on earth" etc. I also wouldn't characterize my comment as anti-American so much as disappointed in America. There is of course more freedom in the US than in say China. But I'm also not holding up China as a beacon of freedom. The US on the other hand,…

>"Leader of the free world", "greatest country on earth" etc. I don't see Americans referring to their country that way anymore. I think you're arguing with an interlocutor who peaked in the Reagan era and has been on a downtrend ever since. Personally speaking, as an American, I don't want to lead the free world anymore. I don't want to be the "greatest country in the world" either. I'd rather the US just stick to s…

Leaving aside impact to the rest of the world, America being the "leader of the free world" has benefited it immensely. Majority of the global systems were built by Americans. Everything from military power projection to global reserve currency status to pop culture has not only given the US clout and power but also a lot of wealth.

Sticking to solve their own problems is how the Chinese declined into being the "sick man of Asia" hundreds of years ago.

Re: U.S. investors, Trump close in on TikTok deal with China

#540

Post by oblio »

glenstein wrote: post #485
jfengel wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Board will include one U.S. government–appointed director. Why? The nominal reason for all this is that we didn't want a Chinese company controlling an important social media outlet. I don't love that reasoning, but fine, whatever. So they're forcibly selling it to an American company. Which should solve the problem, right? Are we going to be putting government-appointed directors on all social media companies? Or ju…

>Is there something so overwhelmingly devious about the TikTok format in particular that the government has to supervise it? Well, yes, for starters. I think there's a pretty strong consensus from people on all sides that there's no more addictive algorithm than the TikTok one. It's the beneficiary of powerful network effects, it created those effects for itself with a superior app, but nevertheless it is a distingui…

> And you used to not have to say this, but a culturally dominant app being leveraged by an authoritarian state goes in the not good colunm.

At the rate the US is going this will be interesting for Europe and Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc, in probably the near future.

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