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U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#231

Post by yorwba »

adventured wrote: post #178
Merrill wrote: post #75

Musical.ly was started by entrepreneurs in Shanghai. Although it may have had US and Japanese investors, I don't think it was an American company. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical.ly >"It’s the first company to be headquartered in China, designed in China, but popular in the US," said Greylock investor Josh Elman. "Finally we’re seeing talented people who live in that ecosystem in that world and actually transce…

"TikTok also says China does not have jurisdiction over content of the app, which does not operate in China and is not influenced by any foreign government." If it's a Chinese company, why is TikTok saying that China has zero jurisdiction over the app? Besides that, the US can require that Bytedance peel off TikTok / Musical.ly. If Bytedance wants access to the US market with that app, it will have to play by US rule…

> If it's a Chinese company, why is TikTok saying that China has zero jurisdiction over the app?

ByteDance is trying very hard to run TikTok and Douyin (抖音, the Chinese version) as separate companies that happen to share the same code but not data. For one, this is because they're well aware that Western governments are suspicious of foreign companies having access to their citizens' data. Secondly, having Chinese and international users on a shared platform also makes it more difficult to maintain the narrative mandated by the Chinese government, as each cross-border interaction is a potential hole in the Great Firewall.

After the lack of data separation effectively killed Grindr, they can only hope that they've done enough and won't suffer the same fate.

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#232

Post by kccqzy »

root_axis wrote: post #229
sol_remmy2 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In America speech is censored by American private companies all the time. Racial or anti-semitic speech is often censored thanks for pressure from civil rights groups (i.e. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/facebook-bans-white-n... ) and from lawsuits (i.e. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47705904 ) Twitter has even begun censoring political speech from public figures: "Twitter will now hide — but not remove…

American private companies aren't forced to censor these things by the government, they are leveraging their own freedom to operate their business with respect to their own prerogatives.

And when these private companies become large enough they become the de-facto public forum.

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#233

Post by filoleg »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #202
tyri_kai_psomi wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The false equivalence is strong with this one. In no way shape or form is it even remotely similar.

I challenge you to find a person in Eastern Europe or Middle East who wouldn’t crack up reading your comment. The realpolitik the US, China and Russia use are very similar.

As a person who spent majority of his life in Russia, your comment is the one that makes me crack up, not the parent one. And I can safely say that the same would hold true for most of the people from those countries who were lucky enough to be exposed to all sides of coverage on the issue.

If you think the way western media covers things is biased and dishonest (which it sometimes is, I admit), you have no idea how bad it is over there. It is a completely different degree of delusion that cannot even be called "bending the truth", it is straight up aggressive lying and fear-mongering that can barely even be rivaled by Alex Jones and his InfoWars.

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#234

Post by cortesoft »

vkou wrote: post #204
cortesoft wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but not the US government.

Why should a Canadian, or European care about the difference between US government laws affecting the services and media they consume, versus US corporate policies doing the same? It's a distinction without a difference. They don't have any redress, or ability to influence either US corporations, or the US government, much like how Americans have no ability to influence the CPC.

Would a Canadian have more of an ability to influence a Canadian corporation? I guess I am just confused why it being a US corporation changes the equation verse a corporation from anywhere else.

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#235

Post by GetOutOfBed »

radcon wrote: post #227
nullc wrote: post #207

So HN changed the headline to remove TikTok which is a name I reconized and replaced it with "ByteDance" and "Musical.ly", which I've never heard of before. It was originally displayed on HN the same as it is in the article. From the article, I know that the new headline is more precise. But it's much less informative, I wouldn't have clicked the article under this name.

They also edited a headline for a #1 ranked story about Blizzard and the Hong Kong issue, removing Hong Kong from the headline entirely. HN sort of reminds me of China -- a dictatorship with zero transparency and a penchant for manipulation. Edit: Can't forget the spineless bootlickers who are hopelessly devoted to the state! You know you've struck a nerve when the best 'reply' they can offer is a silent downvote.

With China you know who is in charge. With Hackernews it is a bit more opaque.

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#236

Post by ng12 »

nullc wrote: post #207

So HN changed the headline to remove TikTok which is a name I reconized and replaced it with "ByteDance" and "Musical.ly", which I've never heard of before. It was originally displayed on HN the same as it is in the article. From the article, I know that the new headline is more precise. But it's much less informative, I wouldn't have clicked the article under this name.

I really wish HN wouldn't do this except for materially incorrect titles. I find myself trying to figure out if a link/discussion is the same one I've already read after the title has been editorialized.

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#237

Post by outuiorew »

rchaud wrote: post #57
paxys wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

16-24 yo (and even younger) American kids/youth being exposed to Chinese propoganda and censorship is most definitely a national security concern.

Nothing is stopping Americans from placing their own propaganda via paid ads or pro-US videos. As long as you're not stupid and push obvious points re: HK, that will immediately come to the attention of censors, you can go far.

TikTok, like Twitter, doesn’t allow political ads.

Besides, Hollywood movies should have enough propaganda in them already.

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#238

Post by Karunamon »

radcon wrote: post #227
nullc wrote: post #207

So HN changed the headline to remove TikTok which is a name I reconized and replaced it with "ByteDance" and "Musical.ly", which I've never heard of before. It was originally displayed on HN the same as it is in the article. From the article, I know that the new headline is more precise. But it's much less informative, I wouldn't have clicked the article under this name.

They also edited a headline for a #1 ranked story about Blizzard and the Hong Kong issue, removing Hong Kong from the headline entirely. HN sort of reminds me of China -- a dictatorship with zero transparency and a penchant for manipulation. Edit: Can't forget the spineless bootlickers who are hopelessly devoted to the state! You know you've struck a nerve when the best 'reply' they can offer is a silent downvote.

That's assuming an awful lot of unncessary bad faith. While the title guidelines are enforced here in an incredibly nonintuitive, nonobjective, nonconsistent way, that's no reason to imply malfeasance.

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#239

Post by zachguo »

yorwba wrote: post #224
adventured wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't matter at all. The US controls its domestic market - just as China controls their domestic market - and when it comes to going back and reviewing the TikTok / Musical.ly combination it can dictate terms across the app stores which are all US controlled. The US can say: we're going to ban your combined entity from all global app stores by forcing Google and Apple to comply with our position on that merged…

Yes, the US government has the power to block mergers. However, consider the hypothetical scenario where Musical.ly rejects TikTok's offer and competes them out of the US market, growing to the same size as TikTok is today. In that case, there would be no merger to block, but the national security implications would remain the same. What would the US government do then? Put them on a blacklist like Huawei?

It will be forced to sell to US entities, like Alstom and Samsung.

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#240

Post by outuiorew »

angott wrote: post #58
wruza wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iow, the presence of non-US cultures on a feed can harm US children?

If that non-US culture advocates that democracy is a threat to society, or that political re-education camps are not an issue, I would say that yes, we need to keep that out.

How exactly would you show such a complex topic in these 10 second music skits?
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