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TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

reuters.com

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Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#231

Post by golergka »

volgo wrote: post #140

The interesting thing is that these platforms come and go. One year it’s Vine, another year it’s Snap, now it’s TikTok. ByteDance bought musically for $1B in 2017 and turned it into Tok. 3 years later, it’s grown like crazy because it’s the latest fad and would be smart for them to cash out before the next new thing hits The whole divestment thing is probably a godsend for ByteDance, “forcing” them to liquidate their…

> 3 years later, it’s grown like crazy because it’s the latest fad and would be smart for them to cash out before the next new thing hits

That's exactly the thoughts I had in 2010 about Facebook's 10 billion valuation.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#232

Post by yangcheng »

jariel wrote: post #156
chvid wrote: post #112

Great policy. The EU needs to do the same with American big tech.

If the EU banned American big tech, they'd be set aback 20 years. Of course where would be a populist revolution. The difference between the EU and US on this matter, is that the EU has almost no substitutes, and they just don't - for whatever reason (there are many) have he will to do them. And of course there's no point - what FB is doing is no different from what a EU-based FB would do.

It's easy to create those apps when there is no external competition. China created every major internet service U.S has. EU can easily do the same. The point is FB pay tax to US, and a EU-based FB will pay tax to EU. EU actually want to copy GFW , see https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/6487...

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#233

Post by mmanfrin »

seebetter wrote: post #226
patrickaljord wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TikTok is not overhyped, it is here to stay, that's why they want to ban it. It's still growing like crazy and is way way more entertaining than any other social network by a long shot.

That's not the only reason they want to ban it. I'm amazed how people can just ignore John Locke and the primitives of Western Civilization, and ignore the threat of China, Saudi Arabia or the European Union -- all of whom deny natural rights and are antithetical to the US. Perhaps you're not American but the European Enlightenment is fundamental to modern society. It is the reason we are talking via handheld compute…

> or the European Union -- all of whom deny natural rights and are antithetical to the US

Excuse me, what?

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#234

Post by ajarmst »

Any fallout from this will be interesting. It can be easily argued that this is a case of the US President (not the US Government) using arbitrary emergency powers-—or the threat of their use—-to interfere with a business deal on behalf of a US company. Even ignoring suits from Facebooks’s competitors, effect on existing trade deals, and justification for foreign government interventions against US companies, one wonders if this is the start of a new trade war with China or just a warning to other social media companies (“nice market penetration you got there, shame if something were to happen to it“).

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#235

Post by aledalgrande »

volgo wrote: post #140

The interesting thing is that these platforms come and go. One year it’s Vine, another year it’s Snap, now it’s TikTok. ByteDance bought musically for $1B in 2017 and turned it into Tok. 3 years later, it’s grown like crazy because it’s the latest fad and would be smart for them to cash out before the next new thing hits The whole divestment thing is probably a godsend for ByteDance, “forcing” them to liquidate their…

The interesting thing is that US has bigger problems than TikTok right now.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#236

Post by bluk »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #166
sushshshsh wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese government didn't allow people in China to use US services (Google, Twitter, FB) and instead invested and marketed Chinese "clones" of these businesses (Tencent, Weibo, Baidu). Now that the Chinese owned TikTok is such a desirable app to use in the USA, the US government is blocking it in a similar fashion. To be honest it's all quite petty.

Where have you heard the US government is blocking the app? The gigantic security issues have been because the US government doesn't block apps like this. It can forbid government workers from using it on government-provided devices. This is sensible due to the capabilities for arbitrary code execution and the full permissions to the device the app requires of the user. Amazon has done that with their employees as we…

One other minor correction is that Amazon walked back on banning TikTok explicitly on their company devices.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/10/21320196/amazon-employees...

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#237

Post by ergocoder »

balola wrote: post #186
rgrs wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? When China doesnt open up its fire wall for US apps, why should US allow Chinese?

When billions of people believe something, it will become a "fact". Right now the public opinion in China (not mine) is that India and America are hypocritical bullies and abusing the "national security" excuse, while China "never banned" any foreign web services, those "simply refused to comply with Chinese laws regarding terrorism" and their "inaccessibility" totally justified. You see, here's the logical trap, Tik…

> Right now the public opinion in China (not mine) is that India and America are hypocritical bullies and abusing the "national security" excuse, while China "never banned" any foreign web services, those "simply refused to comply with Chinese laws regarding terrorism" and their "inaccessibility" totally justified.

This is definitely not a public opinion.

Public opinion in US is splited like it always is in every single matter.

I agree on the ban... or, at least, they should take a closer look regarding national security.

Sending a lot of citizen personal info to the opposite super power like China and Russia does seem concerning, don't you agree?

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#238

Post by moscovium »

dkersten wrote: post #205
patrickaljord wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TikTok is not overhyped, it is here to stay, that's why they want to ban it. It's still growing like crazy and is way way more entertaining than any other social network by a long shot.

> it is here to stay That's what I heard about plenty of social platforms like this. Everyone thought Vine was here to stay too. Everyone thought Myspace was here to stay. Snapchat was huge at one point and now I no longer know anybody who still uses it. Maybe it will be like Facebook, but there's a big chance it won't. It's huge now, but its still relatively niche appeal in the grand scheme of tings. These things ap…

> Everyone thought Vine was here to stay too.

Vine was loved and was shut down by a part time CEO.

> Snapchat was huge at one point and now I no longer know anybody who still uses it.

People under 25 still love and use snapchat.

Tiktok has 80 million MAUs, and is becoming the tool of cultural influence in the same way the Instagram did. I wouldn't underestimate the staying power of tiktok.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#239

Post by libraryatnight »

gpm wrote: post #188
eirini1 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in what sense is TikTok a "propaganda outlet"?

In the sense that they have been known to remove discussion that the CCP doesn't like [1], that they've created an environment where people feel the need to talk positively about China to get views [2], and in the sense that they are controlled by a company with close ties to the CCP (like practically every large company in China, harder to cite this but for an example see [3]). [1] https://www.engadget.com/2019-09-2…

You've hit my concern. Which was very little about spyware, and more about having a platform installed on devices all over the world that the CCP can just slip content into whenever it wants. Russia signed up for FB/Twitter/Reddit accounts and spread confusion and lies, imagine if they owned the platforms how much more targeted and impactful it could be.

TikTok seems to impress people with its algorithm serving them content they like, many HNers describe it as addicting even, that sounds like a tool for manipulation (which feels like all the internet is these days anyway, but I digress.)

I also don't like the idea of the US banning apps. But I also don't trust people to choose not to invest attention in TikTok. The world's a muddy, messed up, place.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#240

Post by hackstack »

reaperducer wrote: post #189
CPLX wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most successful global consumer-facing company in world history sells sugar water.

If you mean Coca Cola, you're wrong.

Can you support this with a counter example? This statement by itself is a bit of a tease!
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