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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

#351

Post by coliveira »

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…

> given China's extreme behavior on restricting US Internet companies from their market, this is more than fair game.

Except that the US always complained about this behavior from the Chinese government, but now it wants to adopt it as normal. It looks like the Chinese way of doing things is winning...

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

#352

Post by wruza »

angott wrote: post #254
outuiorew wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It would take them very little to pivot from music skits to a wider variety of videos including news like Facebook does, for instance.

So we were discussing preventive measures? I thought it was immediate

>advocates that democracy is a threat to society, or that political re-education camps are not an issue

Now it is even more confusing.

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

#353

Post by ekc »

hos234 wrote: post #299
kick wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not an incentive at all; they're much more likely to just buy bunkers: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-... When Marvin Liao, a former Yahoo executive who is now a partner at 500 Startups, a venture-capital firm, considered his preparations, he decided that his caches of water and food were not enough. “What if someone comes and takes this?” he asked me. To protect his wife and daugh…

You are pointing at irrelevant people who don't belong to actual power structures. Ex-yahoo exec seriously? How can you even compare the Reddit CEO to Louis XIV. SV people have an overinflated sense of their importance in actual Power Hierarchies.

> Most people probably realize it. What we need is for the American CEOs, financial elite, members of government that have investments in China...

The person you were originally replying to's comment.

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

#354

Post by wnevets »

dang wrote: post #287
wnevets wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't a more accurate and informative title include "TikTok's owner Beijing ByteDance"

I tried, but couldn't figure out how to fit that, or even just "TikTok owner", into the 80 char limit without making the title less informative overall.

fair enough, I didn't think about the character limit

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

#355

Post by [deleted] »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #322
headsupftw wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So are you saying that currently American companies are NOT allowed to acquire Chinese companies or operate in China? There are a few instances where that's true (there are also a few instances where Chinese companies are not allowed to acquire U.S. companies or operate in the U.S.) but you said "I would support a wholesale ban on Chinese acquisitions of American companies". So again are you insinuating that at this…

Below are a few relevant figures. I see the claim repeated often that foreign companies can't operate in China. The sales figures of American companies paint a different picture. Company - Sales in China - Share in China Apple $44.8 billion 19.6% Intel $14.8 billion 23.6% Qualcomm $14.6 billion 65.4% Boeing $11.9 billion 12.8% Micron $10.4 billion 51.1% Broadcom $9.4 billion 53.7% The list goes on. S&P 500 firms had…

[deleted]

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

#356

Post by esoterica »

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.

One of the central principles of western democracy is that freedom of speech is a good thing and everyone should have the right to advocate for ideas even if they are bad. The opposite philosophy, which is fairly prevalent in many parts of the world, is that it is the role of the government and societal elites to control the flow of information so that bad ideas (as defined by the people in power, of course) don’t gain traction. It’s pretty hilarious that you are adopting the latter perspective and arguing for more government censorship to “defend democracy”. Are you sure you really understand democracy?

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

#357

Post by stickfigure »

baybal2 wrote: post #288
adventured wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 Bytedance wants access to the US market with that app, If Bytedance wants access to the US market with that app, it will simply relocate servers outside of USA. That's it.

Weird that this is being downvoted. What is the US government going to do, create a China-style great firewall? Even the (right-) wingnuts would be sharpening their pitchforks.

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

#358

Post by ryanmarsh »

justinzollars wrote: post #93
ryanmarsh wrote: post #79

The censorship argument against TikTok seems odd given that Trump supporters are a prominent voice on the platform (I'm a huge TikTok user). Wouldn't its Chinese masters want to silence support for him as well? Why haven't they? To be clear, I don't like the idea of foreign state controlled major social platforms opaque to US oversight. I'm commenting specifically on the argument that TikTok silences Hong Kong suppor…

> Trump supporters are a prominent voice on the platform Not necessarily, the algorithm shows you things you are interested in. I see China, Golden Retrievers and various songs I like. You see Trump because your eyeballs got locked on the screen. So you will see more Trump.

Their algo is weird. I’ve noticed if I watch something more than once my feed will be all about that thing.

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

#359

Post by RandomBacon »

bredren wrote: post #17

It was clear to me how threatened Facebook was by TikTok when I brought it up with an employee in June. They kept mentioning infinite scroll, and that everyone was supposed to be thinking about how to incorporate that into product. After zuck discussed TikTok directly recently, I’m not surprised google and fb lobbyists would press for this investigation. One question I have, is the real-time interests of millions of…

> is the real-time interests of millions of 16-24 yo Americans reported back to the Chinese government a national security concern?

Yes. They are kids today, but they might be a Senator, CEO, or President tomorrow.

Or they might grow up to be an average person, but with a sensitive job and a Chinese intelligence officer needs background on someone to flip them.

They don't need sensational information, just insight on how their target can be influenced.

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

#360

Post by angott »

esoterica wrote: post #356
angott wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One of the central principles of western democracy is that freedom of speech is a good thing and everyone should have the right to advocate for ideas even if they are bad. The opposite philosophy, which is fairly prevalent in many parts of the world, is that it is the role of the government and societal elites to control the flow of information so that bad ideas (as defined by the people in power, of course) don’t ga…

While your points make total sense and I agree with what you say, I personally believe that letting Chinese firms acquire control of US social media companies is a way greater threat to Western freedom of speech than what we would lose by blocking these acquisitions. Can you imagine a future in which we’ll be unable to post anti-government content online because most Internet properties are owned by Chinese companies which follow their local regulation? That would be the death of freedom of speech.

You do not necessarily need content censorship to keep CCP ideas out of the West. You can keep them out by means of economic policies. And I feel like Western countries are not doing a good enough job at this, whereas the PRC government has been extremely efficient at blocking foreign entities.

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