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Microsoft to continue discussions on potential TikTok purchase in the US

blogs.microsoft.com

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Re: Microsoft to continue discussions on potential TikTok purchase in the US

#41

Post by justaguy88 »

marc__1 wrote: post #10
TMWNN wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More to the point, Microsoft is the company least involved in social media that has the largest warchest. No way Congress or the administration would condone any of the companies whose CEOs testified on Capitol Hill this week buying TikTok.

Technically Microsoft owned 1.6% shares before Facebook's IPO, and last information I could get it had sold 20% of the proceeds post-IPO in 2012, so they are somewhat involved in social media. [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-offloads-20-percent-...

At 1% (minus 20% of that too) it's basically meaningless

Re: Microsoft to continue discussions on potential TikTok purchase in the US

#42

Post by someperson »

mike00632 wrote: post #39
Shank wrote: post #2

> The discussions with ByteDance will build upon a notification made by Microsoft and ByteDance to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). For me, this was the first time I've actually had to do a lot of thinking about CFIUS and its implications. I definitely didn't understand the scale and impact of CFIUS before, but now I'm at least aware of the power. I'm undecided as to whether or not th…

Yes, the CFIUS needs to be reexamined because its use in this case seems objectively capricious. It boggles my mind that all of this can be done with no evidence presented of wrongdoing. I understand that some aspects of cyber-security in the government are classified but there should at least be an effort to explain precisely what types of data TikTok is suspected of collecting. Instead we have Mike Pompeo giving gl…

I think the reasoning of the US government is that every private company in China is an arm of the state since everybody in China is required by law to help China's intelligence service via article 7 of China's National Intelligence Law (and any company with more than 50 people including Douyin/TikTok is required to have a Chinese Community Party secretary so even more state influence)

And because the government of China's long track record of data theft for commercial gain the Trump administration sees it best to use CIFIUS to ban all companies from China that collect any sensitive information (whether personal or corporate), even if they haven't found a smoking gun that the government of China has misused the data yet.

I don't believe the Trump administration is going for complete economic decoupling with China at this stage (though I personally wish they were), but they certainly are going for banning applications with any access to sensitive information at all. Through this reasoning I am fully expecting applications such as AirDroid (made by Beijing-based Sand Studio) to be banned sooner rather than later.

Re: Microsoft to continue discussions on potential TikTok purchase in the US

#44

Post by azurezyq »

dragonwriter wrote: post #12
TMWNN wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More to the point, Microsoft is the company least involved in social media that has the largest warchest. No way Congress or the administration would condone any of the companies whose CEOs testified on Capitol Hill this week buying TikTok.

> More to the point, Microsoft is the company least involved in social media that has the largest warchest Probably not, no matter how you prioritize the two prongs of that, and no matter which construction of war chest size you take, since Alphabet and Apple both less social media involvement (though Alphabet has tried in the past to have more) and more cash on hand, while both Apple and Amazon have less social medi…

Don't forget YouTube, which is also "social media".

Re: Microsoft to continue discussions on potential TikTok purchase in the US

#46

Post by mike00632 »

someperson wrote: post #42
mike00632 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the CFIUS needs to be reexamined because its use in this case seems objectively capricious. It boggles my mind that all of this can be done with no evidence presented of wrongdoing. I understand that some aspects of cyber-security in the government are classified but there should at least be an effort to explain precisely what types of data TikTok is suspected of collecting. Instead we have Mike Pompeo giving gl…

I think the reasoning of the US government is that every private company in China is an arm of the state since everybody in China is required by law to help China's intelligence service via article 7 of China's National Intelligence Law (and any company with more than 50 people including Douyin/TikTok is required to have a Chinese Community Party secretary so even more state influence) And because the government of C…

1. If the reasoning is that a hostile foreign government could use sensitive data against the US and thus shouldn't be allowed to collect such data then such policy is being arbitrarily enforced. There are other companies (FaceApp comes to mind) that collect data on Americans that don't have such scrutiny from the executive branch. Furthermore, American companies that collect sensitive data regularly give access to foreign entities (e.g. Cambridge Analytica, which abused Facebook's sharing agreement with academic institutions but there nonetheless exists such sharing agreements). If the use of CIFIUS is a part of a broader strategy against China then such a strategy should be outlined somewhere, announced and debated in Congress. This is a special decision taken unilaterally against TikTok.

2. I don't think the executive branch's reasoning is limited to the potential of abuse. Representatives of the Trump administration have stated that they are concerned with data that TikTok currently collects, which they say merits a national security concern. It seems like they are making these claims to get the public on board with the measures, but claims like this require specifics and evidence. Even if I agree with TikTok being banned from the US over security concerns, I don't want to feel propagandized by the US government.

3. What sensitive data are we talking about!? This is the elephant in the room. It seems like the big concern is over email address + geographical location + TikTok viewing history + images of faces. TikTok still lives on platforms that are heavily sandboxed and secured by very interested teams at Google and Apple. Nobody has made a credible accusation that TikTok is exploiting some zero day to gain access to users' sensitive data.

4. This isn't a part of a broader talk about the dangers of tech companies collecting too much data. There doesn't seem to be any plans to restrict data collection nation-wide. Maybe the executive branch is taking this on a case-by-case basis but a more reasonable explanation seems to be that Trump simply doesn't like TikTok or is using his power to muscle out foreign businesses as a bargaining chip in a larger China dispute.

Re: Microsoft to continue discussions on potential TikTok purchase in the US

#47

Post by casefields »

xttblog wrote: post #43

I'm worried about the business environment in the United States. At least some evidence should be found or produced to show that tiktok should be banned!

Burning sources and methods to placate the public is usually a waste. That's why we elect representatives at different levels.

Re: Microsoft to continue discussions on potential TikTok purchase in the US

#48

Post by someperson »

mike00632 wrote: post #46
someperson wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the reasoning of the US government is that every private company in China is an arm of the state since everybody in China is required by law to help China's intelligence service via article 7 of China's National Intelligence Law (and any company with more than 50 people including Douyin/TikTok is required to have a Chinese Community Party secretary so even more state influence) And because the government of C…

1. If the reasoning is that a hostile foreign government could use sensitive data against the US and thus shouldn't be allowed to collect such data then such policy is being arbitrarily enforced. There are other companies (FaceApp comes to mind) that collect data on Americans that don't have such scrutiny from the executive branch. Furthermore, American companies that collect sensitive data regularly give access to f…

I agree with you that the use of CIFIUS as a broader strategy should be debated by Congress rather than just using executive action.

The sandboxing by Google and Apple is not relevant given users are willingly giving TikTok access to the camera, GPS etc. The sensitive information includes the ability to build detailed user profiles (including psych evaluations) of every TikTok user in the world. At least that's my impression from my research into this so far.

Re: Microsoft to continue discussions on potential TikTok purchase in the US

#49

Post by pjmlp »

NiceWayToDoIT wrote: post #34

Is it just me or Microsoft has a track record of ruining products they acquired? Skype, Nokia, Minecraft, Wunderlist... And I am afraid about fate of the GitHub ... There is a huge list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio... how many of those survived?

Nokia is doing quite well, not only did they use to money to buy back the Siemens part on the Networks business, they now own Bell Labs.

Also despite being only Nokia branded, their Android phones are just as good as ever, and the only Android brand that I actually get updates on, versus the one shot update in a device's lifetime that I have had from other OEMs.

Re: Microsoft to continue discussions on potential TikTok purchase in the US

#50

Post by ffggvv »

NiceWayToDoIT wrote: post #34

Is it just me or Microsoft has a track record of ruining products they acquired? Skype, Nokia, Minecraft, Wunderlist... And I am afraid about fate of the GitHub ... There is a huge list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio... how many of those survived?

most of those are pre satya. i think his biggest acquisition has been linkedin. which has mostly been left alone. and github
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