Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

nbcnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 224 posts

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#41

Post by throwaway333444 »

_akhe wrote: post #10
PeterHolzwarth wrote: post #2

Not always a popular sentiment, but I don't really mind treating a country's companies as that country treats ours. I know this TikTok issue is far more nuanced (who the backers/owners are, how data is treated etc) of course.

China bans sites & apps from the West that violate their laws - the ad tracking, monitoring, censorship & influencer/fake news we have here... the funding schemes and market monopolizing that companies like Facebook do in the West is just not legal there. Can you blame them for not wanting it? Companies that don't violate Chinese laws and approach China with realistic deals are allowed to operate there - you can play…

Actually you haven’t been able to play WoW in China for a ~year. But that’s largely irrelevant to your point.

More specifically Blizzard is able to bring their product to everywhere else in the world. The fact that they choose to “work” with a local partner in China to get access to that market reads more to me like a government run racket / forced rent seeking than anything else.

> approach China with realistic deals are allowed to operate there

On a more hyperbolic note, I’m sure many people in the past paid off mobsters for the privilege of doing business in certain areas with the rationale they were being “realistic”.

To that end if the US wants to start treating Chinese backed companies a similar way (laws that distort the market) I’m not surprised. China has no moral high ground here. Or more simply your point cuts both ways.

> doesn't mean other countries have to allow it.

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#42

Post by brigadier132 »

gklitz wrote: post #38
PeterHolzwarth wrote: post #2

Not always a popular sentiment, but I don't really mind treating a country's companies as that country treats ours. I know this TikTok issue is far more nuanced (who the backers/owners are, how data is treated etc) of course.

I can see what you mean. Europe should force the US to divest from Facebook and have it transferred fully to European owners.

The US is following a tit for tat strategy. Which European companies has the US forced to divest their holdings to justify the action you're proposing?

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#43

Post by pjmlp »

gklitz wrote: post #38
PeterHolzwarth wrote: post #2

Not always a popular sentiment, but I don't really mind treating a country's companies as that country treats ours. I know this TikTok issue is far more nuanced (who the backers/owners are, how data is treated etc) of course.

I can see what you mean. Europe should force the US to divest from Facebook and have it transferred fully to European owners.

Time for the great wall of Europe.

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#44

Post by dragonelite »

wnevets wrote: post #7

> Chew added that 60% of ByteDance is owned by global institutional investors such as the Carlyle Group, General Atlantic and Susquehanna International Group, while 20% of the firm is owned by Zhang and 20% owned by employees around the world. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/18/tech/tiktok-bytedance-china-o...

I hope so much the US bans it and those big capital houses are forced to sell their stock for pennies on the dollar to Chinese shareholders. It will be epic.

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#45

Post by brigadier132 »

willcipriano wrote: post #4
PeterHolzwarth wrote: post #2

Not always a popular sentiment, but I don't really mind treating a country's companies as that country treats ours. I know this TikTok issue is far more nuanced (who the backers/owners are, how data is treated etc) of course.

It's suspicious in this single instance to suddenly care about reciprocity, having never really had a concern in the decades prior. These people would audibly gasp if you suggested in their presence that tariffs should be equal to what China taxes US firms. Why this? Why now?

It turns out when you slowly raise the temperature of a pot with a frog in it, it eventually hurts it.

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#46

Post by mschuster91 »

api wrote: post #27
Mindless2112 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't even have to go that far. TikTok isn't available in China. (There's a Chinese app that's similar, but it isn't TikTok.)

They realize that engagement farming not-actually-social media is toxic brain rot.

It's more like, they don't want any place on the Internet that's a social network allowing uncensored exchange between Chinese people and the Western sphere of influence.

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#48

Post by flappyeagle »

elfbargpt wrote: post #47

I'm surprised this passed (in the house at least) at this point in the election cycle. My suspicion is that ByteDance will in fact refuse to divest, and TikTok will get banned. Which I don't think the electorate will like very much

My suspicion is that they will try to divest but the CCP will refuse to let them do it. Thus proving the point behind the bill.

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#49

Post by cynicalsecurity »

c-smile wrote: post #36

Politics aside, how that in principle is different from "hostile takeover" ( https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hostiletakeover.asp ) ?

Nice try, but politics can be just put aside. Today you ignore politics, tomorrow it's banging at your door with an automatic rifle. The matters of national security have always been more important than economic freedom, everywhere in the world.

Chinese authoritarian government doesn't allow American companies to freely operate in China, but they want freedom for the Chinese companies in the West? That's a little hypocritical, don't you think?

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#50

Post by flappyeagle »

willcipriano wrote: post #4
PeterHolzwarth wrote: post #2

Not always a popular sentiment, but I don't really mind treating a country's companies as that country treats ours. I know this TikTok issue is far more nuanced (who the backers/owners are, how data is treated etc) of course.

It's suspicious in this single instance to suddenly care about reciprocity, having never really had a concern in the decades prior. These people would audibly gasp if you suggested in their presence that tariffs should be equal to what China taxes US firms. Why this? Why now?

You must be willingly blind to the tariff skirmishes that have been playing out over the last 8 years
Post reply on HN