TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users • Hacker News Board

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#551

Post by ein0p » Sun, Jan 19, 2025, 9:39 PM UTC

nickthegreek wrote: post #439

ein0p wrote: post #42

Masterful PR move by Trump. Two ways to win, no way to lose: he gets control of the narrative there (if not TikTok itself, via one of his cronies), and he shows how totalitarian the "democrats" are.

> and he shows how totalitarian the "democrats" are. and by that you are including the massive majority of republican legislators who also sit on intel committees also voted for it with resounding vigor?

Yes, they too would like to show how totalitarian the "democrats" are. Jokes aside, the buck stops with the guy who signs the bill into law. Too bad the guy signing the bill didn't even understand what he was signing this time due to his profound dementia.

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#552

Post by ikiris » Sun, Jan 19, 2025, 9:40 PM UTC

bearcobra wrote: post #523

Despite my own feelings on the ban, this kind of royal court politics is the worst potential outcome. Disregarding a law that was passed by a bipartisan majority, signed into law by the president and ruled on by the supreme courts feels like the start of a very dangerous path. Not to mention the prosecutorial discretion may be creating massive liability that the new administration could use to extract favors from som…

How do you figure? The explicit domain of enforcement is the executive branch, so if the new guy coming in says something akin to "They've made their decision, let them enforce it" that's somewhat by design even if you may not agree with it.

The system was designed with these checks and balances in mind explicitly.

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#553

Post by extheat » Sun, Jan 19, 2025, 9:40 PM UTC

addicted wrote: post #528

robswc wrote: post #10

The straight up "shout out" in the pop-up, I almost couldn't believe my eyes. I don't think I've seen anything like it in a long time. I also don't think an American company would ever do that as it seems "unprofessional." Ironically, it probably got them huge bonus points so they know what they're doing.

They didn’t need to turn off in the first place. The Biden administration had already said they wouldn’t impose any fines. This was literally nothing but a political play intended to give Trump a boost.

The Biden administration signed the thing into law. Of course they need to comply. And people are acting as if somehow TikTok decided to self-ban and have now un-banned. No, it's only those with the app already installed that are able to continue to use it. It's still blocked on the app stores, and will presumably stay that way until tomorrow.

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#554

Post by TypingOutBugs » Sun, Jan 19, 2025, 9:40 PM UTC

yieldcrv wrote: post #51

Brystephor wrote: post #34

What's that saying? The best way to get a promotion is to cause a problem and then fix it? Political things aside, it's crazy to see so much of a flip-flop so quickly. Has there been any other behavior like this in the past where a company "shut themselves down" to make a big political statement and then almost immediately undid the shut down?

Is it a big political statement to shut down a couple hours before the deadline of shutting down? The app stores removed the app in accordance with that timeline too.

There was no deadline, the app stores didn’t need to remove it.

The Biden administration said it would be left to the Trump administration to review, they had no reason to shut it down. It’s purely to force Trumps hand a bit.

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#555

Post by rayiner » Sun, Jan 19, 2025, 9:40 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #533

bearcobra wrote: post #523

Despite my own feelings on the ban, this kind of royal court politics is the worst potential outcome. Disregarding a law that was passed by a bipartisan majority, signed into law by the president and ruled on by the supreme courts feels like the start of a very dangerous path. Not to mention the prosecutorial discretion may be creating massive liability that the new administration could use to extract favors from som…

>Disregarding a law that was passed by a bipartisan majority, signed into law by the president and ruled on by the supreme courts feels like the start of a very dangerous path I don't understand why this is not the primary takeaway. Regardless of the specifics of this issue, it is objectively a huge power grab for a president to vow to not enforce a law that had bipartisan approval of both the legislative and judicia…

[flagged]

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#556

Post by BriggyDwiggs42 » Sun, Jan 19, 2025, 9:41 PM UTC

mrkramer wrote: post #53

I would like to ask Chinese president Xi Jinping when will Google and Facebook be available in China and all the rest of the Western social apps. Can I get any clarity and assurance? Thanks.

Could you potentially see an issue with both countries disconnecting their economies and communication networks? As we do this, I worry a war gets easier to start.

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#557

Post by gcanyon » Sun, Jan 19, 2025, 9:42 PM UTC

Trump has clearly neutered both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court. Welcome to a unitary government, with one god-emperor and no checks nor balances. It's going to be a wild two (few?) years.

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#558

Post by imiric » Sun, Jan 19, 2025, 9:42 PM UTC

nikkwong wrote: post #368

The level of naiveté in this discussion is absolutely astonishing to me. People are seeming to forget that dysfunctional states (totalitarian, facist, the like) all are sprung from one common thread: control of the mind through propaganda. We already have evidence that the CCP or otherwise is manipulating Tiktok's algorithm to influence American minds [1]. This was one study, by one relatively small and underpowered…

Hear, hear.

> this community should know better about how dangerous propaganda is

Bear in mind that a large part of this community is employed by the same companies that built the tools used to spread propaganda and disinformation. It wouldn't be in their interest to disclose that they're part of the problem, so it's easier to ignore that the problem even exists.

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#559

Post by wongarsu » Sun, Jan 19, 2025, 9:42 PM UTC

sekai wrote: post #57

The people pretending that the TikTok law is a speech issue are ignoring that no one was requiring TikTok to change their content at all. The law was written to allow for 0 impact on users if the CCP-connected parent company simply divested. Their preference to shut down instead of receiving tens of billions of dollars would be a clear violation of a company’s fiduciary duty to shareholders for any normal company. Bu…

> Their preference to shut down instead of receiving tens of billions of dollars would be a clear violation of a company’s fiduciary duty to shareholders for any normal company

This is only true if you assume the US is the only market that matters. But TikTok is very much an international phenomenon, and selling would likely harm the company far more than a couple billion. Firstly it would give another company everything they need to run a global competitor to TikTok, including software, infrastructure and userbase. Secondly it might encourage other countries to also force TikTok to sell.

Giving in here would be the beginning of the end of TikTok and could well be argued to be a violation of the company's fiduciary duty to shareholders. It would be the ultimate version of chasing short-term gains by selling the long-term future.

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#560

Post by gherkinnn » Sun, Jan 19, 2025, 9:43 PM UTC

ijidak wrote: post #444

IvyMike wrote: post #202

Big 1984 energy coming from this story. “It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be REDUCED to twenty grammes a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it.”

Human society is collapsing. The stuff playing out on right now was science fiction when 1984 was written. This whole charade has had me laughing since yesterday. The Caesars of Rome often played these public games to make themselves look magnanimous, while at the same time consolidating power and control.

So human society has been collapsing since Roman times?