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TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

reuters.com

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Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#591

Post by CSSer »

gorlami wrote: post #567
baxtr wrote: post #525

> Privately held ByteDance is about 60% owned by institutional investors such as BlackRock and General Atlantic, while its founders and employees own 20% each. It has more than 7,000 employees in the United States That’s probably a very stupid question, but is how this is a Chinese company when 60% are owned by American funds?

In the US government's view, as expressed in its brief in the Supreme Court: "Because of the authoritarian structures and laws of the PRC regime, Chinese companies lack meaningful independence from the PRC’s agenda and objectives. As a result, even putatively ‘private’ companies based in China do not operate with independence from the government. Indeed, “the PRC maintains a powerful Chinese Communist Party committee…

The saddest part of this to me was watching congressional representatives try to wrestle with the Singapore thing and fail in hearings. It really made me feel like they thought they had some kind of gotcha when in reality all they did was publicly demonstrate how little they actually grasp the real national security threat at play.

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#592

Post by seryoiupfurds »

porphyra wrote: post #570
metacritic12 wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for those curious why an app would name itself Little Red Book despite the association, obviously they could have been better about the naming, but they're actually not the same name in either language: The social media app Xiaohongshu (小红书) does literally translate to "little red book" in English. However, this is completely different from Mao's famous work, which was never called this in Chinese. Mao's book was inf…

On Wikipedia, it says he chose red because: > The Chinese name was inspired by two pivotal institutions in its co-founder Charlwin Mao's career journey that both feature red as their primary color: Bain & Company, where he worked as a consultant, and Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he earned his MBA. I would guess that the association to Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong was intentional but he just said…

> I would guess that the association to Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong was intentional but he just said that for plausible deniability.

Yeah, I mean "Every Chinese citizen has a Little Red Book in their pocket!" is pretty compelling for a social media app.

It's not necessarily political beyond that, but the connection is obviously there.

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#594

Post by t-writescode »

corimaith wrote: post #563
ergonaught wrote: post #366

US citizens do not want this. Every news article descending into tangents on any other point than that is part of why we can't have nice things. The whole country has turned into some sort of lower primate improv troupe where whatever stupid thing comes up gets a "Yes and let's" diversion instead of an adult in the room standing up and cutting the crap.

The Senator you voted for this probably voted for this so yes, America does want this.

Those in leadership being against a meaningful percentage (about 30%) of those under their care is common.

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#595

Post by fullshark »

bearjaws wrote: post #490
jdlyga wrote: post #115

"I would literally write my social security number on a sticky note and stick it to Xi Jinping's forehead than go back to using Instagram Reels" I saw this yesterday and it's hilarious but this is the feeling right now. TikTok has such a culture of authenticity and realness and Instagram is so phony and overly perfect (not to mention ads and so many bots and spam). It's like shutting down Reddit and telling everyone…

> TikTok has such a culture of authenticity and realness I must live in another universe because it all feels fake.

It's where the young kids who don't know any better overshare. Instagram is where the perfectly manicured young adults put out a phony facade to make their money.

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#596

Post by j_bum »

martythemaniak wrote: post #530
bearjaws wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> TikTok has such a culture of authenticity and realness I must live in another universe because it all feels fake.

You're both right! There was a good article/discussion on on this yesterday, but tldr: They are authentically fake! As in, the creators are not putting up a show with a 'real' person behind the persona, the algorithms have remade whatever person there use to be such that their 'authentic' self has become the persona. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42696691

Interpellation [0]

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpellation_(philosophy)

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#597

Post by Salgat »

thorum wrote: post #537
bearjaws wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> TikTok has such a culture of authenticity and realness I must live in another universe because it all feels fake.

Your perception of TikTok likely depends on your TikTok for you page. If you spend time cultivating it, the algorithm will learn you like authenticity and show you more of it. This seems to be less true on YouTube and Reels unfortunately.

The algorithm will spoonfeed you content that you perceive a certain way, whether that's true or not is a different story. Unfortunately for most people, all those hilarious situations that are not-so-obviously staged just fly over their heads as genuine. My wife is smart and well educated, but I even had to keep correcting her when she showed me videos that she believed were genuine.

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#598

Post by polski-g »

pjc50 wrote: post #6

The migration app of choice appears to be .. xiaohongshu, or "little red book". I'm guessing this won't last since it wasn't intended to have lots of Westerners using it and neither government is going to be happy with that scale of unfiltered contact between ordinary Chinese citizens and US citizens. In the meantime, it's the place for Luigi Mangione memes.

Is there a problem with Youtube Shorts? Or Facebook videos?

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#599

Post by somenameforme »

cvoss wrote: post #208
jdlyga wrote: post #115

"I would literally write my social security number on a sticky note and stick it to Xi Jinping's forehead than go back to using Instagram Reels" I saw this yesterday and it's hilarious but this is the feeling right now. TikTok has such a culture of authenticity and realness and Instagram is so phony and overly perfect (not to mention ads and so many bots and spam). It's like shutting down Reddit and telling everyone…

The US gov's intention was not at all to shut down TikTok. It was to force ByteDance to sell it. The fact that ByteDance is opting for a shutdown instead is a huge PR stunt, and their unwillingness to sell under the circumstances kinda proves their whole First Amendment claims are made in bad faith. Something deeper is going on, and it's not about your social security number.

I don't see how people don't see what is their most likely rationale - the ban will be temporary. Trump's already come out against it and is going to work to reverse it once in office. If it can't be done directly, it'll be done like usual - as an addon to some must-pass bill.

I think they would probably refuse to sell in a situation where they had reason to expect the ban to persist (for different reasons), but in this case they probably didn't even consider selling when there's a high probability they'll be back legally operating in the US within a year.

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#600

Post by tartoran »

polski-g wrote: post #598
pjc50 wrote: post #6

The migration app of choice appears to be .. xiaohongshu, or "little red book". I'm guessing this won't last since it wasn't intended to have lots of Westerners using it and neither government is going to be happy with that scale of unfiltered contact between ordinary Chinese citizens and US citizens. In the meantime, it's the place for Luigi Mangione memes.

Is there a problem with Youtube Shorts? Or Facebook videos?

Yes, they're shoved in user's faces and cannot get rid of them, disable them, etc.
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