"It’s a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship." That hit's different from Chinese company. lol
Words don't mean anything, they are just tools to win PR battles.
Couldn't agree more
TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users
621–630 of 1001 posts
Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users
#622The 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…
I keep seeing this type of comment here, like a sell is the obvious thing to do. Why? Selling / divesting TikTok US under these circumstances would surely not fetch the best price. In addition they would immediately create a global competitor that have the same product. Why would ByteDance the company or its investors want that?
Well yeah, of course Tiktok isn't going to get the best price now that it has tried and failed to play chicken against the US government.
They should have seen a law like this being passed coming years ago. That is more than enough time to divest.
Too late now for them, I guess. They can take the financial hit for being so bad faith.
Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users
#623The 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…
Interesting position. I wonder if another country could just force Musk to divest himself of Twitter in the same way. Could solve a lot of headaches that way. Maybe the EU could force the issue.
Possibly they could force him to divest from whatever legal entity Twitter operates under in that country, or force Twitter to stop operating in that country, but they would have no authority over the US corporation.
Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users
#624It's odd to me that people seem to be mostly viewing this as a free speech/democracy issue. To me it's more like if newspapers were printed with toxic ink or something. The negatives of TikTok have nothing to do with the speech expressed by the "creators" on the platform, but rather with the overall harmful effects of the algorithmic firehose. It's true that this means all similar US-based things should be banned as…
> The negatives of ~Tiktok~short form videos have nothing to do with … It feels silly with this coloring of TikTok as the evil when meta, Google and a dozen other American companies are doing the same, just less successfully because they let advertisers and corporate interests buy priority in the algorithm which literally just boils down to “you likely like the same stuff as people who like the same stuff as you”.
The odds [edit: ^W^W^W^Wchances] are just lower that Google and Meta would rig the algorithm to subtly color peoples opinion in favor of China and Russia.
If TikTok is doing propaganda by subtly promoting some reels over others -- who would know? Why would they not be doing it and how can anyone know they are not already doing it?
Not anything blatant of course. Blatant stuff does not change peoples opinions anyway. Just subtly bump some reels that has been proven to shift a demography in a certain direction.
TikTok has all the data it needs to work with the minds of people and also all the ability. And China has the motiviation..
Of course Google and Meta might promote other goals in their algorithms, but the chances of a leak of that happening is definitely higher in current American companies
Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users
#625It blows my mind how easily people are swayed and how ByteDance is playing everyone like a fiddle. I need to walk into the ocean because this life ain't for me.
After being a non-stop news and politics junkie the last 15+ years, I've gone beyond cold turkey. I stopped reading all political, U.S., and even world news the day after the election. Zero. Dropped reddit politics. I don't know who are Trump's cabinet picks. I assume Hulk Hogan and Kid Rock will be on the cabinet, but I don't know and don't care. On Nov 7 when I saw that not only did Trump win, but he won decisively…
I'm debating trying to do this. I've seen it recommended by other people who I think are smart. Honestly, I tuned out most of the 2010s after being a political news junkie in the 2000s, and it was probably good for me. I couldn't sleep or concentrate on work for a couple days after this election.
> And in 2 years and 4 years I will go to the voting booth. But I'm powerless until then
What's really depressing is that I'm already happy with my representation in congress, and they'll probably win again comfortably in 2026 and 2028, but they're powerless too.
Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users
#626> We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans
These are literally just promises from Trump that these companies are relying on, not an actual change to the law, just a promise that he won't enforce it against them? Sounds like an utterly insane business decision that they'll regret as soon as they fall out with him. Each to their own I suppose.
> The app was still unavailable for download from Apple’s and Google’s app stores.
I guess I wonder if that's going to change specifically. They strike me as the two companies that would be most insane to take Trump at his word here.
Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users
#627Despite 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 It was a rider tacked onto a must-pass bill. There’s nothing about the manner it was passed that makes it special or particularly blessed. This was classic congressional sausage-making.
And yet the law is the law. There's no premise that says the manner in which a law is passed determines its enforceability.
Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users
#628What'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?
> flip-flop so quickly The timing and phrasing make it clear that this was planned and negotiated in advance, and the shutdown was just for show in order to be able to post a memo about how "President Trump" saved it. If actual negotiation had to occur, it would not have happened in the twelve hours between midnight and noon on Sunday morning. The point of the stunt was to persuade large numbers of younger folks that…
What’s the evidence of this? It seems highly plausible but do we have any proof besides speculation?
Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users
#629By saying China's using Tik Tok to subvert "democracy," aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? I sometimes cannot believe it's those who so loudly cry about threats to "democracy" that simultaneously take such a cynical view of the democratic process. Rather than tackle the narratives substantively, they'd argue about who gets to manipulate the…
The winner of the election is often the party that spent more money on political advertising, so I'm sure this is a well known phenomenon.
Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users
#630Earlier quoted context omitted.
> flip-flop so quickly The timing and phrasing make it clear that this was planned and negotiated in advance, and the shutdown was just for show in order to be able to post a memo about how "President Trump" saved it. If actual negotiation had to occur, it would not have happened in the twelve hours between midnight and noon on Sunday morning. The point of the stunt was to persuade large numbers of younger folks that…
What’s the evidence of this? It seems highly plausible but do we have any proof besides speculation?
My partner uses TikTok and was greeted with a message today saying that DJT saved the app. That isn't possible because he isn't president yet. It's all very embarrassing.