751–760 of 1001 posts
As a European, I find it quite outrageous to demand a company be sold to the US because it is too successful and valuable to be foreign-held. It is the old-school imperialist school of thought. If you think Bytedance is harming Americans, despite following american law, then amend the rules for social media companies. Or at least be honest enough to say: "The free market is great, but only if we hold all the cards".
(Perspective from an American) Information is the gold of the 21st century. Whoever controls the flow of information has all the wealth and all the power. Therefore, data is the greatest currency in the world. This outcome was never intended to happen, but ByteDance is taking a chance that the American government will relent. We’ll see in a few months who wins the stalemate. TikTok has an immense amount of cultural p…
> But China ultimately having that power scares me more than an American company having it. Well for people not from US, China having that power is absolutely better. After all, unlike the US, China hadn't invaded another country or instigated coup for the past 40+ years.
Not impressed whatsoever with this.
This is not what the internet is all about.
(Perspective from an American) Information is the gold of the 21st century. Whoever controls the flow of information has all the wealth and all the power. Therefore, data is the greatest currency in the world. This outcome was never intended to happen, but ByteDance is taking a chance that the American government will relent. We’ll see in a few months who wins the stalemate. TikTok has an immense amount of cultural p…
3 comments total from this account totaling 28 karma at the time of writing and this of the top comment on a 1500+ comment thread about a major issue? Ok. That fact is relevant to the issue. This comment is the most “State Department talking points” comment you could make and the finger is put on the scales to elevate it. That’s exactly what Google and Meta do with content via recommendation algorithms and comments.…
The app was shutdown a couple of hours ago in the US and this was the message all TikTok users saw when they opened the app.[1] The same guy who pushed for a ban massively last year, is going to save the app despite the security concerns he and most of our government said they had. If only we knew what happened in that classified briefing that made them vote together across party lines. [1] https://a57.foxnews.com/st…
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/19/technology/trump-tiktok-b...
(Perspective from an American) Information is the gold of the 21st century. Whoever controls the flow of information has all the wealth and all the power. Therefore, data is the greatest currency in the world. This outcome was never intended to happen, but ByteDance is taking a chance that the American government will relent. We’ll see in a few months who wins the stalemate. TikTok has an immense amount of cultural p…
I doubt this has anything to do with "data". I generally view "data is the new oil" arguments as a sign that the journalist doesn't know what they are talking about, especially if they can't characterise what data they are referring to or why it is valuable. More likely, this is about control of the recommendation algorithm, and therefore control of the narrative.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/why-people-think-us-effor...
As a European, I find it quite outrageous to demand a company be sold to the US because it is too successful and valuable to be foreign-held. It is the old-school imperialist school of thought. If you think Bytedance is harming Americans, despite following american law, then amend the rules for social media companies. Or at least be honest enough to say: "The free market is great, but only if we hold all the cards".
I think it's totally reasonable when it has massive influence over your population and is controlled by a geopolitical adversary. The EU banned Russia Today (correctly in my opinion) and that was nothing compared to TikTok. Propaganda isn't free speech.
I think a lot of people on here never spent much time on TikTok and it shows. It wasn't just for young people and it wasn't all brain rot. There were vibrant communities, subcultures. Real issues were aired there. Real people connected. From the early days of Covid it provided a window into a broader world.
I agree whole heartedly, along with a horrendous dearth of empathy but unfortunately I find very common in Hacker News comments. Regardless of whether or not you feel that 170 million Americans all fell for Chinese propaganda, there is still a profound sense of loss.
For me personally, I've been writing and performing music on TikTok for about 3 years now and frequently found community and collaboration the likes of which I've not even come close to seeing anywhere else except maybe YouTube 10 or 15 years ago. Community they gave me the confidence to release music for the first time and folks who would actually listen to it.
I had a rather small following, but orders of magnitude of more than anywhere else IRL or on the internet
As a European, I find it quite outrageous to demand a company be sold to the US because it is too successful and valuable to be foreign-held. It is the old-school imperialist school of thought. If you think Bytedance is harming Americans, despite following american law, then amend the rules for social media companies. Or at least be honest enough to say: "The free market is great, but only if we hold all the cards".
I think it's totally reasonable when it has massive influence over your population and is controlled by a geopolitical adversary. The EU banned Russia Today (correctly in my opinion) and that was nothing compared to TikTok. Propaganda isn't free speech.
As a European, I find it quite outrageous to demand a company be sold to the US because it is too successful and valuable to be foreign-held. It is the old-school imperialist school of thought. If you think Bytedance is harming Americans, despite following american law, then amend the rules for social media companies. Or at least be honest enough to say: "The free market is great, but only if we hold all the cards".
Edit: text of the bill: https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/hr7521/BILLS-118hr7521rfs..., which references a different part of the statute for the list of countries here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/4872