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

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

#771

Post by nickthegreek »

paxys wrote: post #749
lumost wrote: post #266

This seems to imply that the president elect can make unilateral guarantees contravening US law. That’s a surprising outcome.

The surprising part is that people are still surprised. Trump can do whatever he wants and there will be no pushback. We are talking about the guy who launched a meme coin a few days before taking office and made $50B+ overnight.

I think those chickens just haven’t come home to roost yet. His wife launched her coin today. There is no way this isn’t being looked at closely. Impressively quick start to the new shit show.

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

#772

Post by maeil »

flir wrote: post #507
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…

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.

It won't. It would be fantastic if the EU banned Meta or X. Instead they're suddenly scared of continuing to fine them for their endless illegal data harvesting and gatekeeping to cozy up to Trump.

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

#773

Post by Karrot_Kream »

sanderjd wrote: post #652
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…

The executive order will just be baldly illegal, and what happens in the litigation on it is the next battle. TikTok is, as we speak, breaking US law.

No there's an actual provision in the law that allows the President to delay enforcement one-time for 90 days: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521... . This was an explicit provision of the bill.

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

#774

Post by scarab92 »

appleorchard46 wrote: post #392
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?

> 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? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_shutdowns_in_the_Un...

Fiduciary responsibilities make it unlikely that many companies would risk it.

There’s always a chance you don’t come back, and there’s likely to be a loss of marketshare for simply being unavailable for a period and forcing users to trial alternatives.

But, TikTok is not purely commercially focused. A majority of the voting stock of ByteDance is held by the Chinese government, who clearly see non-financial strategic value in controlling it.

Otherwise, they likely could have negotiated a spin out the US operation, whereby they retain most of the equity upside but give majority voting control to a US buyer.

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

#775

Post by maeil »

stuaxo wrote: post #440
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…

Fifuciary duty to shareholders is one of the most pernicious forces against progress there is. The short term "number go up" mentality is breeds is a cancer.

It's a complete myth used by the greedy to justify corporate greed. The only way someone would ever be succesfully prosecuted for this is if they'd clearly intentionally crash the company. Go do a search, you won't find a single other prosecution.

I really hope this changes your mindset. The number go up mentality is purely a result of avarice from those enacting it, it has 0 to do with any laws, it's all personal greed.

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

#776

Post by hot_gril »

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?

Epic Games sorta did this to Fortnite, but the reversal wasn't quick

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

#777

Post by grosales »

The whole way Tiktok went black and the number of times it has mentioned President Trump in a positive note - to me - reinforces the idea that Tiktok is just a propaganda tool (in this case, for Trump). I would not be surprised if the whole act of going dark last night was because Trump told them that's how it needed to go so he could be a hero by Monday.

The way most of our biggest companies and wealthiest are just lining up to do Trump's bidding is what I would expect from unstable 3rd world countries but never from the US (I know cause I came from one).

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

#778

Post by maeil »

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…

> feels like the start of a very dangerous path.

I'm baffled people keep saying this. You're miles down the dangerous path - you've almost reached the end of it. This is nothing new.

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

#779

Post by sieabahlpark »

nextworddev wrote: post #425
shihab wrote: post #8

Is anyone aware of any opinion poll among US population about banning tiktok? This to me feels like one of the issues with potentially largest disconnect between voters and politicians Edit: found one from Pew. "The share of Americans who support the U.S. government banning TikTok now stands at 32%." Sept 05, 2024. In contrast, 87% US lawmakers voted for the law that caused this.

So you are saying Trump went against 87% of lawmakers?

[dead]

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

#780

Post by hot_gril »

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…

Rep Mike Gallagher, the sponsor of the bill, published this op-ed making it sound like a speech issue: https://www.thefp.com/p/tik-tok-young-americans-hamas-mike-g...
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