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TikTok goes dark in the US

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Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#781

Post by yyyfb »

mcherm wrote: post #766
bakuninsbart wrote: post #725

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".

An an American, I also find it outrageous. In fact, as I understand it, our most fundamental law (the Constitution) clearly guarantees "freedom of speech and freedom of the press" which specifically means that the government may NOT shut down a particular publisher because the government does not like what they say, or who it is that owns them. Unfortunately, our Supreme Court unanimously disagrees with me about what…

TikTok's problem isn't with what they say openly, it's with the amount of invisible control exerted by a foreign government.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#782

Post by Aurornis »

bakuninsbart wrote: post #725

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".

> too successful and valuable to be foreign-held

That’s a thoroughly disingenuous spin on the reasoning.

There is no movement to prevent foreign companies from having popular apps in general. The law is narrowly targeted. TikTok could continue to be foreign-held as long as they separated from the government of a specific foreign country.

I’m amazed at how many commenters are twisting themselves into pretzels to try to make this some generic imperialist move or use whataboutism to downplay the reasoning behind this move.

A decade ago it was common knowledge on the internet that China heavily controlled and shaped internet discourse within their reach, to push government agendas in an extreme way. There is no parallel to their cultural control in the US. Did everyone suddenly forget this, or are they just ignoring it for the sake of argument?

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#783

Post by maeil »

I don't remember ever seeing an article at the top of HN for 12 hours straight, and I'm on here an unhealthy amount. While it is a major event, it's definitely not the biggest we've seen, even in tech.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#784

Post by withinboredom »

kyrra wrote: post #760
bakuninsbart wrote: post #725

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".

The law states that it cannot be owned by a Chinese company. So they could be sold to owners in almost any other country (the law explicitly lists China, North Korea, Iran, and Russia as being banned. 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

It’s interesting that they didn’t press the constitutionality of this. They fought over “free speech” where it’s more clear that this might be a bill of attainder or violation of the 14th amendment.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#785

Post by airstrike »

nikanj wrote: post #354
jandrewrogers wrote: post #308

A point I think most people don’t understand is that the government interest in TikTok has little to do with exploiting user data per se, a lot of other companies do that. The issue is that TikTok is somewhat unique in being aggressively weaponized in currently very active “grey zone” conflicts. This has been an open secret in national security circles but the average person on the street has no idea what a grey zone…

TikTok is somewhat unique in presenting a real, non-us-based competitor to FB/Instagram. A bit of lobbying to block your competitor is a deft move on Mark’s part

The ban on TikTok has been in the works since Trump 1.0, way before Musk destroyed Twitter

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#786

Post by [deleted] »

moviet wrote: post #695

(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…

[deleted]

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#787

Post by velcrovan »

bakuninsbart wrote: post #725

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".

> demand a company be sold to the US because it is too successful and valuable to be foreign-held

This is a reductive and misleading analysis. The US has already prohibited foreign entities from holding broadcast/common carrier licenses, or from owning significant chunks of equity in holders of those licenses [1]. It should be kind of obvious why a country would not want their biggest media providers to be foreign-owned.

You could argue that if the US wants to update the 1934 telecommunications act for the 21st century, it should do so more thoughtfully and comprehensively (I would agree). But the TikTok ban, however poorly written or haphazardly targeted, is fairly in line with a legal doctrine that has been commonly known and accepted for 90 years.

[1]: https://www.fcc.gov/general/foreign-ownership-rules-and-poli...

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#788

Post by redcobra762 »

firefoxd wrote: post #294

This morning I felt the urge to download TikTok for the first time. I did, but I didn't bother creating an account. There is a passage in the book Life of Pi, where Pi's family is gathered and ready to leave India for Canada. And his mother does something out of the ordinary: > The day before our departure she pointed at a cigarette wallah and earnestly asked, "Should we get a pack or two?" > Father replied, "They ha…

> But this ban is only because it failed to conform to manufactured consent.

Are you saying that TikTok was banned because the company would not generate specific content? That's not at all how the app works, so maybe I am misunderstanding what your claim here is.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#789

Post by rvba »

bakuninsbart wrote: post #725

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".

The thing is that you dont get the same free market in China.

Can you even own a company in China? Not to mention anything uncensored?

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#790

Post by maeil »

bakuninsbart wrote: post #725

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".

They don't have to sell it, they can simply choose not to operate in the US.

If Zuckerberg, or Musk (X), or Reddit, or Snap, or HN, or any Western platform would want to operate in China, they'd have to hand over control to a Chinese company. Instead, they simply don't operate there.

> "The free market is great, but only if we hold all the cards".

It's been blatantly obvious since the beginning of time that the free market isn't a thing.

Foreign ownership of massive media platforms has been awful. The other way around as well. Would be fantastic if the EU banned Meta, for one. Instead they're suddenly scared of continuing to fine them for their continuous illegal data harvesting and gatekeeping to cozy up to Trump.

Just consider Rupert Murdoch. Every country he's been active in would have been better off if he'd been straight up banned from owning local media companies.

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