I suspect the U.S. will end up getting its way and TikTok will be divested of foreign ownership by the time this all shakes out.
TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users
851–860 of 1001 posts
Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users
#852President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho to the rescue!! For those who haven’t seen it yet, go watch Idiocracy from Mike Judge. It’s a preview of the years to come.
Money quote from President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho to cement how he and Trump align on values:
> Come on, scro! Don't be a pussy! Besides, you do a kick-ass job and you get a full pardon.
Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users
#853While it’s back in the US, it seems to be a separate version from the rest of the world. My account is European and I can no longer log in within the US without a VPN out of the country. My GFs account is American and she can login but has lost access to some accounts and the ability to watch livestreams which my version of the app still has. I wonder if the 13 hour “outage” was for a larger scale data migration for…
Maybe it’s intentional, maybe it’s just the technical reality, it’s a bit early to call. We on a tech site ought to know what a shitshow split brain scenarios can be.
Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users
#854I would like to ask Chinese president Xi Jinping when will Google and Facebook be available in China and all the rest of the Western social apps. Can I get any clarity and assurance? Thanks.
Zuckerberg already tried in 2015, went on a tour, gave obsequious speeches, spoke in Mandarin and asked Xi to give his unborn child an honorary Chinese name. Refused on both occasions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S20BoxH8W9g
Guy really doesn’t have a spine
Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users
#855I feel like the free speech enthusiasts are missing some imagination and failing to see the situation we are in post-algorithms. By now -- people have used their free speech to make reels for every possibly viewpoint convincing any possible demography about anything. The trail of reels needed to convert a mountain biker to a racist, or a Lego builder to an LBTQ ally, is out there. Making the free speech isn't the iss…
> With TikTo... you find that people's opinion change very gradually and without perception over the course of half a year. Never seeing "TikTok" -- only seeing "people like you" (which can be a function of time, and evolve) sharing their heartfelt opinions.
> 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 the means to do it -- all the data about what reels cause what effect on what demographic, if they just wanted to.
> 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?
> I am not saying this is definitely happening. But any discussion that isn't treating all the social networks as weapons of mass propaganda that CAN be used is awfully naive.
Sure. But that's something that applies to every social network. Do you think e.g. Instagram doesn't subtly adjust which videos it shows you? They openly acknowledge that they limit the spread of videos that they consider "hate speech", and of course which videos they classify as hate speech is a politically dependent question. Or maybe you think Zuckerberg's interests are more aligned with what's good for you personally than the CCP's?
Like with your examples of Fox News or The Daily Show or Pravda, if I can see all the networks then I at least can compare and consider. Closing my eyes to one of them makes me worse off, especially when it's the only one that's not run by a handful of very similar people with very similar interests.
Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users
#856What'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?
It had to have been a PR move.
The Tik Tok in-app notes for "shutting down" and "we're back" both referenced Trump by name. I doubt they would do that without his explicit consent.
Trump beamed his name and heroics directly into the eyeballs of 50m people before he even took office. That wouldn't have happened without the brief blip going dark.
Odds are good he said he'd pardon them (which is a whole different story) but ensured they'd go dark for a few hours, either by withholding his guarantee or by directly coordinating it with them.
This is Trump. It's always about him. If we haven't learned that we haven't learned anything.
Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users
#857> 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 a…
It’s not an insane business decision, but the easiest way to garner support for your preferred candidate. Anyone who is 24/7 on TikTok (there are a lot of them) will now say how Trump saved the app. And kinda, technically, they’re not wrong (if you ignore the history).
Sure, but Trump will have the threat to enforce this law hanging over any of these companies for his entire term. That’s a terrible position to put yourself in. I just can’t believe any of these companies are stupid enough to trust him.
Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users
#858Where does this leave US federal privacy regulations? What can an app do with the data of US users?
That was never the issue, if it was, the US would simply force certain privacy legislation upon companies, like the EU did. It's about the global monopoly on tech products that the US has, which is obviously threatened by Chinese competitors. You saw the exact same thing with Huawei.
Even if you think this is about protectionism rather than state sponsored espionage (I don't think many would agree with you) your comment makes little sense. Because if you wanted to enforce that kind of protectionism you would still do it under the guise of privacy or security. Meaning you would simply impose such laws that would make it impossible for TikTok to operate, while at the same time being good for privacy.
Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users
#859This seems to imply that the president elect can make unilateral guarantees contravening US law. That’s a surprising outcome.
He’s also the guy that triggered all of this by signing a presidential order to change TikTok ownership during his first run. Does he have a coherent position on this that these actions support?
Does he have a coherent position on anything?
Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users
#860Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
Which specific owner is the Chinese government?