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TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

reuters.com

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Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#91

Post by spencerflem »

lenerdenator wrote: post #87
spencerflem wrote: post #67

Given how easy it is for China to buy US data legally from data brokers and how similar the functionality of TikTok and YouTube Shorts, I feel like the only explanations are: 1. The govt is mad that a foreign company is outcompeting a domestic one Or more likely, given that there are so many other industries that didn't get a ban: 2. The govt is mad that they have control over the narrative on Facebook but do not on…

> 2. The govt is mad that they have control over the narrative on Facebook but do not on TikTok If the last four years are indicative of anything, it's that the US government has fairly limited control over the narrative on American social platforms. I lost count of how many times I saw people typing in "FJB" and "MAGA".

Facebook is extremely censored re: the genocide in Gaza

TikTok is not

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#92

Post by lenerdenator »

tonyhart7 wrote: post #84
palata wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally. I find it very interesting that we tend to criticize China for their protectionism, but as soon as something out-competes US companies, it gets banned: Huawei, DJI, TikTok. Of course it cannot be said like this, because "free speech" and "democracy", so the official reason is "national security".

well china does it too with google,fb etc back then, and other nation do it too albeit not outright banned it all together but sometimes they prefer homegrown company/technology

I mean, let's be clear: Facebook and Google are very much banned in Mainland China.

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#93

Post by PittleyDunkin »

donatj wrote: post #18
pjc50 wrote: post #6

The migration app of choice appears to be .. xiaohongshu, or "little red book". I'm guessing this won't last since it wasn't intended to have lots of Westerners using it and neither government is going to be happy with that scale of unfiltered contact between ordinary Chinese citizens and US citizens. In the meantime, it's the place for Luigi Mangione memes.

As a casual observer, I don't understand why YouTube Shorts isn't the obvious successor? The UI is better than TikTok ever was and a lot of the most popular creators are already mirroring their content there?

> The UI is better than TikTok ever was

I cannot disagree more. I just scroll on tiktok and tiktok populates the scrolling with videos I want to see, and it takes about ten minutes to signal to tiktok what content you like and don't like. Youtube, meanwhile, is an exercise in a far too-busy UI with thumbnails and comments and text and buttons—it's inherently a desktop app shoved into a web browser. Nice if you want to search for a specific topic and watch a four-hour video on it, but terrible for entertainment or killing time.

The only use I have for youtube are in solving these two problems: 1) where can I find a music video and 2) how do I do x

...but the focus on the interface obscures why youtube shorts won't ever take off: youtube is extremely bad at pushing content I want to watch. I've heard this over and over and over again and I know it's true for me, too.

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#94

Post by maxglute »

zzzeek wrote: post #33

noahpinion has a great post [1] on this today and he points out the interesting observations we can make: 1. because it's "Beijing" who is tasked with deciding whether or not TikTok can be sold makes it extremely clear Bytedance is not an independent private company the way it would be the case in the US. They are legally required to obey CCP directives [2] 2. Beijing had every opportunity to sell the application off…

>Bytedance is not an independent private company

PRC banned exporting Bytedance algo. By that logic, no US companies are independent private companies due to US export controls. And TBH both points are true.

>Grindr

Grindr was foreign company acquired by PRC, and sale was reversed by CFIUS. Selling an acquired foreign company is geo/politically different than having your domestic company nationalized/appropriated by another. Which is quite literally a strike against Chinese people. Even PRC has never forced a US company from divesting US ownership, because that's a retarded tier of "hostility" only US hubris can imagine. And it's particularly retarded tier analysis from Noahpinion who thinks Chinese people won't view divestment requirement a PRC company as hostile against Chinese entrepreners, who are Chinese people.

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#95

Post by SiempreViernes »

zzzeek wrote: post #78
mytailorisrich wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That Beijing would rather close TikTok entirely, rather than sell it, shows how deeply important it is to Beijing that TikTok does not come under the control of another nation, including the US I don't think it is important because of how 'powerful' a tool it is. I think it is more than being forced to sell it would be losing face and a humiliation (a la 19th century's Inequal Treaties). Also, they don't have to se…

why did they sell Grindr when presented with an identical set of constraints / demands ?

The two cases are just very different, why are you even comparing the case of an investment company buying a stake in an existing app with the original creator being banned from owning what they created?

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#96

Post by palata »

tonyhart7 wrote: post #84
palata wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally. I find it very interesting that we tend to criticize China for their protectionism, but as soon as something out-competes US companies, it gets banned: Huawei, DJI, TikTok. Of course it cannot be said like this, because "free speech" and "democracy", so the official reason is "national security".

well china does it too with google,fb etc back then, and other nation do it too albeit not outright banned it all together but sometimes they prefer homegrown company/technology

Sure. I just noted the irony that the US discourse has sounded a lot like "we are better than China, we are more free" for decades.

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#97

Post by infecto »

palata wrote: post #74
spencerflem wrote: post #67

Given how easy it is for China to buy US data legally from data brokers and how similar the functionality of TikTok and YouTube Shorts, I feel like the only explanations are: 1. The govt is mad that a foreign company is outcompeting a domestic one Or more likely, given that there are so many other industries that didn't get a ban: 2. The govt is mad that they have control over the narrative on Facebook but do not on…

Totally. I find it very interesting that we tend to criticize China for their protectionism, but as soon as something out-competes US companies, it gets banned: Huawei, DJI, TikTok. Of course it cannot be said like this, because "free speech" and "democracy", so the official reason is "national security".

I cannot argue on the TikTok as strongly but I can see strong arguments on why Huawei and DJI are national security risks. Some of this is more educated guesses so not defensible with numbers. We know most major companies in the Chinese market have extremely close ties to the CCP. No doubt historically the US has gotten companies to put in backdoors or other mechanisms but I believe the CCP takes it to a next level. We know for a fact that the CCP and chinese entities play extremely hardball when it comes to corporate espionage. Some of the stories we have seen almost read like a spy novel. Certainly Huawei and DJI make some incredible products but when you have drones being used to survey the electric grid or other major pieces of infrastructure, I do believe it warrants major concern for national security.

I think you are proposing a much more extreme conspiracy compared to the easier explanation, China is a fairly crafty bad actor in a lot of cases. 99% of the imported products from China are not getting blocked, just the ones that have very significant national security risks.

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#99

Post by maxglute »

zzzeek wrote: post #71
SiempreViernes wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some Japanese tried to buy one the these supposedly perfectly "independent private compan[ies]", and the US president said no, but that's completely different I'm sure.

right instead Biden ordered US Steel to close and cease all operations, just like Beijing is doing to TikTok. /sarcasm there is no comparison between these events

TikTok has entire RoW (excluding India) market. Assuming US only bans in US... which TBH we don't know. There's no comparison because TikTok is still massively profitable without US, whereas US Steel is still a mess without JP.

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#100

Post by GaryNumanVevo »

donatj wrote: post #29

If X ne Twitter knew what they were doing, now would have been the obvious moment to relaunch Vine.

I doubt they have the engineering experience to launch anything at this point. They try to do a weird tiktok like thing where watching a video on mobile will randomly scroll to another video, but I think this probably has more to do with juicing "unregretted user seconds" than anything.
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