TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users • Hacker News Board

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

#921

Post by nprateem » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 1:40 PM UTC

B-Con wrote: post #856

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?

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)…

Ha ha are you serious? Trump is a fragile-egoed narcissist.

He's not even in power and already everyone's sucking up to him.

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

#922

Post by JoshTko » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 1:41 PM UTC

_7acn wrote: post #876

I think apps like TikTok or YouTube Shorts literally brainwash people. It’s one of the dumbest things ever invented on the Internet, yet incredibly addictive at the same time.

It's a slot machine, a scroll is an arm pull. Sometimes you get a brain tickle and you keep on scrolling to get more. I'd bet money that the brain activity is exactly the same.

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

#923

Post by Leires » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 1:48 PM UTC

ornornor wrote: post #841

President 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.

iT's a doCuMentArY!

It's a film that was intended as a joke, and uses Eugenics as its premise. Yes, the Internet has made idiots louder, but it has also helped intelligent people become smarter. The next 4 years will be like the last 8, minus the pandemic.

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

#924

Post by nprateem » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 1:48 PM UTC

ttul wrote: post #790

lumost wrote: post #266

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

Here’s the law: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521... No, Trump can’t legally postpone or give reprieve to TikTok. The time has passed for that. Once Congress has enacted a statute and the President has signed it into law, the executive branch must enforce it. An executive order cannot override or suspend a duly passed law unless Congress included an explicit waiver or suspension provision i…

But that's the point isn't it. He's testing the waters.

There will be no consequences and therefore few limits to his power.

Welcome to the new dictatorship.

I'll post this here for posterity:

He'll find a way to get a 3rd term in power. Maybe he'll claim the constitution means no 2 consecutive terms, maybe he'll just ignore it, start a war, whatever.

But I'd be willing to bet on it. In fact, I just might...

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

#925

Post by drawkward » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 1:51 PM UTC

Leires wrote: post #923

ornornor wrote: post #841

President 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.

iT's a doCuMentArY! It's a film that was intended as a joke, and uses Eugenics as its premise. Yes, the Internet has made idiots louder, but it has also helped intelligent people become smarter. The next 4 years will be like the last 8, minus the pandemic.

>uses Eugenics as its premise

Uh, false?

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

#926

Post by BeFlatXIII » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 1:53 PM UTC

ourmandave wrote: post #181

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.

I wonder if those numbers would change if people read the same intel reports and knew how far the Chinese spies are up our asses.

Until they're shared to the public, the wise move is to choose not to believe them.

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

#927

Post by mr_toad » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 1:54 PM UTC

blahedo wrote: post #483

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?

> flip-flop so quickly The timing and phrasing make it clear that this was planned and negotiated in advance, and the shutdown was just for show in order to be able to post a memo about how "President Trump" saved it. If actual negotiation had to occur, it would not have happened in the twelve hours between midnight and noon on Sunday morning. The point of the stunt was to persuade large numbers of younger folks that…

> If actual negotiation had to occur, it would not have happened in the twelve hours

A spur of the moment decision would be more like Trump than a lengthy negotiation.

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

#928

Post by whazor » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 1:55 PM UTC

uniq7 wrote: post #881

_7acn wrote: post #876

I think apps like TikTok or YouTube Shorts literally brainwash people. It’s one of the dumbest things ever invented on the Internet, yet incredibly addictive at the same time.

Never had TikTok, but that's exactly what I thought when Youtube introduced Shorts and I found myself spending long sessions in them. However, now I think it's the same infinite scroll we already had in twitter and reddit -- but instead of text and images, now it's just videos. At the beginning the content was really dumb and bad, but after some time it became way better. Now my feed is basically cooking recipes, che…

For me, in reddit (and hacker news), I tend to actually read the actual video, read the comments, sometimes even leave a comment. Much more time spent on an actual item.

For short videos, it is a continuous stream of video's where a new video is automatically started after the last one. This is what makes shorts so horrible. You are forced to watch a new video every 15s to 1 min. Versus actively deciding yourself how long you look on a particular item. It becomes bad as your brain gets trained to loose interest after 1min.

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

#929

Post by HWR_14 » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 1:57 PM UTC

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?

In 2012 a coordinated action by 100,000 sites (including major platforms like Reddit, Wikipedia and Google) all went dark for 24 hours to protest SOPA, which was successful in killing the bill. Some only changed the color scheme and added a message but others shut down.

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

#930

Post by tekknik » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 2:01 PM UTC

HWR_14 wrote: post #929

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?

In 2012 a coordinated action by 100,000 sites (including major platforms like Reddit, Wikipedia and Google) all went dark for 24 hours to protest SOPA, which was successful in killing the bill. Some only changed the color scheme and added a message but others shut down.

> which was successful in killing the bill

the protests had no bearing on the outcome of the bill. most of us didn’t even know they were taking place.