That seems like a bit of an overreaction on the company’s part though, doesn’t it? It’s not at all clear that the president had a legal avenue to ban the service, and he has certainly said a lot of outlandish things that don’t come to pass.
>Better to throw away the US TikTok company at this point. It's clear the American general public, Trump and US government does not like dominant foreign social media companies in the US.
This would not be happening were TikTok German, French, British, Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese, etc. Just Chinese and Russian.
But unlike China, America fashions itself as a bastion of capitalism. Borrowing Chinese practices seems a little antithetical to everything I see America as
> But unlike China, America fashions itself as a bastion of capitalism. Borrowing Chinese practices seems a little antithetical to everything I see America as
China is approaching fascism from the Lenin-Stalin-Maoist “Communist” side, the US from the mixed economy welfare state side. That they should be increasingly borrowing unpleasant tactics from each other is unsurprising, even if contrary to the image each side tries to project for propaganda purposes.
The US hasn't yet quite established unquestioned control of the faction working to implement fascism, so has a better chance of changing course in the near future.
America has been acting neutral for last decades, especially last 15 years where China has asymmetrically taken advantage of American companies. China is getting a taste of their own medicine and I am fine with that.
This is essentially admitting that the free market lost and doesn't work anymore. Because the free market has clearly decided that it likes TikTok, even enough to share its data with the company.
I don't think people realize how significant this might be.
Countries intervening in private industry for national security reasons is a pretty ancient phenomenon. I doubt many people will see it as a fatal compromise of free market principles.
how is this in any way in opposition to the free market? The information is freely acceesible, the fact that its hard to understand is the problem of the consumer no? The free market solution would be to have some kind of independent organization summarize this information and attempt to distribute it in the hopes people read.
Capitalism is the reason the US outsourced its manufacturing to China to begin with - borrowing Chinese labor practices and corruption to do an end run around its own ideals for the sake of maximizing profits.
I mean, America is the country that fought the Nazis then hired them to build their space program just so they could plant their flag on the Moon and claim it before the Soviets. Hell, American companies were doing business with the Nazis while at war with the Nazis.
No nation puts it principles ahead of its interests.
Even if they were honest and absolutely no data ever went back to China after this (not likely), that’s still billions flowing right back to a Chinese company straight out of America if they’re purchased. If Trump is sincere about his America first claims, he’d have a good reason to ban it and make the product worthless regardless.
There are billions flowing between China and the US for all sorts of reasons. I've seen arguments that complete divestment from China is the morally right thing to do, but it's hard to imagine how it could be economically advantageous for the US from an "America first" perspective.
Trump's grudge on Tiktok users apart, could this be a plot of hostile take over?
With all the public threats ByteDance is receiving from president of USA, Msft or any other company which acquires, gets one of the biggest social networking site of the decade at give away price.
We may never know the history definitively, but it's likely the sale would have been under discussion for months, from when politicians were strongly indicating that TikTok's ownership structure wouldn't be acceptable in the long term but hadn't announced any concrete action. These kinds of huge deals can only be constructed so quickly, even under time pressure.
I don’t think it’s at a discount at all. They’re effectively selling it at the height of the market. Even if they cut valuation in half, it’d still be at a significant premium.
Tiktok needs to be hooked up to PRISM and all the other NSA programs immediately. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft or whoever buys it is compensated with a piece of US intelligence's bottomless pit of money.
Just echo back on U.S. doesn't have precedents of blocking software in the article. I don't think that's true. U.S. has both means (file request to Apple and Google to pull software off the shelf, remove the domain from root DNS etc) and done these before for piracy and other reasons.
DMCA is for one. I am not sure for "national security" reasons what options would be. It is definitely challenging to come up with excuses within rules of law. I would imagine that some combinations of failures to meet FCC regulation and "immediate" national security threat probably would do the trick. There is no guarantee that Apple AppStore or Google Play Store won't make a stand and challenge these requests in court though.
Remember when we banned the export of cryptographic software routines, because they’re a form of armament? There’s loads of precedent, we just quickly forget.
In general, multinationals could more actively cede their host nation. My guess is we'd see less restrained behavior from corporations if Trump wins a second term for a variety of reasons.
I don't know why this is getting downvoted; companies in other sectors (e.g. oil) get involved in US politics regularly.
But there's little precedent for media companies to take action in US politics overtly. (IANAL, but I suspect there are legal impediments as well). Taking a political stand, or providing support for one side, might force big tech companies to resolve the ambiguity as to whether they're media companies or not.
EDIT 2: I can see I've accidentally opened a can of worms about biased coverage and editorials; but my usage of "support" was intended as overt and consistent involvement in political campaigning, generally through donations. And to my surprise, that does occur.
There is extreme precedent, media companies have been political for their entire history. They're pretty tame today for what it's worth, William Randolph Hearst started a war to sell newspapers.
I mean, if this goes through essentially what will have happened is the president used the power of the state to get a foreign company to sell control of a valuable product to Microsoft at what will almost certainly be a firesale price. If I were Microsoft, I wouldn't be complaining!
They already are. There were revelations just this week that Google has removed conservative media from search results in what would appear to be a direct effort to interfere in the 2020 election.
One can assume they already are. By virtue of having a disproportionate representation of one political party within their ranks (which they do), you can argue that a lot of their decision making (however benign/simple/small) will fall in line with that parties platform, or end up promoting that party in some way.
Right now from my point of view, it absolutely looks like the big social-media companies like Youtube/Twitter/Reddit/etc are actively purging large conservative opinions/voices in anticipation for the US election coming up. It's downright Orwellian that we allow them to have such a huge impact on political elections under the guise of "community standards". Those same community-standards that are touted for protecting the vulnerable are acting as camouflage for political meddling.
As for Tik-tok, I'd ban it just for the degenerate social impact it's having on a large section of our youth population. Ditto for gang-glorifying, misogynistic rap music.
>As for Tik-tok, I'd ban it just for the degenerate social impact it's having on a large section of our youth population. Ditto for gang-glorifying, misogynistic rap music.
Multi billion dollar porn industry with no barrier to entry as far as viewer age where the youth are concerned but a dance app is worrying. I suspect you sound like your out-of-touch parents did when you were a kid.
It's that people argue the virtues of "free-markets" while simultaneously arguing the most valuable thing any business should build is a "moat".
It the utter acknowledgment that avoiding/prevent competition is the way to be successful, while arguing that free markets enforce competition.
Its blatantly obvious that network effects, exclusivity contracts and monopolies exist. And well and market dominance leads to more dominance by purchasing any future competitive business. And yet claim most success comes from marker efficiency.
Taking a non-tech example. Madden is getting closer to a 20 year exclusive license NFL on consoles. No game can compete with made up teams and rosters. The product is stagnant, innovation a dump and yet this continuous aspect of "free-market" is ignored.
I think you’re conflating a “free market” with a “perfectly competitive market”.
By and large, the US is a free market with your obvious government regulations. However, it’s not a perfectly competitive market because of the things you mentioned. Because a true “perfectly competitive market” is almost impossible to achieve, no nation’s economy is, but some are closer to it than others.
Perfect competition benefits the consumers most, while network effects, exclusivity contracts, and monopolies obviously benefit the companies more.
One of the biggest goals of US government economic regulations (at least ideally) is to steer the market as close to a perfectly competitive market as possible. Companies optimize in the other direction, and try to make their market less competitive despite those regulations.
This dynamic doesn’t mean it’s not a free market, it just means that we need regulations to counteract the forces of companies and keep it competitive.
This is why I find it misguided when people want a totally libertarian system with no regulations, because that will inevitably lead to a less competitive/efficient market.
100% agreed. I"m using however somehow I feel most of HN doesn't see this.
The issue is between how the term "free market" is defined and how it's used. My usage above is how it's commonly used - as meaning a "competitive market" - which as you mention is completely wrong.
A truly competitive market benefits consumers and society overall. A completely free market on the other hand benefits rent seeking and is a drain on society.
Free markets naturally tend towards anti-competetive rent-seeking behaviors. The best thing you can do for a market economy is to ensure it stays a competitive market. There will always be inefficiencies in markets which will accrue towards companies - but the amount of excess rent-seeking that flows to companies needs to be actively minimized.
No-one argues that the US has an unregulated free market and no-one respectable argues that it should.
Keeping spyware-collected data of private citizens out of the hands of antagonistic authoritarian regimes seems like an appropriate use of regulation, no? Hard to argue its less appropriate than trust-busting or consumer protection regulations.
> Keeping spyware-collected data of private citizens out of the hands of antagonistic authoritarian regimes seems like an appropriate use of regulation, no?
Possibly, yes. And if your goal was actually to fight authoritarianism, you’d be sure to pass these regulations in some sort of democratic process. You’d send it through Congress and give the people’s elected representatives a chance to weigh in. You wouldn’t use an executive order outside of very extreme, time-sensitive circumstances, if you actually gave a shit about fighting authoritarianism.
>give the people’s elected representatives a chance to weigh in
Is POTUS not an elected representative? Congress can overrule the president if they want to, there's nothing stopping them.
Also, who said the goal was "fighting authoritarianism"? I'm pretty sure the goal is to let americans use TikTok without MSS having all their personal data.
> No-one argues that the US has an unregulated free market and no-one respectable argues that it should.
No, but plenty of people vacuously and consistently argue that regulations should be eliminated because "free-market". And have no issue with most companies eliminating competition through any means other than producing a better product.
Taking an example people agree with. Apple should open up it's phone platform to other stores. If they're concerned about security, they can still be the final arbiters of what apps can ship. Ie they approve apps for all stores. However, each store can have it's own experience and crucially it's own cut of apps sold. Let's see how many consumers feel there is enough value in apple store to pay a 30% premium on apps they buy. More rent seeking.
But that's one of the few cases HN actually agrees with. the 1000s of others out there, people don't blink an eye.
Or even a TikTok China and TikTok for the rest of the world? (Considering the ban of TikTok in India and the perceived threat of TikTok amongst several other countries as well.)
"TikTok China" exists already, it's Douyin. It was there first (2016). Bytedance created TikTok as "international" Douyin in 2017, then merged it with musical.ly.
The split would likely be Douyin (TikTok China) vs. TikTok for the rest of the world. The business is already structured that way- ByteDance operates Douyin directly but TikTok operates through a subsidiary.
The subsidiary is for legal purposes only, all of the tech is built and operated from China and is subject to Chinese laws.
In fact, even after divestiture this will be the case for some time. The Chinese entity holds the IP to the algorithms and other underlying technology that make Tik Tok as viral as it is.
I thought it was the Tiktok for the rest of the world other than Douyin (Tiktok China), but I'm not sure.
If it is true that there would be a US-only version, then it sounds little bit ironic - if this kind of thing keeps happening the US would be somehow walled itself just like China...
At current point, around 0%. TikTok simply absorbed the idea and the users.
By the way, according to your post history, I believe the following fact would be interesting for you: Musical.ly is a 100% Chinese app [1] with their HQ in Shanghai.
From what I know:
Jack Dorsey closed down Vine. It wasn't destroyed by any country. Bytedance bought Musical.ly(Chinese App) and merged it with Tiktok.
I have never used either but I from what I can see is Tiktok is an evolution of Vine but not a copy. Vine was probably just too early.
Trump seems intent on this because of the Tulsa Rally fiasco. But at what point does it backfire on him? Tens of millions of pissed off 18yr olds could easily sway the election.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has quietly avoided the anti-trust spotlight recently yet has acquired github, LinkedIn, and now a social network that could rival Facebook. Satya Nadella is a genius.
US is doing with China what China did with them. American VCs and business men used to criticize and mock Chinese government for it. Since US is following the footsteps of China, I wonder whether Chinese will be doing what US VCs did?
You can't speak truth on HN -- too many here are infected with Chinese money. Kevin Mayer at TikTok, Neil Bush supporting Chinese aerospace companies -- it's just standard business. But wait, they can justify their "globalization" with authoritarian powers because 1) it makes them rich and 2) they don't believe in principles like classical liberalism.
Congress has passed a number of laws delegating a substantial amount of power to the President on matters of international trade and national security, e.g. IEEPA.
It's not 'US market forces' that will open China, and it never was.
It was the opportunity to expand into global economic markets, with a certain perspective in mind, ballpark along the lines of Western Liberal Democracy and Economy.
The Asian countries that followed this path after WW2 were enormously succesfull: South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan.
They are basically beacons of prosperity surrounded by economic mayhem.
China chose 'it's own path' - which is fine - and there are probably many advantages to the central planning early on (those other nations did that, Korea was an authoritarian state and then opened eventually, kind of 'part of a plan') - but of course the CCP has another agenda, they don't want to cede power, and China has a different historical view of itself which is not just a function of CCP propaganda.
I think it is literally at this very point wherein the 'advantage' of autocracy is starting to be a disadvantage, and that a degree of opening up would actually beneficial.
Basically - once you get the 'easy investments' done - like roads, bridges, and you succesfull rip off everyone else's IP and are 'to some extent caught up' - then the plan starts to falter. At some point, you have to 'lead' - and it takes a different kind of approach. At least in many areas, though we should not underestimate them.
There are no obvious economic choices for China now and their 'old plan' won't work. Putting Uyghers in jail, grabbing S. China sea, getting into pissing matches with India and Japan - none of this will bear fruits.
The 'Belt and Road' is actually one 'grand strategy' that a central power like China could have that America could never have (takes a couple decades of consistent vision) - but it seems that the heavy handedness and deep corruption of the system won't allow for it.
Geopolitically, people 'love to hate on America' in the press and in propaganda, but when 'push comes to shove' there is nobody who doesn't understand what side they would rather be on, both pragmatically and for the sake of the good of everyone.
Though Trump is a dufous and blow-hard (sorry), he is actually the only Western leader with the 'crazy like a fox' to take on China, and he's absolutely right to ban TikTok and other entities.
Basically - the West needs to apply trade rules with China that are exactly tit for tat: China doesn't allow foreign competition in certain areas - then we ban that. They don't allow ownership, then we ban that. They have a lot of controls over content, then we do as well - we ban everything remotely related to the Chinese state. They require foreign companies to fork over IP, and then give it to local champions - then we do as well.
Imagine how the world would react if the US required Huawei to give up all it's IP, held it up in bureaucracy for years, while they gave the IP to Cisco, and then the Treasury and the Fed financed Cisco and their international customers, while the US diplomatic corps acted both as a sales team for Cisco, and did economic espionage to thwart competitors outright?
That would be 'fair'.
There is a Canadian company [1] that lost a contract to the Canadian government for airport scanners - the Chinese bid was 25% lower. The complaint was that the Canadian company would never be allowed to bid on such a sensitive contract in China, moreover, there were state subsidies. How on earth is this fair or free trade? It's not. If China won't allow external bidders for airport security tools - we don't allow them either.
It's really almost a paradox to understand why even China has been able to maintain such a lop-sided advantage.
It started 30 years ago, when China was so poor that the West basically accepted the asymmetrical terms of trade. Like a frog in cool water that's getting warmer never thinks to jump out - West...
Not sure why you're getting down voted but does anything genuinely think trade has been fair for the US, Canada and China? Would love to hear the opposing side.
I also like the grandparent post, but I'll take a crack at presenting an opposing side. The idea of a lopsided trading relationship, with the US being the losers, and China the winners, seems a bit dubious to me. Chinese companies work because they have cheap labour, a lot of talent, and massive economies of scale. Blaming the demise of US industry on China is absurd - US industry started declining in the 80's, because neo-liberal economics basically amounts to industrial sabotage on the policy level. Every country that went hard neoliberal has very little industry today, while the few that didn't (Germany, France, Japan) still have very competitive industry.
The idea of unfair trade is also a bit of a mercantilist trope, so I'm not sure it makes sense on its own terms - but at the very least, it's normally something that requires an unequal relationship between trading partners. Like, I think it would be fair to say that trade deals between first and third world nations are often unfair, because there are ample opportunities for one party to lean on the other. This obviously isn't so between the US and China. If there are conditions that favour Chinese companies, it's because of policies that were, at the time, thought to benefit the US - and which probably do benefit the US, at least insofar as GDP growth is concerned (the US has remained pretty good in this arena).
Trump's whole schtick of 'bring back coal' comes to mind here. Obviously, you could hammer out a trade agreement that would end up with coal mines reopening in Wyoming, with steelworks in Pittsburgh - but would it actually help the US?
As for the whole question of whether or not China is 'playing dirty', or muscling their way through established norms, I think it's obviously not the case - or at least, it's by no means the case that China plays more dirty than anybody else - least of all the US.
I think the politics of China do deserve a great deal of scrutiny, and if there's something that the west should be putting pressure on them for, it's the slide into totalitarianism we've witnessed over the last few years. However, all the stuff about trade seems two parts grandstanding and one part hypocrisy.
I'll answer the question in a more standard way, and disagree with your points along the way.
'Fair Trade' does not have to be 'Trade on Equal Terms'.
That is how the relationship started: China was 'very poor' and so the asymmetrical trade rules made sense. Pepsi and Coke and a few others had access to China market, people 'looked the other way' at the IP issues.
But in 2020, China is in a different situation, and the asymmetrical rules are basically 'not fair'.
"The idea of unfair trade is also a bit of a mercantilist trope,"
This is false.
If one nation is allowed to sell into the other, but does not allow the other to sell to it - this is 'unfair trade'. Blatantly.
If one nation uses state subsidies to support fledgling industries, so that they can dump on foreign markets and 'take over the global industry' - this is obviously unfair trade. China did this with Solar Panel market - subsidising their industry to flood America with cheap products, putting everyone out of business etc.. This is not a 'new' idea, these concepts have been well understood for hundreds of years.
"Blaming the demise of US industry on China is absurd "
Nobody is 'blaming' US economic issues on the US. What I'm articulating is that China is effectively 'cheating' (or rather, has an obvious upper hand) and it needs to be rectified.
"As for the whole question of whether or not China is 'playing dirty', or muscling their way through established norms, I think it's obviously not the case - or at least, it's by no means the case that China plays more dirty than anybody else - least of all the US."
This is again false. We can call it 'dirty' or not - but China plays 'extremely protectionalist' first off, second, they have state intervention, which is not suitable for trade.
There are a million and one things that the US cannot do in China, but that China can do in the US. This is blatantly lop-sided. The US should apply the same rules to China as China does to the US.
Second, and more nuanced, is the state intervention. Again, the example:
Imagine if the US forced Huawei to give designs and IP over to Cisco, and the US Pres had direct authority over major banks, ordered JP Morgan to finance Cisco buyers in Brasil, Germany etc. - and for liquidity, ordered the US Federal Reserve to print money for that purpose. It sounds incredibly bizarre, right? Well that's what China does today!
So it's fine for them to play the game they want to play, but the West needs to respond in kind.
This has little to do with 'bringing back coal mines' obviously. But it may have something to do with bringing back manufacturing - in a highly automated way.
"about trade seems two parts grandstanding and one part hypocrisy."
No it's not, generally speaking the US is pretty good on these things, and has fostered a lot of very important international agreements and ideas along these lines as well. Of course, trade really does benefit the US a lot, so it's to a great extent self interest, but still.
The world needs to trade with China on somewhat different terms.
The US isn't a monolith. Shareholder certainly benefited from lower manufacturing costs, but people employed in dying industries suffered enormously. Maybe in a hypothetical world where the profits were shared equitably, that would have been a good deal for the US as a whole. Seems to me like a case of moral hazard - investors are making decisions that affect the long-term health of the country without bearing any of the consequences themselves.
Some really good points here. I suspect the downvotes are due to the “China coverup” part where people are assuming you are talking about conspiracy theories related to the Wuhan lab, rather than the more general initial coverup where the CCP decided to arrest doctors for telling people about the virus.
You cited various Asian countries, but literally every one of those countries paved the same path as China. Authoritarianism with protectionism (as allowed by the rules of WTO developing nations), followed by economic prosperity and democratization.
Xi Jinping has made it very clear that China is not going to follow the authoritarianism -> democratization part of that pipeline under his watch and other countries are reacting accordingly.
Singapore is known for being an authoritarian nanny state and now we are calling them a "western liberal democracy" and taking credit for their success.
Also, Hong Kong never had democracy under British rule. All 28 Hong Kong governors were British residents who were picked by London and parachuted into their jobs.
I don't think this will make China more open, because even banning Huawei did not make China reflect on its open policy. IMO, Huawei is more close to Chinese government compred to Bytedance, and I saw much less comments from top officer or state-owned medias about this acquisition compraed to that about Huawei.
Do you think this art of the deal stuff is really working out even between America and its allies? It's giving them second thoughts on depending on America for trade and even defense. It won't work with China either.
They criticize and mock the government, yet they do what the govt tells them anyway, because money. Looks like Chinese businessmen are willing to do the same.
I don't think the US is necessarily doing it permanently. Likely this is a short term geopolitical tactic to get China to play a little fairer on the field. It was always weird how this double standard existed where China would block Western companies but demand free access to Western markets. This is just tit for tat. Also, I don't think this is a "Trump" thing (although he has accelerated the process), relations between the US and China were already on the decline starting with Obama's first term.
I don't think it will be successful, I think China has made it very clear they will continue to play the US time and time again until they are dominant. The CCP will accept nothing but that. But that's the thinking behind the current moves.
I don't think primary driver for this move is US it looks like to be coming from the Indian ban. India had 120 million active TikTok users. It was one of the fastest growing apps there.
Not really. India really has very little clout in today’s digital economy. There’s a ton of users, but very little money to be made there since it’s a relatively poor country
Which also means USA is doing with it's citizens what China did with theirs.
You will regret having the government choosing your apps and websites. Your jubilee will turn into sorrow, the Chinese way of life business is not a good life. You will regret becoming a China.
You will regret having the government choosing your apps and websites.
I agree, but this isn't far off from the GDPR and similar laws that take the view that individuals aren't competent to decide for themselves what privacy policies are acceptable.
Chinese government didn't allow people in China to use US services (Google, Twitter, FB) and instead invested and marketed Chinese "clones" of these businesses (Tencent, Weibo, Baidu).
Now that the Chinese owned TikTok is such a desirable app to use in the USA, the US government is blocking it in a similar fashion.
Where have you heard the US government is blocking the app? The gigantic security issues have been because the US government doesn't block apps like this.
It can forbid government workers from using it on government-provided devices. This is sensible due to the capabilities for arbitrary code execution and the full permissions to the device the app requires of the user. Amazon has done that with their employees as well. But the US government doesn't have a Great Firewall. Even if they wanted to, they couldn't ban or block it.
Edit: Apologies. I mistook the unlikelihood of anything like this being effective as reason enough for no one (let alone the President) to make statements like this. I stand corrected.
It was a huge story yesterday that Trump has said he’s going to ban it.
And while it’s not clear exactly how they’d ban it, it certainly isn’t impossible. They could tell major telcos to block IP ranges. Or tell Apple and Google to pull the app. Everyone involved could just say no to the government but it’s not all that clear that they would.
Considering the government strong armed Google into not interacting with Huawei, and considering many other governments have done IP bans / app store removal pressure, I find it a bit funny that the original reply was saying "who said the government will block TikTok?", as if that wasn't news directly from the President's mouth
Fair point, however it was blasted all over CNBC and etc, maybe I need to read the news less and my programming reference manuals more as a better use of my time
So tiktok, aka the CCP, are actively trying to sway the US election. I recall the past 3 years were spent hearing people lament about foreign interference in our democratic system. But now the ACLU says it’s ok? Which is it? Pick a side.
There has been a China version of so many apps and websites for a very long time, where China companies have to have full control of the data.
US is doing to China what China been doing to US companies since forever.
In Amazon, Microsoft etc, US engineers of those companies aren't allowed to access the China servers directly and have to go through the Chinese operators.
Having US data in US hands doesn't seem like a terrible development to me.
In China, the relationship between tech companies and the government is very close, and none would question any data requests. Its nothing like Apple which openly fights the US government in the supreme court..
Apple fights to not be forced to unlock phones, which is admirable, but they'll happily turn over your iCloud data.
To me the greater outrage is that the president can arbitrarily decide which apps citizens may or may not use. I would like to make that choice for myself, thank you very much.
Is that an abuse of power? Probably yes. Do I agree with it? Absolutely yes, because it is for the greater good of the citizens of the country.
Do I like Trump in general? Absolutely not, but I also don't automatically start cursing any decision he makes just because its made by him without trying to use two brain cells to analyze it first.
I feel safer knowing US data can be accessed by US government entities than foreign ones, specially ones that have a documented track record of industrial espionage against the country. Can't imagine what good can come off the Chinese government having access to PII and potential backdoor capabilities (e.g. the clipboard scandal) of tens of millions of children of US engineers/politicians/workers.
Is there a single reason why that can be good for the US citizens?
The choice of the president wasn't about the "app" itself. It was about the data being stored in foreign lands. If the app didn't have copious amounts of data of US citizens, he wouldn't have cared, even if it had a 100% user base in the US.
Europe has very similar rules on EU data being stored in EU data centers. Germany is a good example of those policies and no one seems to critisize them, because no one "blanket-hates" European leaders like they do to Trump.
The decision to ban was because TikTok didn't seem to be willing to cooperate to fix the data locality problem. Had they promised and started moving their data centers to the US, I doubt this would have happened. The acquisition by MS if happens, would do just that and allow the app to continue being used.
They've already done that. Currently there are a couple major data centers being in US/Singapore. US data is not permitted to go to china. The data currently is stored in a mix of US/singapore so can't claim solely US. The relevant blog post is here, https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/statement-on-tiktoks-conte.... I'd guess if US requested data to be solely US, that shift would probably be fine as currently singapore is mainly used as a backup and it'd be doable to have data centers in more distinct regions as currently US data is in just virginia.
Also trump already announced he does not intend to permit microsoft acquiring tiktok to be enough to not ban them. I'm doubtful he'd have any chance winning a court case if tiktok did sell to microsoft, but sounds like he'll push on the ban regardless.
Do you have any insight/theories into why Trump is so opposed to tiktok?
Just as a political calculation it seems curious. (Rile up young voters who tend to swing against you, eliminate a social network that from what I can see is relatively conservative-friendly.)
It's a possibility, but I would guess no. The complaints from US sources have largely been about the user data from passively running the app, so I wouldn't expect regulatory obstacles to letting the videos themselves go across borders while keeping user data within the US company. (There could be technical challenges, but TikTok presumably already had to address them for GDPR compliance in Europe.)
As I currently recide in a country famous for blocking access to websites, I follow these developments as closely as I can.
Whatever happens, it's probably going to be a recipe on how to force all foreign providers to act the way the local government wants. These days the theme is forcing on the ant-gay stance, they managed to force Netflix a show that had a gay character in it. Besides that charade, they passed laws to control the social media in the name of national security and citizens rights. This comes after Twitter exposed and deleted a pro government troll army.
Anyway, if this happens Facebook, Google, Twitter etc. can start looking into the future of Instagram for Iran, Twitter for Turkey, Google for EU - all forced to partner with a local company and the global versions inaccessible.
I am sure that the US ban of TikTok would be well rationalised but the US could have chosen the EU approach of enforcing US data being kept on US soil. Sad that US choose the Chinese approach of right our of banning(because somehow becoming like China is the way of topping the authoritarian Chinese order). Something tells me that this is not about national security.
Welcome to the world of partitioned internet in the name of national security. A boring dystopia where the less fre world no longer has a role model.
I hope you enjoy the life where the government is telling you what you can and can't use so that the country stays safe. Brilliant system that served all kind of authoritarian regimes.
Good luck to the start-ups, from now on you are looking to a future where you will have to strike a deal with each country you want to operate.
"Your app just crossed the TOP100 mark in the AppStore, would be shame if something happens to it because of national security. Maybe you should sell it to our crony while it's still worth something"
Ironically, this future might be what CCP wished. Their practice won't be regarded as "archaic" anymore and U.S ultimate grip in tech might start to wane, however small will be.
A few days ago Pompeo warned that CCP might change "us" (outside PRC in this context). It seems, however, that U.S. might be the first to be changed.
I know right? And this saddens me because my whole life the USA was the role model. I was born in a communist country but it changed to be more like USA at my early childhood, so USA is the dream. Now the USA is becoming this thing that values state security in expense of individual freedoms. I am totally not amused.
edit: unfavourable opinions seem to get downvoted into oblivion. I am actually surprised by the jubilance in the tech community towards state intervention. Had no idea that people dreamed of becoming like China where the all knowing government protects them by telling them what apps can use and which website they can visit.
sounds like an excuse to me. How is a political organization in a country that has no jurisdiction over you in any way a threat to your individual freedoms, but the state apparatus in your own country somehow not even when its literally telling you which apps you can use and which ones you can't?
As a US citizen, I'm incredibly saddened and disappointed in how my fellow Americans fall for the "national security" excuse every single time.
You'd think we'd have learnt by now. We do not deserve the freedom we have since we clearly don't care about it. Just look at all of the pro-ban comments in this thread.
I wonder how long this deal has actually been in the works, and Trump, seemingly privy to this knowledge, saw a good opportunity to take credit by pre-empting the inevitable announcement of a sell off. Why else would he announce his plans of an executive order instead of just doing it?
you might be right, but there are other reason to announce instead of doing: getting leverage, getting attention, being someone that talks a lot and does much less, not having a brain/mouth filter... probably a mix of trying to get leverage for something probably unrelated and getting some attention (possibly diverting it from something else)
From the US-China conflict perspective, it seems the Trump administration is looking for something that China cannot easily retaliate.
China can easily pick a consulate to close when the US closes consulate in Houston. But businesses from the US in China always require Chinese companies to operate, just like World of Warcraft is operated by NetEase in China.
After Microsoft acquire Tiktok's operation, if China just picks some US business to do the same it would make China looks too soft because China is already doing this for decades, and Trump could claim the US has beaten China in this round. But if China escalates the conflict by retaliating in radical ways, the Trump administration could rally more before the election.
Very much that. Beijing is running out of big "American" companies it can retaliate against.
No Facebook in China, no Tviter in China, all major American brands are effectively franchises, or joint ventures, so they will be shooting their own business in the foot.
They can of course order those Chinese joint venture owners to appropriate the American stake in their corporate entities, but those state never been high to begin with, with Chinese JV sides always trying to exfiltrate equity out of them.
Out of big fish, pretty much the only one remaining is Apple, which owns very little in China, but will be crippled if being denied access to Chinese contract manufacturers.
Apple will have 1-2 really bad years and would eventually be able to move their supply chain to other countries . Apple has the money to whether that storm
The millions of jobs lost in China would be permanent, and start a trend and they loose their manufacturing edge .
To add to your point: Apple has been pretty rapidly shifting operations to India, precisely for this reason. I’d be willing to bet Apple has plans in place to move the rest of their manufacturing operations if China were to retaliate against it. Not saying it would be easy, or painless, but perhaps not as difficult as we’d imagine.
I doubt China is interested to escalate this, beside some rhetoric. In fact, U.S. might open the pandora box of data sovereignty.
China already started to change U.S. just as Pompeo feared.
FYI, among the big tech Microsoft seems to have one of the best relationship with the Chinese state. Bing and Outlook is available albeit censored. Windows also widely used. It could be the case that Microsoft has a back channel with Chinese gov and already discussed this issue. I hope that the acquisition will be smooth.
> But businesses from the US in China always require Chinese companies to operate
This is a very common misconception. It was true decades ago, when China was just beginning to open up, but over the past three decades, joint-venture requirements have been removed from most industries.
social media app that has up to 80 million daily active users in the United States.
Crazy that one person can ban something over 1/4 the US population uses every day. The implications of that are staggering.
(for any politically trigger fingered voters who think this opinion is derived based on current administration, you would be incorrect. I do not think something like this should ever be decided by a single person, it should go through congress and if a new law or decision is the result of that, the party which is to be banned should have the ability to make their case to SCOTUS)
Crazy that one person controls an app that over 1/4 the US population uses.
Crazy that over 1/4 the population uses one entertainment app. I don't even see how that's possible, even if all tweens/teens/teen-aspirationals use it.
I don't know if it's "crazy" that 1 person (if it's indeed just 1 person) can ban an app. After all political/judicial/comercial orders to ban things happen all the time.
I think it's more telling that 1 decision can be effective actually banning it - considering that there are so many things/services that are banned and yet available online, the fact that this hypothetical ban be effective, says more for the tech stack of this app/service than for the actually political/commercial decision to ban it.
Yup, it was Trump that tantrumed out of the TPP, which was created as a firewall to China. Because of this, China has been growing increasingly confident, sensing the weakness in this administration and its inability to play geopolitics properly.
Obama's pivot was based on TTP, and generally avoiding direct confrontation with China.
Trump's agenda is completely different - ignoring partnership/bilateral approach, and fairly assertively acting against China.
But those were also strategies founded in different eras: the TTP was create back when China was still not quite powerful enough to be a dangerous world actor. Now it's more of a 'standoff' situation with unpredictable leadership from Trump.
And with only a 4 year horizon after which 'everything changes' on the American side.
Don’t think it’ll change with Biden. The rhetoric level may change, but the overall sentiment is quite bipartisan and public opinion of China right now in America is awful.
Also, the US can just ban it tomorrow and it’ll disappear.
They will not have remotely the same size of users who will be using the web version. The concern is size of their the control , not that they control at all
They'll probably end up banning advertisers from paying them, and TikTok from paying content creators. Sure, Americans will still be able to access the content (over an inferior interface), but TikTok will probably be losing money on American viewers (not necessarily a problem for a propaganda outlet), and TikTok won't be able to incentivize good content.
In the sense that they have been known to remove discussion that the CCP doesn't like [1], that they've created an environment where people feel the need to talk positively about China to get views [2], and in the sense that they are controlled by a company with close ties to the CCP (like practically every large company in China, harder to cite this but for an example see [3]).
You've hit my concern. Which was very little about spyware, and more about having a platform installed on devices all over the world that the CCP can just slip content into whenever it wants. Russia signed up for FB/Twitter/Reddit accounts and spread confusion and lies, imagine if they owned the platforms how much more targeted and impactful it could be.
TikTok seems to impress people with its algorithm serving them content they like, many HNers describe it as addicting even, that sounds like a tool for manipulation (which feels like all the internet is these days anyway, but I digress.)
I also don't like the idea of the US banning apps. But I also don't trust people to choose not to invest attention in TikTok. The world's a muddy, messed up, place.
> then tiktok may simply provide a web version. Will US build some kind of firewall?
There is no need to do that. TikTok has significant US offices and operations. All the government would have to do is fine them/arrest them if they refuse to follow the law.
Thats how the law works. If you don't follow it, you get fined or arrested.
Us companies like Facebook and Twitter had a chance to operate in China as long as they were willing to follow local laws/policies; they were banned because they didn’t want to cooperate.
On the other hand, TikTok seems willing to obey us laws and is bringing its team/data center into the us. Banning TikTok in spite of that sounds similar to injecting disinfectant for COVID
China is a communist regime. They can do whatever the hell they want, why would american companies spend any time conforming to their demands when they can pull the rug out from under them at any time. Also, they would be under their total control forever.
Many american companies seem to collaborate successfully with this communist regime including but not limited to Apple, Microsoft, Amazon. Even Google still has Google Ads platform operating in China.
> They can do whatever the hell they want, why would american companies spend any time conforming to their demands when they can pull the rug out from under them at any time.
You can literally stand in front of the white house and call president trump whatever you want. Nobody is going to stop you. Go stand in front of the white house with a picture of trump calling him a cheeto or whatever, you're fine. You cannot even call the chinese dictator winnie the pooh online in china, or you get gulag'd.
The TikTok app is served by the US data center operated by a team in the US. If they violate any US law, federal regulators can find out and punish TikTok based on evidence like how they fined Facebook. Being owned by the CCP doesn't mean that they cannot obey US law.
And it is really hard to imagine how CCP can harm the interests of the US people with those short fun videos. Does Trump believe virus spreads via these short videos?
If the EU banned American big tech, they'd be set aback 20 years. Of course where would be a populist revolution.
The difference between the EU and US on this matter, is that the EU has almost no substitutes, and they just don't - for whatever reason (there are many) have he will to do them.
And of course there's no point - what FB is doing is no different from what a EU-based FB would do.
the EU would use yandex and VK. They are decent enough substitutes for google and FB , and of course the extra attention would make them better. There is enough money in the EU to buy them. There are already popular alternatives to US messaging apps, e.g. Viber.
I've been doing tech in Poland since ~2002 and it's not true.
We had a counterpart for I think every single US-based service, but most sites didn't survive the competition. Right now only eBay failed to enter our market (they tried, but the local Allegro won out).
Personally, I'm not the fan of the local copycats - because of their local scale they couldn't really get enough profit/investment to grow the tech just as much. But still - at least in Poland, it's not true that there were no substitutes.
It's easy to create those apps when there is no external competition. China created every major internet service U.S has. EU can easily do the same.
The point is FB pay tax to US, and a EU-based FB will pay tax to EU. EU actually want to copy GFW , see https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/6487...
Unfortunately, all of these answers are off the mark.
A) Europe has tons of bright people and tons of technical talent - this is not the ussie.
B) Governments don't create stuff. So the 'EU' is barely a government it's not 'they' who can go and make something, or 'have it made'. Even the US gov. would suck bad at copying FB. Granted, if there were no competition, substitutes would arrive.
C) Europe does not have quite the dynamic leadership exhibited in the Valley. Maybe there would be something pop up, but it probably would be a bad clone, it might not have all the nimble features. FB advertising engine is complex, massive, they have huge ad sales division. This is the $$$ the pays for everything.
D) EU is still highly fragmented, and not an immigrant place like SV. Better to think of SV as really a 'global centre' that happens to be in America. Tons of talent from around the world, they come for the money and adventure, not so much to be 'American'.
E) Europeans value quality of life a lot, and in some things it's fine, but in some industries ... it means less competitive.
F) Europe esp. Germany, does not 'get' software in the way SV does.
So Europe has all the pieces but they are not quite aligned.
It's not at all 'easy' to fire on all cylinders and create amazing new experiences.
ByteDance et. al. have zillions of workers, working cheaply, often 7 days a week.
So Europe is good at R&D, Hardware, Lifestyle stuff, and stuff that doesn't need huge scale and major talent depth, things that don't move 24/7.
But EU is not going to build something 'better' than FB or Google anytime soon. But they discover good drugs and make good cars etc..
> If the EU banned American big tech, they'd be set aback 20 years. Of course where would be a populist revolution.
Be more specific. I remember a time where dailymotion was mocking Youtube as a money blackhole due to its shitty tech. Lots of startups people in the US use are from Europe (Spotify). Lots of startups that exist in Europe don't even exist in the US, or don't get that much traction in the US (monzo, revolut, blablacar, thetrainline, toogoodtogo, etc.)
> And of course there's no point - what FB is doing is no different from what a EU-based FB would do.
there is so much wrong in this sentence. By being a US company FB is run much more differently. Control of information.
You know there is this movement called open source software right?
With it not only a lot of strategical pieces of software are available to anyone to modify, but it also allowed people all over the world to contribute to them.
This means that not only Europe but other parts of the world have people with enough knowledge to not only contribute, combine and use those things but also to 'push the envelope' in research and development.
BTW, a more decentralized, organic tech world, is something we should try to achieve, because as we are seeing now, there are no safe heavens for anything, anymore.
We should think more like human beings and less with nationalistic mentality, because all i've seeing til now, is nationalistic values being use not just to undermine other countries, but also undermine the nationalistic's own country.
If there's one valuable lesson history teach us, is that even the Rome empire, comparatively much powerful than anything we have now, started to fall when they corrupted the core values that served as a foundation of the Roman empire.
And nationalistic, the "we are better than everyone else", walls, stupid wars, etc..
But lets not forget an important difference here, right now all the achievements, the culture, the universities, the internet, the knowledge is widespread all over the world..
This is a pandora box effect, that once opened, cannot be closed anymore.
So even if the US totally closed itself to the world, im pretty sure the world would keep moving forward, and once this Donald Trump version of US lost it all and tried to become part of the world again, im pretty sure, it would be welcomed with open arms, and a catch up path would be offered to try to recover what was lost along the way. A sort of "Marshall plan" only that this time it would be to put the US back on their feet.
I hope the US dont keep going through this path that only leads to self-destruction..
The government dictating how businesses are allowed to interact with its citizens is a statement that equally applies to both the US banning TikTok and GDPR.
While this sort of quashing of free markets may be permissible for sovereign nations, it comes with a heavy cost. Trump, and by proxy the U.S., moves to force the hand of ByteDance to divest itself of all interest in TikTok at fire sale prices through threat of shutting them down. The U.S. establishes its reputation for stifling competition whenever a strong enough sovereign interest is in play. China, and other countries, will respond in kind to protect their own interests - Tesla, Apple, Intel and whatever other company has a juicy stake in China are held hostage until they concede their interests of to a China state-run company. Imagine trying to do business in another country when the fear of takeover looms overhead if you ever become too successful? This behavior only serves to encourage more protectionist and isolationist markets.
The interesting thing is that these platforms come and go. One year it’s Vine, another year it’s Snap, now it’s TikTok. ByteDance bought musically for $1B in 2017 and turned it into Tok.
3 years later, it’s grown like crazy because it’s the latest fad and would be smart for them to cash out before the next new thing hits
The whole divestment thing is probably a godsend for ByteDance, “forcing” them to liquidate their stake, but in reality let’s them cash out on an overhyped app that’s easy to copy
TikTok is not overhyped, it is here to stay, that's why they want to ban it. It's still growing like crazy and is way way more entertaining than any other social network by a long shot.
Well, YouTube's core audience isn't going there for TikTok-style content (no judgement on that content either way.) They mostly come for vlogs, let's play's, tutorial videos, video essays, etc.
Also worth noting that YouTube is a money sink so it's not like it's the most lucrative business model.
I've heard the argument a few times YouTube actually loses money, besides just being a money sink. Does anyone have anything from Google talking about margins or profit/loss of youtube? I've never been able to find anything concrete on the issue. This is the best I've ever been able to find [1]
If anything he would mean Pepsi, which is twice as big as Coca Cola (based on revenue). However, that you immediately think about Coca-Cola speaks for their superior branding.
I'm 24 and my iPhone tells me I spend 2 hours on TikTok a day. This is up from about a year and a half ago, when i consumed it exclusively in YouTube compilations.
Their targeting and algorithmic curation is extremely, scary good.
It exposes the level of mental illness in America and around the world.
You have teens threatening to kill themselves if it gets banned. What will all these girls do if they can't get some attention and a dopamine hit every few hours. Woman are taking to Tik Tok and posting farewells crying and dancing. Some are even threatening the President.
The app is poison but perhaps it's no worse than Insta, Twatter and FB and all social media.
How many lives this shit ruins everyday, little by little is unimaginable. People living in the digital world instead of the real one.
Please don’t bring this kind of holier than thou preaching to this forum. Just because you’re not the target audience doesn’t mean you can call the users as being “mentally ill”. ALL humans crave dopamine hits (what brought you to this forum?).
Dance and music is how a certain demographic of humanity lives to express themselves, and there is an app that lets them do so. What the hell is your problem? Who are you to take it away from them?
I am only here for information/educational reasons, not entertainment. This is more about educating my mind.
>Dance and music is how a certain demographic of humanity lives to express themselves, and there is an app that lets them do so. What the hell is your problem? Who are you to take it away from them?
Maybe you haven't seen all the videos of young ladies threatening to kill themselves if the President goes through with it. Or the 1000's of people who have come to name calling and threats against the President.
I don't find that normal and I have a problem with it.
Maybe Hacker News is next on Trumps ban list. Would you be happy about that?
Also, I would think carefully how productive your time spend here really is. Is surfing and commenting on HN providing any substantial "education"?
Personally i find it an entertaining way to waste some time, that does now and then enlighten me on a topic I didn't know about before, and have cause to want to learn more. But any real knowledge gained is through effort outside of HN.
> Or the 1000's of people who have come to name calling and threats against the President.
Interesting that you would have an issue with “name calling” and “making threats” when that is all that the current POTUS does on Twitter. That is also a person who has real power, so the threats are not idle. By your own measure, Twitter should be banned before tiktok.
The President does not have the power to ban an Internet service. He may order executive agencies to investigate the company and take action based on what they find. There is no (non emergency) statute that allows the President to unilaterally shut down the service.
Parents of kids do have the authority to curtail their children’s online presence. This is not limited to TikTok, it is a common theme across all social media properties.
What Egypt does should not affect what technologies are permitted in the US. China bans Google and Facebook. Should we ban it too? This line of reasoning makes no sense.
just because people crave for dopamine hits so we should allow all kind of things? maybe we should allow durgs/heroin as well ? you do understand there are different consequences when you addicted to different things right, dancing vs estacy ? not to mention the potential privacy / national security issue with this app
Couldn’t you have said the same about Snapchat a few years ago? Not that it’s about to shut down, but it’s definitely not the white hot app it was hyped to be.
I've tried Snapchat, never felt the same thing I'm getting with TikTok. TikTok is not being hyped to me, I genuinely get a good laugh out of it everytime I open it. Never had that with Snap or really any other social network. This is huge.
That’s your personal experience. But I can guarantee that if you rewind a few years you’d be able to find many people who would say that Snapchat gave them the kind of experience Instagram never did, or whatever. Snapchat was huge. TikTok is huge. But there’s no guarantee of permenance.
Snap never got to the level of TikTok and it was always really niche but mostly, it required IRL friends to send awkward Snaps too. TikTok doesn't have this limitation and is the lowest friction to entertainment social media ever. Of course, nothing is forever, even Facebook, but as far a these things go, TikTok was in for the long shot.
People don't realize how addicted a lot of people are to Tik Tok. It's scary in terms of thinking how much time is 'wasted', but in terms of a product, it can reach the popularity of Youtube.
I am very torn on this. On one hand, these types of apps do come and go quickly. On the other, everyone I've met that spends time on TikTok thoroughly enjoys the content far more than they ever have on any other app...it's almost a bit bizarre. My fiancee will be in tears laughing for hours some nights and it's unlike anything I've ever seen. My family never shared vines or youtube videos but now our group chat is completely full of TikTok links. I think people are underestimating how much people seriously love TikTok of all ages, races, classes etc.
Snapchat is a very different use-case. Snapchat was built on being a sort of anti-social-media. It's all about ephemeral content, and not making it easy for content to be shared widely. TikTok has a lot more going for it in terms of intrinsic properties built around bringing more users into the platform. Snapchat is about having a more low-pressure online presence, TikTok is a "look at me" platform.
TikTok is a lot more analogous to Instagram: where Instagram used filters to allow normal people to create much more appealing photos, TikTok's music licensing allows average users to create videos with a much stronger emotional appeal than they can get on other platforms.
That's what I heard about plenty of social platforms like this. Everyone thought Vine was here to stay too. Everyone thought Myspace was here to stay. Snapchat was huge at one point and now I no longer know anybody who still uses it. Maybe it will be like Facebook, but there's a big chance it won't. It's huge now, but its still relatively niche appeal in the grand scheme of tings. These things appear to be fickle. We will see.
Vine was loved and was shut down by a part time CEO.
> Snapchat was huge at one point and now I no longer know anybody who still uses it.
People under 25 still love and use snapchat.
Tiktok has 80 million MAUs, and is becoming the tool of cultural influence in the same way the Instagram did. I wouldn't underestimate the staying power of tiktok.
> Vine was loved and was shut down by a part time CEO.
Yep. Then the community moved to Musical.ly, then to TikTok. Although the company is gone, Vine is still around in spirit. And I think the same applies to TikTok, too
Just because you don't know anyone that uses Snapchat doesn't make that an authoritative source on popularity of a company. Snap's user base has grown consistently and show's no signs of slowing down, even against increase competition in the space (https://www.statista.com/statistics/545967/snapchat-app-dau/). TikTok is the "Vine replacement" since Vine was bought by Twitter and shutdown. Vine wasn't a "fad" that faded away, it was actively shutdown by its parent company, likely would still exist to this day in a non-insignificant way had that not happen.
Well, I used to know many people who used it and they have all stopped. I wasn’t basing it on “I don’t know anyone who uses it” but rather “everyone I know who used I no longer does”.
SnapChat still isn't profitable. After these years they still haven't figured out how to best monetize their platform are are sustained by their IPO money.
Vine was absurdly popular but couldn't figure out how to monetize short-form video content. I don't see how TikTok is going to overcome these same challenges.
Even YouTube had a long and slow road to profitability. Video is hard.
They are fickle sort of like a Hurricane. Feels like over the last 20 year we have learnt how to scale things up quick i.e. spin up a hurricane.
What the hurricane does after its created or whether its controllable at all no one really knows. Making room for the type of characters who will claim they can control hurricanes. Expect these people to show up and disappear as these hurricanes spin up and fizzle out.
That said, I just hope figuring out whether hurricanes can be controlled doesn't take too many more years, and happens without too many more unpredictable side effects.
Speaking about Facebook the website (separate from Instagram and WhatsApp), I'd give it 50/50 odds that a major decline in market position will start by 2030. If it doesn't happen, it will be attributed to very strategic leadership.
The problem is with this specific demographic is they will grow out of TikTok and eventually stop using it due to fatigue or strange reasons like their parents joining in.*
This happened with Snap, Vine, YikYak, etc. They will just move on to the next social network craze that doesn't have their parents, grandparents or their next door neighbours friending you. Rinse and repeat.
* The exception to this rule is unless your parents is a Kardashian / West, Musk, or an Obama or some other famous celebrity.
I'm amazed how people can just ignore John Locke and the primitives of Western Civilization, and ignore the threat of China, Saudi Arabia or the European Union -- all of whom deny natural rights and are antithetical to the US.
Perhaps you're not American but the European Enlightenment is fundamental to modern society. It is the reason we are talking via handheld computers. Let's not ignore its decimation.
Would you be surprised if it just disappears in a year or two, like Vine, Orkut, Myspace, and other "giants" of their day did? I personally wouldn't because these things just come and go. I think it's really hard to make the claim that "it's here to stay".
I heard people say this about Facebook for years, that it was just the next Myspace and it would be gone in a year. Platforms are temporary until they're not.
So is Facebook temporary and TikTok is going to take over or is Facebook here to stay and TikTok is temporary? This seems like a zero-sum game for the most part.
The thing is, people really mistake the Wild West days of a market with the mature days. People were saying the same thing about Windows, for example, back in the 1990s. Stuff like:
"Back in the day we had Commodore and Amiga and many other platforms that slowly died, Windows will go their way. Unix will outlast it and kill it off."
30 years later and you could base a Fortune 500 company off of Windows, alone.
Same story with Facebook. People are comparing things to the pre-Facebook days without realizing that social media is a lot more mature now. They're presenting Snapchat as a failure when it's still growing (in users and revenue), Orkut as an example of a rise and fall when it was only popular in Brazil, while Tik Tok is global.
Tik Tok seems to have carved a niche in a pretty mature market. That's hard to do.
This isn't laughing, it's desperation. Either they get bought now or they lose everything. India already banned them and they're terrified of a repeat.
I think over time social networks have found more stable userbases. Facebook isn't going anywhere, neither are Instagram or (unless the feds intervene) TikTok. It's not like it was in the early days where everyone abandoned the old platform, because the new one was so much better.
Snap and Vine have never been a thing like TikTok currently is in my country. The previous social networks that were as hyped and as used as TikTok were FB and IG.
On one hand I want to agree with you, on the other hand I recognize that you are probably the same age or older as me and we are old goofs that probably don't understand what constitute something that is going to work for the generations after ours.
I think you underestimate the popularity and potential of TikTok and ByteDance at large.
It's like Facebook, maybe around 2010-2012, with enormous upward potential - they might even dethrone Facebook and their offerings in the coming years. For the core Facebook app, I wouldnt be surprised if they did that already in a couple of countries.
The promise of "upward potential" of every one of these social media fads is that it could be the "last" one, the Big One that websites and captures every following generation.
Do you think that TikTok is The Big One, that will still be growing at the same rate in ten years' time? I don't.
Myspace and Facebook are shrinking. Some of the users leaving are going to TikTok, sure, but I don't think that means that it's better, it's just hotter right now.
Of course TikTok won’t be growing at the same rate in 10 years time. That doesn’t mean it won’t still be a huge platform, however.
In fact, I’d wager that, it TikTok plays their cards right, the platform could be bigger than YouTube within five years or so. I know it sounds crazy now, but there is nothing that dictates that YouTube’s model is the best for delivering democratized video publishing to the masses.
I find that a lot of these Gen Z kids don’t have the patience to sit thru a five or 10 minute YouTube video (and I can’t really blame them; how much time have you wasted watching YouTube videos that ended up being clickbait garbage?). They’d rather have the information condensed down into a 90 second video, and TikTok is perfectly designed to serve those viewing habits.
I know the popular perception of TikTok (from those that don’t use it) is that it just hosts trendy dance videos, but TikTok creators are publishing essentially all the same genres of content we see on YouTube. You can find everything from dance videos to home improvement tutorials on the service. Furthermore, more and more YouTube creators are moving over to TikTok. I view the service as the single biggest threat we’ve seen to YouTube since it’s rise to popularity.
I suspect TikToks next big move will be into YouTube’s bread and butter: official music videos. Their user interaction model lends itself extremely well into music discovery.
Also, most fundamentally, there’s only 24 hours in a day. Every hour spent on TikTok is one hour not spent on YouTube or a competing service.
2. Regular people that just post random things for fun. These people are essentially using it as instagram for video
3. People making relatively high quality content involving specific subject matter (vlogs, food, technology, sports, etc...). Essentially recreating YouTube channels on TikTok.
The service has historically been dominated by category 1 and 2, but we’re seeing more and more of category 3 now.
And keep in mind that I’m not saying YouTube will disappear - not in the least. There is space for both services to exist. However, TikTok will be capturing an increasing share of the creators that previously had no choice but to be on YouTube.
Usually they are forced to youtube for the advertising dollars. On twitter or instagram influencers can make
a sizable amounts with sponsored posts. Does tiktok have an ad program for content creators? Are tiktok users becoming paid influencers? Do people post sponsored tiktok videos?
Yeah once they figure out the monetization part, the ecosystem would be complete. They've been working on that. I don't think it is as efficient yet. But you can also look at Chinese version of tiktok, where they have already a full ecosystem and lots of people making lots of money off the platform.
> The next big site will be pornhub meets tiktok. 90 seconds or less x-rated content that is connected to patreon and your tiktok profile
Ha, not sure if this was supposed to be a joke or not, but that’s arguably what lead Tumblr’s rise to prominence, and also their demise when the porn ban was implemented
Importantly its because kids don't want to be a part of the "old" culture. They actively reject entering places with an older established demographic because they want to define their own spaces.
Tiktok by its nature cannot maintain the momentum it has with kids 14-18 now with the kids that are currently 8-12. They will reject it no matter what Tiktok does because thats how kids are conditioned in the west to behave.
I think it’s less that they won’t to define their own space than that they don’t want to hangout with their parents.
But your point holds either way. Eventually TikTok will become so popular that their parents/grandparents/older siblings will start using it, and it won’t be cool anymore.
Online companies, like brick and mortar companies, rise and fall. And even if Facebook's best days are behind it, I'm not sure we can call a business that grew for nearly 15 years and is now used by billions of people a "fad." Regardless, it generated unfathomable wealth for its founders, and made thousands of employees financially set for life.
If TikTok could capture that, it doesn't matter if it lasts five years or ten years, the people at the top will become very, very rich.
So I think both commenters above are correct: it has huge potential upside that investors are willing to gamble on, and it probably won't become the next Facebook so it might be worth it for the current owners to cash out now.
You are likely underestimating the staying power of ByteDance. They have a portfolio of successful apps within China, such as Toutiao, and have probably overtaken Baidu to be the 3rd most important software company in China (after Alibaba and Tencent). Unlike Vine or Snap, they have a lot of e-commerce revenue and are a major sales platform.
Should they be allowed to continue expanding internationally, something like a Facebook or Amazon peer would be the more relevant comparison.
Chinese company makes huge viral app for the US market, and lets everyone stoke rumors that it's a spying platform. US gov't tosses a huge subsidy at whatever domestic company can acquire it at any cost - in the interest of national defense - resulting in massive overvalued purchase. China pockets the profits. Rinse, repeat.
But isn't it more likely that said Chinese company will have little to none leverage in the talks, because the choice is between getting banned or getting bought at a token (read: undervalued) price?
Potentially but their negotiating position is shutting down completely which would be a loss for a potential acquiring company. I'm sure that TT stole some users from YT, IG, and Tumblr but largely creators are posting everywhere so their existence just increases the size of the pie.
722 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 224 ms ] threadThis would not be happening were TikTok German, French, British, Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese, etc. Just Chinese and Russian.
For example, Activision-Blizzard are pretty much fully separated from The9, which is the only authorized distributor for World of Warcraft in China.
Edit: Apologies, the source I was looking at was outdated and NetEase is the current distributor for WoW in China.
China is approaching fascism from the Lenin-Stalin-Maoist “Communist” side, the US from the mixed economy welfare state side. That they should be increasingly borrowing unpleasant tactics from each other is unsurprising, even if contrary to the image each side tries to project for propaganda purposes.
The US hasn't yet quite established unquestioned control of the faction working to implement fascism, so has a better chance of changing course in the near future.
I don't think people realize how significant this might be.
How many people do you think have opted into this with informed consent vs clicking through multiple pages of deliberately obfuscated terms?
I mean, America is the country that fought the Nazis then hired them to build their space program just so they could plant their flag on the Moon and claim it before the Soviets. Hell, American companies were doing business with the Nazis while at war with the Nazis.
No nation puts it principles ahead of its interests.
With all the public threats ByteDance is receiving from president of USA, Msft or any other company which acquires, gets one of the biggest social networking site of the decade at give away price.
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_...
Feels like they have immense power if they decided to act politically.
[1] https://qz.com/823922/eric-schmidt-played-a-crucial-role-in-...
But there's little precedent for media companies to take action in US politics overtly. (IANAL, but I suspect there are legal impediments as well). Taking a political stand, or providing support for one side, might force big tech companies to resolve the ambiguity as to whether they're media companies or not.
EDIT: Actually maybe there is nothing stopping tech companies from choosing a side; apparently media companies do make political contribitions: https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/08/news-corps-million-...
EDIT 2: I can see I've accidentally opened a can of worms about biased coverage and editorials; but my usage of "support" was intended as overt and consistent involvement in political campaigning, generally through donations. And to my surprise, that does occur.
Isn't this pretty much one half of their business, the other being advertising?
Newspapers routinely make political endorsements, that is overt.
Sorry, but are we in the same country?
Right now from my point of view, it absolutely looks like the big social-media companies like Youtube/Twitter/Reddit/etc are actively purging large conservative opinions/voices in anticipation for the US election coming up. It's downright Orwellian that we allow them to have such a huge impact on political elections under the guise of "community standards". Those same community-standards that are touted for protecting the vulnerable are acting as camouflage for political meddling.
As for Tik-tok, I'd ban it just for the degenerate social impact it's having on a large section of our youth population. Ditto for gang-glorifying, misogynistic rap music.
Multi billion dollar porn industry with no barrier to entry as far as viewer age where the youth are concerned but a dance app is worrying. I suspect you sound like your out-of-touch parents did when you were a kid.
Ok boomer
It's that people argue the virtues of "free-markets" while simultaneously arguing the most valuable thing any business should build is a "moat".
It the utter acknowledgment that avoiding/prevent competition is the way to be successful, while arguing that free markets enforce competition.
Its blatantly obvious that network effects, exclusivity contracts and monopolies exist. And well and market dominance leads to more dominance by purchasing any future competitive business. And yet claim most success comes from marker efficiency.
Taking a non-tech example. Madden is getting closer to a 20 year exclusive license NFL on consoles. No game can compete with made up teams and rosters. The product is stagnant, innovation a dump and yet this continuous aspect of "free-market" is ignored.
By and large, the US is a free market with your obvious government regulations. However, it’s not a perfectly competitive market because of the things you mentioned. Because a true “perfectly competitive market” is almost impossible to achieve, no nation’s economy is, but some are closer to it than others.
Perfect competition benefits the consumers most, while network effects, exclusivity contracts, and monopolies obviously benefit the companies more.
One of the biggest goals of US government economic regulations (at least ideally) is to steer the market as close to a perfectly competitive market as possible. Companies optimize in the other direction, and try to make their market less competitive despite those regulations.
This dynamic doesn’t mean it’s not a free market, it just means that we need regulations to counteract the forces of companies and keep it competitive.
This is why I find it misguided when people want a totally libertarian system with no regulations, because that will inevitably lead to a less competitive/efficient market.
The issue is between how the term "free market" is defined and how it's used. My usage above is how it's commonly used - as meaning a "competitive market" - which as you mention is completely wrong.
A truly competitive market benefits consumers and society overall. A completely free market on the other hand benefits rent seeking and is a drain on society.
Free markets naturally tend towards anti-competetive rent-seeking behaviors. The best thing you can do for a market economy is to ensure it stays a competitive market. There will always be inefficiencies in markets which will accrue towards companies - but the amount of excess rent-seeking that flows to companies needs to be actively minimized.
Keeping spyware-collected data of private citizens out of the hands of antagonistic authoritarian regimes seems like an appropriate use of regulation, no? Hard to argue its less appropriate than trust-busting or consumer protection regulations.
Possibly, yes. And if your goal was actually to fight authoritarianism, you’d be sure to pass these regulations in some sort of democratic process. You’d send it through Congress and give the people’s elected representatives a chance to weigh in. You wouldn’t use an executive order outside of very extreme, time-sensitive circumstances, if you actually gave a shit about fighting authoritarianism.
Is POTUS not an elected representative? Congress can overrule the president if they want to, there's nothing stopping them.
Also, who said the goal was "fighting authoritarianism"? I'm pretty sure the goal is to let americans use TikTok without MSS having all their personal data.
No, but plenty of people vacuously and consistently argue that regulations should be eliminated because "free-market". And have no issue with most companies eliminating competition through any means other than producing a better product.
Taking an example people agree with. Apple should open up it's phone platform to other stores. If they're concerned about security, they can still be the final arbiters of what apps can ship. Ie they approve apps for all stores. However, each store can have it's own experience and crucially it's own cut of apps sold. Let's see how many consumers feel there is enough value in apple store to pay a 30% premium on apps they buy. More rent seeking.
But that's one of the few cases HN actually agrees with. the 1000s of others out there, people don't blink an eye.
Will there be 2 apps? Tiktok US and Tiktok for the rest of the world?
TikTok is banned in China, Douyin (also owned by ByteDance) is effectively “TikTok China”.
2 reasons for the meteoric rise:
Super duper aggressive marketing spend, akin Apple's iphone rollout.
A long going murmur about them using funny accounting to drive their valuation into stratosphere, and use it to raise money.
"Machine learning" and everything else all fluff.
I can pretty much imagine something akin to page rank for videos being used, with some perceptrons sprinkled on top.
That's the real reason. Bytedance spent millions, possibly hundreds of millions, to buy those users. You couldn't escape from those ads in 2019.
For example, different engineering departments
In fact, even after divestiture this will be the case for some time. The Chinese entity holds the IP to the algorithms and other underlying technology that make Tik Tok as viral as it is.
If it is true that there would be a US-only version, then it sounds little bit ironic - if this kind of thing keeps happening the US would be somehow walled itself just like China...
By the way, according to your post history, I believe the following fact would be interesting for you: Musical.ly is a 100% Chinese app [1] with their HQ in Shanghai.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical.ly
stonks all the way my brother
I wonder how this looks like in a planetary context
Meanwhile, Microsoft has quietly avoided the anti-trust spotlight recently yet has acquired github, LinkedIn, and now a social network that could rival Facebook. Satya Nadella is a genius.
Regardless, young population have historically been absent from voting.
https://dailycaller.com/2020/07/28/neil-bush-china-agreement...
It was the opportunity to expand into global economic markets, with a certain perspective in mind, ballpark along the lines of Western Liberal Democracy and Economy.
The Asian countries that followed this path after WW2 were enormously succesfull: South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan.
They are basically beacons of prosperity surrounded by economic mayhem.
China chose 'it's own path' - which is fine - and there are probably many advantages to the central planning early on (those other nations did that, Korea was an authoritarian state and then opened eventually, kind of 'part of a plan') - but of course the CCP has another agenda, they don't want to cede power, and China has a different historical view of itself which is not just a function of CCP propaganda.
I think it is literally at this very point wherein the 'advantage' of autocracy is starting to be a disadvantage, and that a degree of opening up would actually beneficial.
Basically - once you get the 'easy investments' done - like roads, bridges, and you succesfull rip off everyone else's IP and are 'to some extent caught up' - then the plan starts to falter. At some point, you have to 'lead' - and it takes a different kind of approach. At least in many areas, though we should not underestimate them.
There are no obvious economic choices for China now and their 'old plan' won't work. Putting Uyghers in jail, grabbing S. China sea, getting into pissing matches with India and Japan - none of this will bear fruits.
The 'Belt and Road' is actually one 'grand strategy' that a central power like China could have that America could never have (takes a couple decades of consistent vision) - but it seems that the heavy handedness and deep corruption of the system won't allow for it.
Geopolitically, people 'love to hate on America' in the press and in propaganda, but when 'push comes to shove' there is nobody who doesn't understand what side they would rather be on, both pragmatically and for the sake of the good of everyone.
Though Trump is a dufous and blow-hard (sorry), he is actually the only Western leader with the 'crazy like a fox' to take on China, and he's absolutely right to ban TikTok and other entities.
Basically - the West needs to apply trade rules with China that are exactly tit for tat: China doesn't allow foreign competition in certain areas - then we ban that. They don't allow ownership, then we ban that. They have a lot of controls over content, then we do as well - we ban everything remotely related to the Chinese state. They require foreign companies to fork over IP, and then give it to local champions - then we do as well.
Imagine how the world would react if the US required Huawei to give up all it's IP, held it up in bureaucracy for years, while they gave the IP to Cisco, and then the Treasury and the Fed financed Cisco and their international customers, while the US diplomatic corps acted both as a sales team for Cisco, and did economic espionage to thwart competitors outright?
That would be 'fair'.
There is a Canadian company [1] that lost a contract to the Canadian government for airport scanners - the Chinese bid was 25% lower. The complaint was that the Canadian company would never be allowed to bid on such a sensitive contract in China, moreover, there were state subsidies. How on earth is this fair or free trade? It's not. If China won't allow external bidders for airport security tools - we don't allow them either.
It's really almost a paradox to understand why even China has been able to maintain such a lop-sided advantage.
It started 30 years ago, when China was so poor that the West basically accepted the asymmetrical terms of trade. Like a frog in cool water that's getting warmer never thinks to jump out - West...
The idea of unfair trade is also a bit of a mercantilist trope, so I'm not sure it makes sense on its own terms - but at the very least, it's normally something that requires an unequal relationship between trading partners. Like, I think it would be fair to say that trade deals between first and third world nations are often unfair, because there are ample opportunities for one party to lean on the other. This obviously isn't so between the US and China. If there are conditions that favour Chinese companies, it's because of policies that were, at the time, thought to benefit the US - and which probably do benefit the US, at least insofar as GDP growth is concerned (the US has remained pretty good in this arena).
Trump's whole schtick of 'bring back coal' comes to mind here. Obviously, you could hammer out a trade agreement that would end up with coal mines reopening in Wyoming, with steelworks in Pittsburgh - but would it actually help the US?
As for the whole question of whether or not China is 'playing dirty', or muscling their way through established norms, I think it's obviously not the case - or at least, it's by no means the case that China plays more dirty than anybody else - least of all the US.
I think the politics of China do deserve a great deal of scrutiny, and if there's something that the west should be putting pressure on them for, it's the slide into totalitarianism we've witnessed over the last few years. However, all the stuff about trade seems two parts grandstanding and one part hypocrisy.
'Fair Trade' does not have to be 'Trade on Equal Terms'.
That is how the relationship started: China was 'very poor' and so the asymmetrical trade rules made sense. Pepsi and Coke and a few others had access to China market, people 'looked the other way' at the IP issues.
But in 2020, China is in a different situation, and the asymmetrical rules are basically 'not fair'.
"The idea of unfair trade is also a bit of a mercantilist trope,"
This is false.
If one nation is allowed to sell into the other, but does not allow the other to sell to it - this is 'unfair trade'. Blatantly.
If one nation uses state subsidies to support fledgling industries, so that they can dump on foreign markets and 'take over the global industry' - this is obviously unfair trade. China did this with Solar Panel market - subsidising their industry to flood America with cheap products, putting everyone out of business etc.. This is not a 'new' idea, these concepts have been well understood for hundreds of years.
"Blaming the demise of US industry on China is absurd "
Nobody is 'blaming' US economic issues on the US. What I'm articulating is that China is effectively 'cheating' (or rather, has an obvious upper hand) and it needs to be rectified.
"As for the whole question of whether or not China is 'playing dirty', or muscling their way through established norms, I think it's obviously not the case - or at least, it's by no means the case that China plays more dirty than anybody else - least of all the US."
This is again false. We can call it 'dirty' or not - but China plays 'extremely protectionalist' first off, second, they have state intervention, which is not suitable for trade.
There are a million and one things that the US cannot do in China, but that China can do in the US. This is blatantly lop-sided. The US should apply the same rules to China as China does to the US.
Second, and more nuanced, is the state intervention. Again, the example:
Imagine if the US forced Huawei to give designs and IP over to Cisco, and the US Pres had direct authority over major banks, ordered JP Morgan to finance Cisco buyers in Brasil, Germany etc. - and for liquidity, ordered the US Federal Reserve to print money for that purpose. It sounds incredibly bizarre, right? Well that's what China does today!
So it's fine for them to play the game they want to play, but the West needs to respond in kind.
This has little to do with 'bringing back coal mines' obviously. But it may have something to do with bringing back manufacturing - in a highly automated way.
"about trade seems two parts grandstanding and one part hypocrisy."
No it's not, generally speaking the US is pretty good on these things, and has fostered a lot of very important international agreements and ideas along these lines as well. Of course, trade really does benefit the US a lot, so it's to a great extent self interest, but still.
The world needs to trade with China on somewhat different terms.
(this one got downvoted too, unique to the china ones ;)
Also, Hong Kong never had democracy under British rule. All 28 Hong Kong governors were British residents who were picked by London and parachuted into their jobs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_of_Hong_Kong
Guess which other countries have democracy? India, Philippines, Indonesia.
I don't think it will be successful, I think China has made it very clear they will continue to play the US time and time again until they are dominant. The CCP will accept nothing but that. But that's the thinking behind the current moves.
You will regret having the government choosing your apps and websites. Your jubilee will turn into sorrow, the Chinese way of life business is not a good life. You will regret becoming a China.
I agree, but this isn't far off from the GDPR and similar laws that take the view that individuals aren't competent to decide for themselves what privacy policies are acceptable.
Now that the Chinese owned TikTok is such a desirable app to use in the USA, the US government is blocking it in a similar fashion.
To be honest it's all quite petty.
It's all getting very Orwellian.
It can forbid government workers from using it on government-provided devices. This is sensible due to the capabilities for arbitrary code execution and the full permissions to the device the app requires of the user. Amazon has done that with their employees as well. But the US government doesn't have a Great Firewall. Even if they wanted to, they couldn't ban or block it.
Edit: Apologies. I mistook the unlikelihood of anything like this being effective as reason enough for no one (let alone the President) to make statements like this. I stand corrected.
And while it’s not clear exactly how they’d ban it, it certainly isn’t impossible. They could tell major telcos to block IP ranges. Or tell Apple and Google to pull the app. Everyone involved could just say no to the government but it’s not all that clear that they would.
Sigh. We're living in an Onion story.
Personally, I hold anything said on Twitter to be at the same level of informational trust as something said in general chat in an on-line game.
The President may think he's playing a MMORPG, but I can thankfully shut the chat window.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/10/21320196/amazon-employees...
US is doing to China what China been doing to US companies since forever.
In Amazon, Microsoft etc, US engineers of those companies aren't allowed to access the China servers directly and have to go through the Chinese operators.
I don't see that as a good development!
In China, the relationship between tech companies and the government is very close, and none would question any data requests. Its nothing like Apple which openly fights the US government in the supreme court..
To me the greater outrage is that the president can arbitrarily decide which apps citizens may or may not use. I would like to make that choice for myself, thank you very much.
Do I like Trump in general? Absolutely not, but I also don't automatically start cursing any decision he makes just because its made by him without trying to use two brain cells to analyze it first.
I feel safer knowing US data can be accessed by US government entities than foreign ones, specially ones that have a documented track record of industrial espionage against the country. Can't imagine what good can come off the Chinese government having access to PII and potential backdoor capabilities (e.g. the clipboard scandal) of tens of millions of children of US engineers/politicians/workers.
Is there a single reason why that can be good for the US citizens?
The choice of the president wasn't about the "app" itself. It was about the data being stored in foreign lands. If the app didn't have copious amounts of data of US citizens, he wouldn't have cared, even if it had a 100% user base in the US.
Europe has very similar rules on EU data being stored in EU data centers. Germany is a good example of those policies and no one seems to critisize them, because no one "blanket-hates" European leaders like they do to Trump.
The decision to ban was because TikTok didn't seem to be willing to cooperate to fix the data locality problem. Had they promised and started moving their data centers to the US, I doubt this would have happened. The acquisition by MS if happens, would do just that and allow the app to continue being used.
Also trump already announced he does not intend to permit microsoft acquiring tiktok to be enough to not ban them. I'm doubtful he'd have any chance winning a court case if tiktok did sell to microsoft, but sounds like he'll push on the ban regardless.
Disclaimer: I work at mountain view tiktok.
Just as a political calculation it seems curious. (Rile up young voters who tend to swing against you, eliminate a social network that from what I can see is relatively conservative-friendly.)
Whatever happens, it's probably going to be a recipe on how to force all foreign providers to act the way the local government wants. These days the theme is forcing on the ant-gay stance, they managed to force Netflix a show that had a gay character in it. Besides that charade, they passed laws to control the social media in the name of national security and citizens rights. This comes after Twitter exposed and deleted a pro government troll army.
Anyway, if this happens Facebook, Google, Twitter etc. can start looking into the future of Instagram for Iran, Twitter for Turkey, Google for EU - all forced to partner with a local company and the global versions inaccessible.
I am sure that the US ban of TikTok would be well rationalised but the US could have chosen the EU approach of enforcing US data being kept on US soil. Sad that US choose the Chinese approach of right our of banning(because somehow becoming like China is the way of topping the authoritarian Chinese order). Something tells me that this is not about national security.
Welcome to the world of partitioned internet in the name of national security. A boring dystopia where the less fre world no longer has a role model.
I hope you enjoy the life where the government is telling you what you can and can't use so that the country stays safe. Brilliant system that served all kind of authoritarian regimes.
Good luck to the start-ups, from now on you are looking to a future where you will have to strike a deal with each country you want to operate.
"Your app just crossed the TOP100 mark in the AppStore, would be shame if something happens to it because of national security. Maybe you should sell it to our crony while it's still worth something"
A few days ago Pompeo warned that CCP might change "us" (outside PRC in this context). It seems, however, that U.S. might be the first to be changed.
edit: unfavourable opinions seem to get downvoted into oblivion. I am actually surprised by the jubilance in the tech community towards state intervention. Had no idea that people dreamed of becoming like China where the all knowing government protects them by telling them what apps can use and which website they can visit.
Don't worry, US has plenty of individual freedom for Enlightening activities like spewing virus on other people.
You'd think we'd have learnt by now. We do not deserve the freedom we have since we clearly don't care about it. Just look at all of the pro-ban comments in this thread.
i mean the US one would be wholly owned by someone with own dev team servers etc
the non-US one would have to be a separate app with own team too.
it doesn’t seem to work
China can easily pick a consulate to close when the US closes consulate in Houston. But businesses from the US in China always require Chinese companies to operate, just like World of Warcraft is operated by NetEase in China.
After Microsoft acquire Tiktok's operation, if China just picks some US business to do the same it would make China looks too soft because China is already doing this for decades, and Trump could claim the US has beaten China in this round. But if China escalates the conflict by retaliating in radical ways, the Trump administration could rally more before the election.
No Facebook in China, no Tviter in China, all major American brands are effectively franchises, or joint ventures, so they will be shooting their own business in the foot.
They can of course order those Chinese joint venture owners to appropriate the American stake in their corporate entities, but those state never been high to begin with, with Chinese JV sides always trying to exfiltrate equity out of them.
Out of big fish, pretty much the only one remaining is Apple, which owns very little in China, but will be crippled if being denied access to Chinese contract manufacturers.
Apple will have 1-2 really bad years and would eventually be able to move their supply chain to other countries . Apple has the money to whether that storm
The millions of jobs lost in China would be permanent, and start a trend and they loose their manufacturing edge .
FYI, among the big tech Microsoft seems to have one of the best relationship with the Chinese state. Bing and Outlook is available albeit censored. Windows also widely used. It could be the case that Microsoft has a back channel with Chinese gov and already discussed this issue. I hope that the acquisition will be smooth.
This is a very common misconception. It was true decades ago, when China was just beginning to open up, but over the past three decades, joint-venture requirements have been removed from most industries.
Crazy that one person can ban something over 1/4 the US population uses every day. The implications of that are staggering.
(for any politically trigger fingered voters who think this opinion is derived based on current administration, you would be incorrect. I do not think something like this should ever be decided by a single person, it should go through congress and if a new law or decision is the result of that, the party which is to be banned should have the ability to make their case to SCOTUS)
Crazy that over 1/4 the population uses one entertainment app. I don't even see how that's possible, even if all tweens/teens/teen-aspirationals use it.
Disclaimer: I work at US tiktok.
I think it's more telling that 1 decision can be effective actually banning it - considering that there are so many things/services that are banned and yet available online, the fact that this hypothetical ban be effective, says more for the tech stack of this app/service than for the actually political/commercial decision to ban it.
It doesn’t matter who drives the train, the tracks are already laid.
Obama's pivot was based on TTP, and generally avoiding direct confrontation with China.
Trump's agenda is completely different - ignoring partnership/bilateral approach, and fairly assertively acting against China.
But those were also strategies founded in different eras: the TTP was create back when China was still not quite powerful enough to be a dangerous world actor. Now it's more of a 'standoff' situation with unpredictable leadership from Trump.
And with only a 4 year horizon after which 'everything changes' on the American side.
Also, the US can just ban it tomorrow and it’ll disappear.
[1] https://www.engadget.com/2019-09-25-tiktok-censorship-china....
[2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-users-gush-about-china-h...
[3] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bytedance-filing/bytedanc...
TikTok seems to impress people with its algorithm serving them content they like, many HNers describe it as addicting even, that sounds like a tool for manipulation (which feels like all the internet is these days anyway, but I digress.)
I also don't like the idea of the US banning apps. But I also don't trust people to choose not to invest attention in TikTok. The world's a muddy, messed up, place.
There is no need to do that. TikTok has significant US offices and operations. All the government would have to do is fine them/arrest them if they refuse to follow the law.
Thats how the law works. If you don't follow it, you get fined or arrested.
Conflating the CCP owning and controlling a private company's platform is the propaganda that seems to be spun out this situation.
It's also what is causing people to see the app as a threat, ergo, highlighting exceptionalism and a tiny bit of xenophobia.
Are you talking about the US or China governement?
I think you just described the US
- I can't breathe
- BLM
Enjoy attacking the straw man.
The difference between the EU and US on this matter, is that the EU has almost no substitutes, and they just don't - for whatever reason (there are many) have he will to do them.
And of course there's no point - what FB is doing is no different from what a EU-based FB would do.
We had a counterpart for I think every single US-based service, but most sites didn't survive the competition. Right now only eBay failed to enter our market (they tried, but the local Allegro won out).
Personally, I'm not the fan of the local copycats - because of their local scale they couldn't really get enough profit/investment to grow the tech just as much. But still - at least in Poland, it's not true that there were no substitutes.
A) Europe has tons of bright people and tons of technical talent - this is not the ussie.
B) Governments don't create stuff. So the 'EU' is barely a government it's not 'they' who can go and make something, or 'have it made'. Even the US gov. would suck bad at copying FB. Granted, if there were no competition, substitutes would arrive.
C) Europe does not have quite the dynamic leadership exhibited in the Valley. Maybe there would be something pop up, but it probably would be a bad clone, it might not have all the nimble features. FB advertising engine is complex, massive, they have huge ad sales division. This is the $$$ the pays for everything.
D) EU is still highly fragmented, and not an immigrant place like SV. Better to think of SV as really a 'global centre' that happens to be in America. Tons of talent from around the world, they come for the money and adventure, not so much to be 'American'.
E) Europeans value quality of life a lot, and in some things it's fine, but in some industries ... it means less competitive.
F) Europe esp. Germany, does not 'get' software in the way SV does.
So Europe has all the pieces but they are not quite aligned.
It's not at all 'easy' to fire on all cylinders and create amazing new experiences.
ByteDance et. al. have zillions of workers, working cheaply, often 7 days a week.
So Europe is good at R&D, Hardware, Lifestyle stuff, and stuff that doesn't need huge scale and major talent depth, things that don't move 24/7.
But EU is not going to build something 'better' than FB or Google anytime soon. But they discover good drugs and make good cars etc..
Be more specific. I remember a time where dailymotion was mocking Youtube as a money blackhole due to its shitty tech. Lots of startups people in the US use are from Europe (Spotify). Lots of startups that exist in Europe don't even exist in the US, or don't get that much traction in the US (monzo, revolut, blablacar, thetrainline, toogoodtogo, etc.)
> And of course there's no point - what FB is doing is no different from what a EU-based FB would do.
there is so much wrong in this sentence. By being a US company FB is run much more differently. Control of information.
BTW, a more decentralized, organic tech world, is something we should try to achieve, because as we are seeing now, there are no safe heavens for anything, anymore.
We should think more like human beings and less with nationalistic mentality, because all i've seeing til now, is nationalistic values being use not just to undermine other countries, but also undermine the nationalistic's own country.
If there's one valuable lesson history teach us, is that even the Rome empire, comparatively much powerful than anything we have now, started to fall when they corrupted the core values that served as a foundation of the Roman empire.
And nationalistic, the "we are better than everyone else", walls, stupid wars, etc..
But lets not forget an important difference here, right now all the achievements, the culture, the universities, the internet, the knowledge is widespread all over the world..
This is a pandora box effect, that once opened, cannot be closed anymore.
So even if the US totally closed itself to the world, im pretty sure the world would keep moving forward, and once this Donald Trump version of US lost it all and tried to become part of the world again, im pretty sure, it would be welcomed with open arms, and a catch up path would be offered to try to recover what was lost along the way. A sort of "Marshall plan" only that this time it would be to put the US back on their feet.
I hope the US dont keep going through this path that only leads to self-destruction..
3 years later, it’s grown like crazy because it’s the latest fad and would be smart for them to cash out before the next new thing hits
The whole divestment thing is probably a godsend for ByteDance, “forcing” them to liquidate their stake, but in reality let’s them cash out on an overhyped app that’s easy to copy
Must be laughing all the way to the bank
Also worth noting that YouTube is a money sink so it's not like it's the most lucrative business model.
1. https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/3/21121207/youtube-google-al...
Their targeting and algorithmic curation is extremely, scary good.
You have teens threatening to kill themselves if it gets banned. What will all these girls do if they can't get some attention and a dopamine hit every few hours. Woman are taking to Tik Tok and posting farewells crying and dancing. Some are even threatening the President.
The app is poison but perhaps it's no worse than Insta, Twatter and FB and all social media.
How many lives this shit ruins everyday, little by little is unimaginable. People living in the digital world instead of the real one.
Dance and music is how a certain demographic of humanity lives to express themselves, and there is an app that lets them do so. What the hell is your problem? Who are you to take it away from them?
I am only here for information/educational reasons, not entertainment. This is more about educating my mind.
>Dance and music is how a certain demographic of humanity lives to express themselves, and there is an app that lets them do so. What the hell is your problem? Who are you to take it away from them?
Maybe you haven't seen all the videos of young ladies threatening to kill themselves if the President goes through with it. Or the 1000's of people who have come to name calling and threats against the President.
I don't find that normal and I have a problem with it.
Also, I would think carefully how productive your time spend here really is. Is surfing and commenting on HN providing any substantial "education"?
Personally i find it an entertaining way to waste some time, that does now and then enlighten me on a topic I didn't know about before, and have cause to want to learn more. But any real knowledge gained is through effort outside of HN.
Interesting that you would have an issue with “name calling” and “making threats” when that is all that the current POTUS does on Twitter. That is also a person who has real power, so the threats are not idle. By your own measure, Twitter should be banned before tiktok.
I appreciated the comment. It exposed me to something I didn't know was going on.
With regards to "who are you to take it away from them..."
I don't think the parent poster has that power.
The president does and he may ban it to protect users privacy.
Some people are parents of kids who use it and they would have the right to limit where and how their children can express themselves.
Countries like Egpyt are putting girls in jail for dancing on tiktok.
This has all of the making of the next footloose.
Parents of kids do have the authority to curtail their children’s online presence. This is not limited to TikTok, it is a common theme across all social media properties.
What Egypt does should not affect what technologies are permitted in the US. China bans Google and Facebook. Should we ban it too? This line of reasoning makes no sense.
TikTok is a lot more analogous to Instagram: where Instagram used filters to allow normal people to create much more appealing photos, TikTok's music licensing allows average users to create videos with a much stronger emotional appeal than they can get on other platforms.
That's what I heard about plenty of social platforms like this. Everyone thought Vine was here to stay too. Everyone thought Myspace was here to stay. Snapchat was huge at one point and now I no longer know anybody who still uses it. Maybe it will be like Facebook, but there's a big chance it won't. It's huge now, but its still relatively niche appeal in the grand scheme of tings. These things appear to be fickle. We will see.
Vine was loved and was shut down by a part time CEO.
> Snapchat was huge at one point and now I no longer know anybody who still uses it.
People under 25 still love and use snapchat.
Tiktok has 80 million MAUs, and is becoming the tool of cultural influence in the same way the Instagram did. I wouldn't underestimate the staying power of tiktok.
Yep. Then the community moved to Musical.ly, then to TikTok. Although the company is gone, Vine is still around in spirit. And I think the same applies to TikTok, too
Vine was absurdly popular but couldn't figure out how to monetize short-form video content. I don't see how TikTok is going to overcome these same challenges.
Even YouTube had a long and slow road to profitability. Video is hard.
What the hurricane does after its created or whether its controllable at all no one really knows. Making room for the type of characters who will claim they can control hurricanes. Expect these people to show up and disappear as these hurricanes spin up and fizzle out.
That said, I just hope figuring out whether hurricanes can be controlled doesn't take too many more years, and happens without too many more unpredictable side effects.
Speaking about Facebook the website (separate from Instagram and WhatsApp), I'd give it 50/50 odds that a major decline in market position will start by 2030. If it doesn't happen, it will be attributed to very strategic leadership.
I'd be surprised if aws was around.
If a new phone os didn't take over (at least on the android side)
I'd be surprised if the web wasn't still powered by php
I would be surprised to see rss version 23 make a come back.
The only constant in social apps is that the "apps that are here to stay" do not stay.
This happened with Snap, Vine, YikYak, etc. They will just move on to the next social network craze that doesn't have their parents, grandparents or their next door neighbours friending you. Rinse and repeat.
* The exception to this rule is unless your parents is a Kardashian / West, Musk, or an Obama or some other famous celebrity.
Otherwise I agree in principle but your examples aren't good.
I'm amazed how people can just ignore John Locke and the primitives of Western Civilization, and ignore the threat of China, Saudi Arabia or the European Union -- all of whom deny natural rights and are antithetical to the US.
Perhaps you're not American but the European Enlightenment is fundamental to modern society. It is the reason we are talking via handheld computers. Let's not ignore its decimation.
Excuse me, what?
ahahaha
Would you be surprised if it just disappears in a year or two, like Vine, Orkut, Myspace, and other "giants" of their day did? I personally wouldn't because these things just come and go. I think it's really hard to make the claim that "it's here to stay".
"Back in the day we had Commodore and Amiga and many other platforms that slowly died, Windows will go their way. Unix will outlast it and kill it off."
30 years later and you could base a Fortune 500 company off of Windows, alone.
Same story with Facebook. People are comparing things to the pre-Facebook days without realizing that social media is a lot more mature now. They're presenting Snapchat as a failure when it's still growing (in users and revenue), Orkut as an example of a rise and fall when it was only popular in Brazil, while Tik Tok is global.
Tik Tok seems to have carved a niche in a pretty mature market. That's hard to do.
I think over time social networks have found more stable userbases. Facebook isn't going anywhere, neither are Instagram or (unless the feds intervene) TikTok. It's not like it was in the early days where everyone abandoned the old platform, because the new one was so much better.
That's exactly the thoughts I had in 2010 about Facebook's 10 billion valuation.
It's like Facebook, maybe around 2010-2012, with enormous upward potential - they might even dethrone Facebook and their offerings in the coming years. For the core Facebook app, I wouldnt be surprised if they did that already in a couple of countries.
Do you think that TikTok is The Big One, that will still be growing at the same rate in ten years' time? I don't.
Myspace and Facebook are shrinking. Some of the users leaving are going to TikTok, sure, but I don't think that means that it's better, it's just hotter right now.
DHH said it well on twitter, the constraint to FB's growth is they are running out of people on earth.
[https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1288939549884743680]
In fact, I’d wager that, it TikTok plays their cards right, the platform could be bigger than YouTube within five years or so. I know it sounds crazy now, but there is nothing that dictates that YouTube’s model is the best for delivering democratized video publishing to the masses.
I find that a lot of these Gen Z kids don’t have the patience to sit thru a five or 10 minute YouTube video (and I can’t really blame them; how much time have you wasted watching YouTube videos that ended up being clickbait garbage?). They’d rather have the information condensed down into a 90 second video, and TikTok is perfectly designed to serve those viewing habits.
I know the popular perception of TikTok (from those that don’t use it) is that it just hosts trendy dance videos, but TikTok creators are publishing essentially all the same genres of content we see on YouTube. You can find everything from dance videos to home improvement tutorials on the service. Furthermore, more and more YouTube creators are moving over to TikTok. I view the service as the single biggest threat we’ve seen to YouTube since it’s rise to popularity.
I suspect TikToks next big move will be into YouTube’s bread and butter: official music videos. Their user interaction model lends itself extremely well into music discovery.
Also, most fundamentally, there’s only 24 hours in a day. Every hour spent on TikTok is one hour not spent on YouTube or a competing service.
Short videos on youtube are not rewarding and accounts are centered usually around one topic.
On tiktok you follow a person who posts videos.. which are like moving instagram pictures .
Instagram has been pushing videos but people are sharing more live stream longer content.
The next big site will be pornhub meets tiktok. 90 seconds or less x-rated content that is connected to patreon and your tiktok profile
1. Users that watch, but don’t post anything
2. Regular people that just post random things for fun. These people are essentially using it as instagram for video
3. People making relatively high quality content involving specific subject matter (vlogs, food, technology, sports, etc...). Essentially recreating YouTube channels on TikTok.
The service has historically been dominated by category 1 and 2, but we’re seeing more and more of category 3 now.
And keep in mind that I’m not saying YouTube will disappear - not in the least. There is space for both services to exist. However, TikTok will be capturing an increasing share of the creators that previously had no choice but to be on YouTube.
Ha, not sure if this was supposed to be a joke or not, but that’s arguably what lead Tumblr’s rise to prominence, and also their demise when the porn ban was implemented
Tiktok by its nature cannot maintain the momentum it has with kids 14-18 now with the kids that are currently 8-12. They will reject it no matter what Tiktok does because thats how kids are conditioned in the west to behave.
But your point holds either way. Eventually TikTok will become so popular that their parents/grandparents/older siblings will start using it, and it won’t be cool anymore.
Online companies, like brick and mortar companies, rise and fall. And even if Facebook's best days are behind it, I'm not sure we can call a business that grew for nearly 15 years and is now used by billions of people a "fad." Regardless, it generated unfathomable wealth for its founders, and made thousands of employees financially set for life.
If TikTok could capture that, it doesn't matter if it lasts five years or ten years, the people at the top will become very, very rich.
So I think both commenters above are correct: it has huge potential upside that investors are willing to gamble on, and it probably won't become the next Facebook so it might be worth it for the current owners to cash out now.
that’s like saying twitter is dead
If only I could have a nickel every time someone on HN says something like this.
This site sometimes... smh
i used to think FB is just a fad but its been 16 years and it is still going. Not as fancy as it once was but enough to make billions.
who to say TikTok won't last? if it last more than 10 years. its already earn back all its cost and some more.
Should they be allowed to continue expanding internationally, something like a Facebook or Amazon peer would be the more relevant comparison.
Chinese company makes huge viral app for the US market, and lets everyone stoke rumors that it's a spying platform. US gov't tosses a huge subsidy at whatever domestic company can acquire it at any cost - in the interest of national defense - resulting in massive overvalued purchase. China pockets the profits. Rinse, repeat.