How and who is making the decisions about ownership? I'd think they'd have gone for open bidding, or even an IPO. I don't even see why negotiations with the Chinese was needed. There's a law, affirmed by the Supreme Court. The private markets could have handled this just fine. The Biden admin abrogated responsibility here by punting this.
Even dictators in other countries don't make it so obvious because they're worried their populations would revolt, which says a lot about the American voter today.
Before people jump to conclusions, if you look at the details there seems to be a plan for a major profit sharing and licensing agreement with Bytedance. The numbers floated around are that 50% of the profit would go to Bytedance plus.
This would significantly impact its valuation to outside investors.
Tiktok is good for what, spying and propagandizing? I can see how all the rulers would want to buy in on that. Probably got some serious large scale magic analysis stuff going on.
It's heartwarming to see the ruling classes coming together for their mutual benefit like this.
The ideal scenario isn't the government forcing a sale of TikTok for political reasons. The ideal is that people stop using TikTok because they realize it's not good for them, but I guess I don't see that happening. Instead we'll just continue scrolling while wondering why we're so unhappy and angry all the time.
what do you think people will do, get off tiktok and go outside to hike? if anything they will just switch to instagram reels there's no good scenario here.
If Larry Ellison overtly censors TikTok, teenagers will leave.
Do I understand that the strategy here is soft power so that teenagers get approved content via the algorithm in the hope that they don't notice? That is a pretty big gamble.
So they are dumping part of that risk on the gulf monarchies like with Twitter. I bet China is already working on a TikTok replacement.
The biggest benefactor here is Meta. There's no way TikTok will remain a dominant social platform in the US amidst all the political meddling and so many high profile investors with competing interests.
This is likely also why Meta announced that they are overhauling Instagram to make Reels and recommendations the default experience - https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/instagram-overhaul-app-num.... Just as with Threads, they saw an opening and are doubling down hard.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 44.8 ms ] threadThis is a straight up giveaway to friends.
Even dictators in other countries don't make it so obvious because they're worried their populations would revolt, which says a lot about the American voter today.
This would significantly impact its valuation to outside investors.
It's heartwarming to see the ruling classes coming together for their mutual benefit like this.
Scrolling HN I find hateful stances about hyperspecificties, overconfident self righteousness, and new peaks of misanthropism
So they value the most attention owing social media at a mere $14b? As reference: Meta has a total market cap of around $1.8 T.
Run it into the ground!
Do I understand that the strategy here is soft power so that teenagers get approved content via the algorithm in the hope that they don't notice? That is a pretty big gamble.
So they are dumping part of that risk on the gulf monarchies like with Twitter. I bet China is already working on a TikTok replacement.
This is likely also why Meta announced that they are overhauling Instagram to make Reels and recommendations the default experience - https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/instagram-overhaul-app-num.... Just as with Threads, they saw an opening and are doubling down hard.