4 ms·

"TikTok also says China does not have jurisdiction over content of the app, which does not operate in China and is not influenced by any foreign government." I

"TikTok also says China does not have jurisdiction over content of the app, which does not operate in China and is not influenced by any foreign government." If it's a Chinese company, why is TikTok saying that China has zero jurisdiction over the app? Besides that, the US can require that Bytedance peel off TikTok / Musical.ly. If Bytedance wants access to the US market with that app, it will have to play by US rules. That works similar to how China blocked the Qualcomm - NXP acquisition. Neither Qualcomm nor NXP are Chinese companies. If the combined entity wanted access to China they had to obey China's position on that acquisition. And given China's extreme behavior on restricting US Internet companies from their market, this is more than fair game.

yorwba 7y ago
> If it's a Chinese company, why is TikTok saying that China has zero jurisdiction over the app? ByteDance is trying very hard to run TikTok and Douyin (抖音, the Chinese version) as separate companies that happen to share the same code but not data. For one, this is because they're well aware that Western governments are suspicious of foreign companies having access to their citizens' data. Secondly, having Chinese and international users on a shared platform also makes it more difficult to maintain the narrative mandated by the Chinese government, as each cross-border interaction is a potential hole in the Great Firewall. After the lack of data separation effectively killed Grindr, they can only hope that they've done enough and won't suffer the same fate.
- kmonsen 7y ago
  Not sure how they can do that in a reasonable way since it is not open source? And just because the data is not in China does not mean the Chinese government does not get access, it is more like the other way round. If the data is in China you can be sure they have full access.
  - im3w1l 7y ago
    > Not sure how they can do that in a reasonable way since it is not open source? They could do the shared source thing, where select people are allowed to see the source after signing NDA's and stuff.
- riffraff 7y ago
  forgive my ignorance, what happened with grindr?
  - yorwba 7y ago
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-grindr-m-a-exclusive-idUSKCN1R809L https://www.reuters.com/article/us-grindr-m-a-exclusive-idUS...
baybal2 7y ago
> If Bytedance wants access to the US market with that app, If Bytedance wants access to the US market with that app, it will simply relocate servers outside of USA. That's it.
- stickfigure 7y ago
  Weird that this is being downvoted. What is the US government going to do, create a China-style great firewall? Even the (right-) wingnuts would be sharpening their pitchforks.
  - colordrops 7y ago
    They will slowly craft some national security or human rights narrative over a 2 to 3 period after which the public, both left and right, will be begging for a firewall.
  - newaccount456 7y ago
    Just force Google and Apple to remove the app from their stores.
  - skinnymuch 7y ago
    If it was a website, maybe it can survive no matter what? But if they can get Google and Apple to take the app down in the US market, you effectively kill the app. I‘m sure some will sideload, but relatively speaking, it’ll be a small amt of people. I haven’t checked the top sites in US list recently, but I imagine even for places that have sites on top of apps, losing App Store access will destroy a large part of the user base. Off the top of head, Google, the surviving portal sites, could survive. But even portal sites like Yahoo likely get enough traffic from apps that they’d be hit hard. Same with Reddit, Facebook, Pinterest. Maybe LinkedIn would go largely unscathed.
  - vageli 7y ago
    > Weird that this is being downvoted. What is the US government going to do, create a China-style great firewall? Even the (right-) wingnuts would be sharpening their pitchforks. So, if I want access to EU market I can avoid GDPR and other European regulations so long as I keep my server out of Europe?
coliveira 7y ago
> given China's extreme behavior on restricting US Internet companies from their market, this is more than fair game. Except that the US always complained about this behavior from the Chinese government, but now it wants to adopt it as normal. It looks like the Chinese way of doing things is winning...
- DeonPenny 7y ago
  Yeh america way assumes theres a free and fair market. Since of course it isn't with China you have to protect you interest.

yorwba 7y ago

> If it's a Chinese company, why is TikTok saying that China has zero jurisdiction over the app? ByteDance is trying very hard to run TikTok and Douyin (抖音, the Chinese version) as separate companies that happen to share the same code but not data. For one, this is because they're well aware that Western governments are suspicious of foreign companies having access to their citizens' data. Secondly, having Chinese and international users on a shared platform also makes it more difficult to maintain the narrative mandated by the Chinese government, as each cross-border interaction is a potential hole in the Great Firewall. After the lack of data separation effectively killed Grindr, they can only hope that they've done enough and won't suffer the same fate.

kmonsen 7y ago
Not sure how they can do that in a reasonable way since it is not open source? And just because the data is not in China does not mean the Chinese government does not get access, it is more like the other way round. If the data is in China you can be sure they have full access.
- im3w1l 7y ago
  > Not sure how they can do that in a reasonable way since it is not open source? They could do the shared source thing, where select people are allowed to see the source after signing NDA's and stuff.
riffraff 7y ago
forgive my ignorance, what happened with grindr?
- yorwba 7y ago
  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-grindr-m-a-exclusive-idUSKCN1R809L https://www.reuters.com/article/us-grindr-m-a-exclusive-idUS...

baybal2 7y ago

> If Bytedance wants access to the US market with that app, If Bytedance wants access to the US market with that app, it will simply relocate servers outside of USA. That's it.

stickfigure 7y ago
Weird that this is being downvoted. What is the US government going to do, create a China-style great firewall? Even the (right-) wingnuts would be sharpening their pitchforks.
- colordrops 7y ago
  They will slowly craft some national security or human rights narrative over a 2 to 3 period after which the public, both left and right, will be begging for a firewall.
- newaccount456 7y ago
  Just force Google and Apple to remove the app from their stores.
- skinnymuch 7y ago
  If it was a website, maybe it can survive no matter what? But if they can get Google and Apple to take the app down in the US market, you effectively kill the app. I‘m sure some will sideload, but relatively speaking, it’ll be a small amt of people. I haven’t checked the top sites in US list recently, but I imagine even for places that have sites on top of apps, losing App Store access will destroy a large part of the user base. Off the top of head, Google, the surviving portal sites, could survive. But even portal sites like Yahoo likely get enough traffic from apps that they’d be hit hard. Same with Reddit, Facebook, Pinterest. Maybe LinkedIn would go largely unscathed.
- vageli 7y ago
  > Weird that this is being downvoted. What is the US government going to do, create a China-style great firewall? Even the (right-) wingnuts would be sharpening their pitchforks. So, if I want access to EU market I can avoid GDPR and other European regulations so long as I keep my server out of Europe?

coliveira 7y ago

> given China's extreme behavior on restricting US Internet companies from their market, this is more than fair game. Except that the US always complained about this behavior from the Chinese government, but now it wants to adopt it as normal. It looks like the Chinese way of doing things is winning...

DeonPenny 7y ago
Yeh america way assumes theres a free and fair market. Since of course it isn't with China you have to protect you interest.