27 ms·

Microsoft is reportedly in talks to buy TikTok's US operations

293 points by sandGorgon 6y ago

justinzollars 6y ago
Big story!
riffic 6y ago
Microsoft's ownership is a kiss of death. See: WebTV, Skype, Yammer, Hotmail, Groove, Danger, et cetera. The kids will always move on to something else.
- samfisher83 6y ago
  Facebook and Instagram seem to be doing ok.
  - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    They haven’t been bought by Microsoft.
    - riffic 6y ago
      Microsoft has a significant ownership stake in Facebook: http://whoownsfacebook.com/#Microsoft http://whoownsfacebook.com/#Microsoft
- ubercow13 6y ago
  Linkedin? MSN messenger very cool with us when I was young.
  - riffic 6y ago
    yeah, I feel the same way about LinkedIn too.
    - ubercow13 6y ago
      Linkedin is as uncool as ever but it doesn't feel like Microsoft's ownership has been much of a kiss of death
- hilbertseries 6y ago
  GitHub?
  - riffic 6y ago
    Yep, not even GitHub is immune from the Microsoft kiss of death: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub#ICE_Contract https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub#ICE_Contract
    - tomjakubowski 6y ago
      ICE was a GitHub customer beginning in 2016, before the Microsoft acquisition. https://github.blog/2019-10-09-github-and-us-government-developers/ https://github.blog/2019-10-09-github-and-us-government-deve...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- adventured 6y ago
  > Microsoft's ownership is a kiss of death. Strategically the only thing that matters is that TikTok is removed from foreign ownership and that that weak spot in US Internet dominance is removed, so the US can resume global hegemony over platforms (outside of China). Microsoft generates enough cash every year to safely buy a TikTok annually. The US Government is probably throwing Microsoft a wink on this one. Despite generating $53 billion pear year in operating income and still having a desktop monopoly, Microsoft was excluded from the recent government grilling. Maybe Microsoft will get a nice Azure contract in return. In a year or a few, Microsoft IPOs TikTok or works with private equity to shift its ownership and then Microsoft washes their hands of it, taking a small bath in the process (if they can pull an IPO fast enough, given this market, maybe even making some money on the deal). Sometimes you gotta do a favor for Uncle Sam.
- quicklime 6y ago
  SCP QDOS? :)
- nickthegreek 6y ago
  Disagree, this would give MS a strong foothold in social media that the next generation is flocking too.
  - riffic 6y ago
    If you haven't noticed, the pendulum is swinging towards decentralized, distributed computing systems. This has happened previously in history (mainframe -> PC, back to Cloud Computing, and now to edge/IoT). If you want to "skate where the puck is going" you would be paying attention to the open web standards space.
    - walterbell 6y ago
      Any standards in particular?
    - astlouis44 6y ago
      Are you referring to WASM/WebGPU when you say open standards? Personally think it's going to revolutionize how software is delivered.
- kgwxd 6y ago
  Minecraft seems to have worked out ok so far.
- haram_masala 6y ago
  Nonsense. Skype has cornered the market in prank calling. Now they just need to monetize it.
samfisher83 6y ago
They should by many metrics it is the fastest growing social media app.
km3r 6y ago
How does an international app separate its operations enough to have a full distinct US operation? Will they be able to see post from someone in Canada? in China? Will China be able to see post from US users? Seems like something that needs to be all or nothing.
- bigpumpkin 6y ago
  You make another Douyin, but for the US only, call it Musicaly, with US data sovereignty and censorship. Creators from outside the US can make an account on it and reach American audiences. But Americans can no longer use the international version of Tiktok.
  - bagacrap 6y ago
    but what happens to past data
nashashmi 6y ago
When a disciplined company like Microsoft buys a creative company like tiktok, the best Microsoft can do is monetize it. They will establish content providers. Create distributors. Add a healthy ad network. But most undoubtedly, the creativity and innovation that tiktok can further yield will disappear. And this will lay the next foundation for another company to take over.
SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
I’m sure people have better takes on it than I do... seems to me like data mining service became more popular than anyone would have ever guessed but.. Damn BusinessInsider... showing me a popup over the article on mobile saying: > Sorry for the wait. We’re experiencing tremendous demand right now. The page will reload in 30 seconds and you will then get a chance to buy your access. ... after the article was already fully loaded. That’s some serious anti-consumer dark pattern bullshit.
mtgx 6y ago
Now all the Windows 10 spying over these years will start to to bare fruit (to the detriment of all of us).
Lammy 6y ago
> Gasparino also reported the White House is "deeply concerned" about Microsoft's potential purchase and whether any Chinese investors would retain a stake in TikTok's US operations, citing unnamed sources. And there's the lede. Consider this "story in two headlines" from an earlier high-profile Microsoft acquisition: "NSA offering 'billions' for Skype eavesdrop solution" https://www.theregister.com/2009/02/12/nsa_offers_billions_for_skype_pwnage/ https://www.theregister.com/2009/02/12/nsa_offers_billions_f... "Microsoft Buys Skype for $8.5 Billion. Why, Exactly?" https://www.wired.com/2011/05/microsoft-buys-skype-2/ https://www.wired.com/2011/05/microsoft-buys-skype-2/
- classified 6y ago
  That's what concerns me. Will that acquisition make MS an appendage of the Chinese government? Will that create conflicts of interest with serving the NSA?
  - KingMachiavelli 6y ago
    Isn't it just as likely that this is a backhand deal by the NSA to limit Chinese easedropping? I can't really image any other reason for Microsoft at the hight of it's profitability to want to enter such a competative and fickle social media market.
  - techntoke 6y ago
    If the warez community, you'd actually be surprised to find that most of Microsoft internal leaks and hacks come from Russia. Russian groups like WZorNET produce unreleased internal builds of Microsoft solutions all the time.
- lern_too_spel 6y ago
  Snowden's leaks showed the government could wiretap Skype calls since at least 2010, when the FBI's Skype wiretaps started being ingested into PRISM. Your conspiracy theory for why Microsoft would buy Skype in 2011 doesn't survive even the most rudimentary investigation.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
Hopefully it will be rebranded MikMok or ZuneZok. This seems like a dumb move, why would MS want to get tied up in the horrors of social media when they have such a profitable empire. They couldn’t possibly tie in MicMok to Office 365 and have anything good come from it.
- hyperdimension 6y ago
  "Microsoft (R) Passport Live TikTok.NET 2020 Datacenter Edition, part of the Windows Live Social Dynamics suite"
  - ourmandave 6y ago
    Assume they'll be a Visual Studio 2019 TikTok Xamarin project template.
  - vidanay 6y ago
    Now with Containers!
  - encom 6y ago
    This reminds me of this old classic. Microsoft Re-Designs the iPod Packaging https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k
  - urda 6y ago
    Whatever it takes to bring back Microsoft Bob.
- Belphemur 6y ago
  I agree it doesn't make any sense ... They just sold their Mixer platform to Facebook. If they can't manage correctly a game streaming platform, I don't see them be able to take on a video social network one.
- TrainedMonkey 6y ago
  Because they have cash to burn and having a major social media platform is trendy. /s
mrweasel 6y ago
But why? It doesn't fit into anything. Sure Microsoft has previously bought weird things, but lately they've been pretty focused. Why would they buy TikTok+
- todd3834 6y ago
  The allure of a highly used social product seems to always tempt FAANG companies. The same reason Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook would want this is why Microsoft wants it too.
- twoodfin 6y ago
  There’s probably something to owning regular attention & data on a majority share of US smartphones, regardless of the specific platform or app. TikTok presumably hits a broad audience that Office / Outlook / Teams do not.
- Firebrand 6y ago
  The same reason why they bought Minecraft and tried Mixer: to acquire the next generation of technology consumers.
- peter303 6y ago
  Perhaps you could evolve another mobile OS out of TikTok that is not Android or iOS. MicroSoft failed to get traction with its two previous mobile OSes (perhaps because they were basically offering reworked Windows).
- KoftaBob 6y ago
  Companies can sometimes act as VC firms and make acquisitions purely as an investment, a growth engine they can use for their core businesses.
mullingitover 6y ago
I never really understood the panic over TikTok. Is the fear about security, or is the fear that China might actually have successful social media product in the US?
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  The fear is that any large Chinese project holding the personal data of Americans is inherently a security concern. It wouldn't be a big issue if Tiktok were French or Korean or something.
  - emptysongglass 6y ago
    This is exactly it. There's widespread fear that China is buying its way into the personal data of billions through its state-sponsored businesses like Huawei and ByteDance.
    - franklampard 6y ago
      Is TikTok really state-sponsored? Do you have any source?
      - emptysongglass 6y ago
        It's not that ByteDance, owners of TikTok, are especially state-sponsored (though given the treasure trove of user data they're sitting on, especial isn't a stretch of the imagination): all Chinese corporations are either actively overseen by a CCP committee or potentials to be. See https://thediplomat.com/2019/12/politics-in-the-boardroom-the-role-of-chinese-communist-party-committees/ https://thediplomat.com/2019/12/politics-in-the-boardroom-th...
      - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        The CEO and cofounder has gone on record (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/05/tiktok-leader-schedules-washington-trip-meet-with-lawmakers-investigations-loom/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/05/tiktok-..., linking to a parent source https://chinamediaproject.org/2018/04/11/tech-shame-in-the-new-era/ https://chinamediaproject.org/2018/04/11/tech-shame-in-the-n...) pledging that he'd run the company in accordance with socialist values and the principles of Xi Jinping Thought. The degree of financial relationship is unknown and probably unknowable, but it seems clear that ByteDance feels obligated to behave how the government wants.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cellis 6y ago
TikTok acquired an app called Musically, which was a US app. Edit: acquired
- throw987542 6y ago
  Musical.ly (stylized as musical.ly) was a social media service headquartered in Shanghai with a US office in Santa Monica, California. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musically
mrtksn 6y ago
What happens when Google is left out of having a social media business when most of the things are happening in the social media these days? They tried few times and looks like gave up.
- Ataraxy 6y ago
  They still have youtube which is in a league of its own and while it may not be consiered a "social network" it's still definitely social media, arguably more than even TikTok could be considered as.
ogre_codes 6y ago
This is not good. Facebook or Google would be worse, but Microsoft is only marginally less bad here.
- fermienrico 6y ago
  This is far better than having facial recognition data in the hands of CCP. I am not a fan of US gov, but if I had the choice, I wouldn't side with CCP. The genie is already out and we've failed to put laws in place to stop all this data collection way back in 2004. Surprisingly, I feel comfortable with Microsoft having this data. What a world we've created. For those who are skeptical, just watch the Vice doc on how China tracks people, it's on a whole another level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLo3e1Pak-Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLo3e1Pak-Y
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    I'm just against it getting gobbled up by one of the existing internet giants. Getting it out of China is fine by me.
  - yorwba 6y ago
    Anyone who wants TikTok's facial recognition data can just scrape their videos and process them with their own models. If ByteDance can afford the storage and bandwidth, so can any interested surveillance agency.
- jonas21 6y ago
  If this is a bad outcome, can I ask what would be good in your opinion?
  - bzb3 6y ago
    Keeping it independent
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    Ideally? TikTok would grow organically and become another viable platform. I'm a huge fan of competition and the free market. Consolidating social media platforms under ever-larger corporate banners is just bad.
thedogeye 6y ago
Satya jealous he didn't get dragged before congress this week.
- techntoke 6y ago
  Didn't make sense. I guess if you pay lobbyist enough you can get away with anything.
m0xte 6y ago
TikTok is politically poisonous. Why would they?!?
- ssully 6y ago
  Because it's incredibly popular. I think it's a bad idea because I think TicTok is only a year or two away from their peak until another app catches the zeitgeist.
  - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
    MySpace was incredibly popular. Now it's used by the underbelly of society.
- bzb3 6y ago
  Tiktok bans all political content. It's literally the opposite of politically poisonous.
- ryanSrich 6y ago
  I mean...money? TikTok is massive. Slightly smaller than Instagram, more than double the size of Twitter. It's a bargain even at $50bn.
- AndrewBissell 6y ago
  Watch as the political "poison" of TikTok's rampant user surveillance is magically transmuted away once it is acquired by an American tech company!
  - newen 6y ago
    Yep, probably the main reason why they want to sell it to a US based company.
  - xxpor 6y ago
    But that's the exact issue, it's political poison because of who owns it. Why would it be "magically transmuted away"? That's literally the entire point.
newbie578 6y ago
How would that even function in practice? I am honestly baffled at this. If Trump is so eager to hinder TikTok (China's influence), then he should just ban the company like he did with Huawei and be done with it. The instant he does it, TikTok is doomed (internationally), they are a pure digital product.
grezql 6y ago
Not sure if this is good. There is now a new trending app that is eating up TikTok users, its called Triller. Same concept but US made I think. What happens if MSFT buy TikTok only for the users to migrate to the new flavour of the social media app.
- devenblake 6y ago
  I use TikTok a lot (there are >1M combined views on my videos) and I've never heard of it. A lot of good TikTokers from before the app really took off went to Byte (made by the dudes that made Vine) and it seems like Byte is the logical successor. I expect most users will migrate eventually. TikTok had its charms because it was completely mismanaged. The discover feed had a mix between popular (>1M likes) and very unpopular (1-30 likes) videos and very odd videos, like someone slowly crushing a hornet to death inside a syringe, get popular often. Microsoft tends to have a "digital gentrification" effect on the services they take over; for example, when they bought Minecraft, they stopped adding `- removed Herobrine` to update logs. To a lot of fans it showed a lack of respect to the game and its culture. Many older players even refuse to play any Microsoft-created Minecraft versions because they changed a lot of core gameplay mechanics. This same effect will probably hit their acquisition of TikTok. They'll make it so pro-equality posts make it to the feed more often (TikTok has a semi-4chan-ish culture around its humor rather than an "accepting" environment, though a minority of users are actually bigoted), polish the horrid UX, make good video effects rather than the very odd choices available now, and I expect they'll make it so videos can be longer (the default length is 15 seconds but you can make videos up to 60). This would ruin TikTok. The limitations imposed by TikTok's designers are crucial for fostering creativity (in my opinion, but I've made literally hundreds of videos on the platform). Without them, TikTok is just another video app. One more thing- most TikTok users despise America. America, to the youth, is a rich bastard bully of a country with military bases across the world despite no other country having bases in America. They believe being spied on by China is preferable to being spied on by America; if you're spied on by China, what are they gonna do, try to send you propaganda? If you're spied on by America and they don't like you, they just send cops in plainclothes to your house to shoot you, and the cops don't even get charged. Even if Microsoft doesn't hurt TikTok, TikTok's further association with America alone will be enough to make users move.
amrrs 6y ago
Microsoft is definitely a good candidate here for TikTok. With them missing Mobile-rise and Social media-rise, this acquisition seems to be a desperate attempt to cement their position in a hyper growth consumer product that's both Mobile and Social Media. Question is, Would it impact Microsoft's image? I mean, Tik Tok is known for their addictive design and Privacy controversy, so not sure how it goes well with the recent Good-guy image Microsoft's trying to portray itself.
- jczhang 6y ago
  How does it fit in with the rest of their products and overall strategy is my question.
slipheen 6y ago
I think it's a clever play. It would help address the spyware concern by moving it to a US company, and give them a better foothold in Social Networking than Linked-in provides. I'd have a few concerns about if MS can keep it growing- For one, I worry that Microsoft may mismanage it, similar to how they treated Skype. We saw Yahoo buy many reasonable smaller social networks (Flickr, Delicious, Tumblr) and was never able to make it work. Microsoft has seemed to get better at acquisions lately though, so they may be able to pull it off. The other concern is that youth-based social networks tend to have a short half-life; Snap isn't exactly taking over the world anymore. But personally, I absolutely think it'd be worth the gamble. The price is relatively low (just over 1 quarter of revenue), and if they can keep it going it's a good hedge against FB, if nothing else.
- sanxiyn 6y ago
  TikTok is not a "youth-based social network". It is more similar to YouTube, with content creator ecosystem and advertisement profit sharing and all.
  - slipheen 6y ago
    From https://www.omnicoreagency.com/tiktok-statistics/ https://www.omnicoreagency.com/tiktok-statistics/ > 41 percent of TikTok users are aged between 16 and 24. That seems rather youth-heavy when compared to Facebook (Timeline), Twitter, YouTube, Instagram. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but it does come with risks.
    - sprite 6y ago
      What percentage is between 13-15? Or younger and lying about it. I would think 16-24 is their older user base.
      - nicky0 6y ago
        My friend's kids, ages 9 and 11, are both obsessed with TikTok along with most of their school.
fermienrico 6y ago
Person confirming this: https://twitter.com/CGasparino?s=21 https://twitter.com/CGasparino?s=21 I don’t know how reputable the source is.
- bdcravens 6y ago
  Seems to have a solid reputation and experience. https://www.foxbusiness.com/person/g/charles-gasparino https://www.foxbusiness.com/person/g/charles-gasparino He doesn't say the source, only reports it, so not sure what the issue is here.
  - AndrewBissell 6y ago
    Gasparino puts forth a lot of very dodgy or outright false "SCOOPS" (as he calls them on his Twitter account). They're always couched in terms like "according to my sources" or "this is what I'm hearing" so that he has plausible deniability if they don't come to pass. You can even see it in the headline to this story: "Sources speculate one name to buy TikTok is Microsoft"
quicklime 6y ago
Does Trump have the power to just order a company to be broken up like this? I get that there’s a national security angle to this, but I imagine there would be outrage if he unilaterally decided to break up Facebook, for example.
- est31 6y ago
  Trump is not acting totally unilaterally here. The intelligence community is critical of TikTok as well as multiple republican senators. In fact, it's even possible that the government is involved in this purchase in some form, by either using their good standing as big MS customers (how many federal employees run Windows+Ms Office computers?), or by offering money directly, something that is purported to have happened when Microsoft purchased Skype a few years ago. Getting rid of E2EE for Skype, which Microsoft eventually did, was a big request of the US intelligence community. Ultimately it'd be a good resolution to the issue. No more spying by China and American teenagers can safely continue using the app.
creaghpatr 6y ago
Would they merge it with Linkedin?
- slipheen 6y ago
  I don't think they'd be well served to, in the same way that the main Facebook app isn't merged with Instagram (although they can share some logins/etc). They're targetting different demographics, and are used very differently (Job searching vs short-form videos).
- akerro 6y ago
  LinkedIn is already indistinguishable from Facebook. Feels like a dead platform with no purpose. Congratz on new cat Mike!
  - Closi 6y ago
    Dead platform with no purpose? I’ll assume you aren’t in management or the job market then
TimesOldRoman 6y ago
Another "If ya can't beat'em, join'em."?
ferest 6y ago
In short, only American companies can have access to the brains of Americans. There is no law to prohibit an app of being used in US, and there is no evidence TikTok broke any existing law operating within US. All the talking point being so far is because it's a chinese company. This is literally how black people was treated. It's interesting to see how protectionism change the country brand of equal business opportunity and spirit of the law.
- colordrops 6y ago
  The analogy would only make sense if black people were a foreign economic and nuclear powerhouse that have been blocking US apps with even more prejudice. Tit for tat restrictions are standard practice with international trade and not evidence of racism.
  - ferest 6y ago
    fwiw china didn't block US apps, it's china blocks apps decide not to follow the chinese law, regardless if it's US app or from any other country. If tiktok has child porn or some other illegal stuff, i'm totally fine with blocking it. But in this case, the only evidence so far is, it's a chinese app, not because it's breaking any law.
    - colordrops 6y ago
      That is absolutely not true. China has blocked and shut down plenty of services that are following the law simply for protectionist or narrative control reasons. When twitter clones started popping up in China they shut down 11 services and chose a single one to survive, that being Weibo.
  - sanxiyn 6y ago
    China does not block US apps.
    - ferest 6y ago
      yea that's how media made the headlines
eunos 6y ago
Will there be any restriction regarding board members or executive positioning? For example, are they allowed to offer board/executive position to Zhang Yiming (original owner of Bytedance)?
chvid 6y ago
So now the US is nationalising a foreign company because they are communist ...
- logicchains 6y ago
  It's not because they're communist, it's just because they're successful and not under America's control.
rectang 6y ago
It would take nothing less than a from-scratch rewrite to achieve a high degree of confidence that all backdoors have been eliminated from the TikTok codebase. I hope Microsoft is up for that.
- mikkelewis 6y ago
  What gives you the low degree of confidence MS engineers couldn't do a complete scan of TikTok's codebase?
  - rectang 6y ago
    I don't have confidence about scans in general against novel attacks. Scans are effective against the threat model of off-the-shelf attacks, not a threat model of highly motivated, highly-skilled attackers capable of inserting subtle defects anywhere in a giant codebase.
- Dahoon 6y ago
  Funny how Americans see this. I would trust Tiktok less the second it became US owned. We think software and businesses from Russia and PRC does bad things. We know US owned does. It is mindbaffling to me how anyone could believe the risks are lower with US owned software. Snowden's leaks was a complete failure for the common American. They have learned nothing at all. Good old red scare still works way better than facts.
  - chvid 6y ago
    That the US president is essentially threatening to nationalise TikTok shows just how far the US is willing to go to preserve their absolute dominance in social media. "National security". Well of course it is. All American social media allows the American intelligence services to surveil just about every person on this planet. No other nation has ever had this power.
muststopmyths 6y ago
Wait, so I'm going to have to install the TikTok For Business with Sharepoint integration in my Teams? I guess anything makes sense to a company that paid $26 billion USD for LinkedIn.
- lhorie 6y ago
  Jokes aside, it probably would be a nice addition to their consumer-oriented portfolio (i.e. xbox, minecraft, etc), if they're planning to stay relevant in the FAANG-taking-over-the-world state of reality these days.
  - nothis 6y ago
    Steve Jobs once said about Microsoft that their only problem is that they have no taste. And it's decisions like this that illustrate what he meant. TikTok is such a clash with everything Microsoft stands for as a company (if there is such a thing). It makes no sense.
    - Hydraulix989 6y ago
      It's still a $1T+ company, that's the metric that matters when evaluating the "worth" of a business. So in that sense, the market has a "taste" for Microsoft.
      - kohtatsu 6y ago
        Honestly I don't give a flying fuck about a company's market cap, I care about what it offers to me and the world. Markets are a means to an end, not something to fetishize.
        vogre 6y ago
        Market cap is actually a quite precise estimation of what company offers to the world. Money is just information about usefulness. If you are useful to other people you've got money. If someone is useful to you, you give money.
chvid 6y ago
This is from Bloomberg's coverage of the story: "President Donald Trump plans to announce a decision ordering Bytedance to divest its U.S. ownership of TikTok, according to people familiar with the matter. The U.S. has been investigating potential national security risks due to the Chinese company’s control of the app. Trump’s decision could be announced as soon as Friday, said the people." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-31/microsoft-is-said-to-be-in-talks-to-buy-tiktok-in-u-s?srnd=premium-europe https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-31/microsoft... Microsoft Is Said to Be in Talks to Buy TikTok in U.S.
uses 6y ago
I wonder what the ownership transfer of a multi-billion dollar app looks like? Like, what emails, button clicks, phone calls, etc, is involved in changing the ownership of the iOS app from one party to another? Presumably it's a different process from like, a toy app with zero downloads?
- sanxiyn 6y ago
  Mechanically speaking, App Store has App Transfer functionality. Here is Apple's documentation on it: https://help.apple.com/app-store-connect/#/deved688524f https://help.apple.com/app-store-connect/#/deved688524f
- bagacrap 6y ago
  I am more interested to know how you cut up the actual content. A user from Japan liked a video from an American user a year ago, what happens to that? Are the users still on the same tiktok shard? Do we somehow remove all foreign interaction from the American shard? Do users from Canada get to choose which shard to go with?
kumarvvr 6y ago
What value does Microsoft get out of this? Looks like a desperate deal pushed by TikTok to get rid of "Chinese spyware" tag. The deal makes no absolute sense.
- johnghanks 6y ago
  TikTok is massive. The deal would come with a _lot_ of data.
- hellomyguys 6y ago
  A massive video library for computer vision and a huge data set on user actions taken for each video. More bullish take... potentially the next YouTube.
  - kumarvvr 6y ago
    Doesn't look like it's for the data. For one thing, user gesture data or user action data can be automated with 3D software. Provides a far better set of training data. Data for targeted advertisements? Microsoft is hardly in that business of selling ads. I understand Mojang, because Minecraft is a platform that engages kids in meaningful ways. But TikTok is an app to waste time and shit post.
    - hellomyguys 6y ago
      >For one thing, user gesture data or user action data can be automated with 3D software. Not sure I get what that means. >I understand Mojang, because Minecraft is a platform that engages kids in meaningful ways. But TikTok is an app to waste time and shit post. Kids are definitely engaging in meaningful and interesting ways on TikTok. It would be an incredible overgeneralization to say otherwise. Is there a bunch of crap on there too? Sure, but you can write off the internet with the same logic. Crap is also fun, which has some value too. The content on early YouTube wasn't what we have today either...
      - kumarvvr 6y ago
trekrich 6y ago
This is like writing the CCP is massive check! If anything it should be banned from all app stores.
billconan 6y ago
I tried TikTok, I don't think it is as great as what others told me. The content is very repetitive. I think imgur has better variations.
moreorless 6y ago
Not a single person seem to think that it is odd that we can simply order a foreign company to sell their business to an American company.
- bigpumpkin 6y ago
  You ain't seen nothing yet. Wait until they break out the "Entities List".
  - moreorless 6y ago
    I find the whole Huawei situation to be quite riveting.
- halfmatthalfcat 6y ago
  Is it any more odd than China strong-arming the NBA, lest they are barred from operating there? If TikTok wants the American/European market and they’d sell the company in order to so, that’s just the reality of working within the current geopolitical landscape.
  - moreorless 6y ago
    They do it, so we should too. Got it.
    - brandonmenc 6y ago
      Yes. Exactly. Welcome to the real world.
      - moreorless 6y ago
        Then it is high time we get off our high horse.
  - xster 6y ago
    Wouldn't the logical equivalency be for China to strong-arm the NBA to sell ownership to a Chinese company if they want the NBA to continue to be watched by Chinese audience?
soniman 6y ago
Microsoft might want to get rid of the advertizing businesses (like Bing) and merging Bing with Tiktok would create a mini Google-Youtube spinoff that would be very hot.
swayson 6y ago
The ever decreasing robustness property of the ecosystem which loses diversity and becomes more centralized. I don't know if FAANG gaining more and more power is a good thing for the world.
data4lyfe 6y ago
Microsoft finally gets their own social media play
mrkramer 6y ago
Imo it doesn't make sense for Microsoft to buy it. They could' ve bought Facebook back in the day but Zuck probably wouldn't sell. Pls Microsoft buy it and destroy it by your mismanagement.
trollied 6y ago
Migrate it to Azure. It'll get renamed to TikTok 360 because of the downtime.
zxcvbn4038 6y ago
I always suspected that the US government had Microsoft buy Skype so they could centralize it under US authority and monitor the communications. I have a feeling that TikTok is the same scenario - instead of worrying about TikTok spying on Americans, the US will have Microsoft buy it and they it'll move the servers to the US and use it to spy on the Chinese. Google and Facebook will never get broken up as long as Uncle Sam gets access to everyone's communications.
- chrisjc 6y ago
  > and use it to spy on the Chinese How? Are you suggesting that Douyin will be included in the purchase?
  - gastlygem 6y ago
    Yeah the international version of TikTok is already restricted here in China. Last time I tried to use it with VPN but it didn't work.
actuator 6y ago
This looks like such a mismatch. Also, does it make sense to pay the rumoured $50 billion for a company with no moat? Even US revenue expectations for this year were $0.5 billion.
- crystaln 6y ago
  trump's executive order should lower the price...
hujun 6y ago
what makes you all think ByteDance will agree to sell their top product in 1st place?
throwaway78359 6y ago
Throwaway for obvious reasons. I cannot understand what executive thinks this is a good idea or that it makes any sense in the broader organizational structure of Microsoft. It's been so nice to see five years or so of relatively GOOD acquisitions. LinkedIn made sense: it's allowed for a legitimate Salesforce compete, especially when paired with Dynamics. GitHub was incredibly smart and it aligns well with the resurgent dev tools division and the cloud. Even Beam (Mixer), which was an utter failure from an execution standpoint, made sense as a vertical integration play with Xbox. It failed, but the idea behind it was solid. The OpenAI investment and other AI initiatives have all made tons of sense. Buying Xamarin was brilliant. But this? What about Microsoft has any of the same DNA as TikTok? Insanity. I really, really hope this is just a bad joke and us being used by TikTok to juice offers from other people.
- jychang 6y ago
  I actually think it’s a good play, the same way buying Minecraft was a good idea. You’re talking about a company that made Halo and Minecraft the face of its consumer gaming brand, calls their AI assistant “Cortana”, and their internal windows builds “redstone”. Tiktok doesn’t make sense if you think of Microsoft as “not a social media company”, but it’s a part of a push to engage the GenZ audience that started with the Minecraft acquisition. I’m old enough to remember reading jokes on slashdot on wintel, but for the younger GenZ audience, that’s not what Microsoft is known for. The brand value isn’t in the enterprise stuff HN looks at, but in their consumer facing side. Does microsoft execute well on their consumer side? Results seems mixed, with Xbox doing ok and Mixer crashing and burning. We’ll see how this plays out.
  - throwaway78359 6y ago
    I have absolutely zero faith in our ability to execute on the consumer side with this type of product. We couldn’t even make an also-ran Twitch competitor, despite literally owning one of the major consoles and being the platform for 99.99% of all PC games. Minecraft was a good acquisition. Xbox, by and large, has made good acquisitions. But the rumor isn’t Xbox is buying TikTok, it’s Microsoft. I would argue that with the exception of Xbox, Microsoft doesn’t have a strong consumer play and I would further argue it doesn’t need it. The re-emphasis on developer tools (GitHub, WSL2, Windows Terminal, Visual Studio Code) and productivity (Office 365 and M365, Power Platform) has been a boon for the business. Pure consumer pursuits like Cortana or Windows Phone or Groove Music have not worked. We’re not a company that has social in our DNA. GitHub and LinkedIn are acquisitions that are run with various degrees of autonomy, but even as independent entities, neither was ever social the way Twitter or Facebook are. When you talk about brand value for Gen Z, I understand what you’re saying, but I fully disagree chasing that potential value has legs. How many times has Microsoft tried to be “cool” over the last 45 years and how many times has it failed at it? Microsoft is at its most successful when it stops trying to chase trends and be cool and just focuses on the stuff it is good at.
sushshshsh 6y ago
This honestly would take the cake for for stupidest purchase ever. I couldn't think of a way to lose money faster. Maybe they should also purchase Snapchat too.
- filoleg 6y ago
  > This honestly would take the cake for for stupidest purchase ever. I couldn't think of a way to lose money faster. No comment on the potential TikTok acquisition by MSFT from me, but your quote reminds me of a lot of HN comments and opinions I heard elsewhere, but regarding Zuck and his WhatsApp and Instagram acquisition. Everyone was pretty much clowning him as figuratively the dumbest man on earth who was simply lucky to make a ton of money off Facebook, who now was just throwing that money around at random acquisitions without having any idea what he was doing. A lot of people were also saying that it was all just out of desperation on his end, given that Facebook was going to die any moment soon. Six years later, most people agree that it was one of the smartest decisions he could've made. In a similar vein, think back to when MSFT acquired Minecraft.
  - sushshshsh 6y ago
    I appreciate this response. I agree that there is a parallel between the virality of WhatsApp and the virality of TikTok. I also thought the WhatsApp price was high, but now in retrospect we can see that actually it was quite low, because people around the world are using whatsapp to replace the functionality of so many different websites (social, ecommerce, gaming, news, payments, etc). For TikTok however I think there are two concerns. Number one would be the political situation between USA and China. Number two would be the fact that Instagram, Snapchat, Youtube, Twitter, WeChat and so on have already captured so much of whatever there is to capture in this market. I would be surprised if TikTok became the next WhatsApp, I think it's much more likely to be the next Snapchat or Viber. If I had to buy a Chinese company, it would be Huawei. But Microsoft would find a way to kill that too.
fqye 6y ago
If the US forced ByteDance to sell Tiktok, the US would lose its last bit of moral high ground in China, the spirit of free market and rule by law. If you are worried about data leakage to China, you set rules and law and enforce them. That is what China is doing. They asked Apple and other cloud service provider to store data in China. The US could setup clear rules and regulations about where to put data of US users and if it is allowed to send the data to third country like China and then enforce them. And China asked companies to set up jv in some sectors before they entered China market. They didn't do it after they were already here. Microsoft destroyed China's local word and spreadsheet editor software developers and China didn't ask MS to sell its China local business. This act is pure bullying and imperialism. After that happens, the US wouldn't be able to command any support from Chinese people when it accuses CCP of anything.
- actuator 6y ago
  Honestly, you have some valid points and this bullying by forcing it to be sold is bad. I think the fear is the manipulation that social media platforms can easily do of discourse and emotions. This is not as simple as just selling word processing software. We have seen manipulation on US's own social media platforms by actors not even inside the company. Imagine a government which has supreme control on the companies on its own soil, imagine what it can do. I would say the fear is well founded, the solution to is not. In case of the companies under free governments and justice systems, this becomes hard as any FB employee can go out and use the free press to expose if any manipulation like this is ordered.
- nujabe 6y ago
  What an embarrassingly delusional comment! And quite deceptive too. China, under no circumstances, no matter where the data is stored will allow Facebook or any other social/news media to have a presence in their country. What part of reciprocity do you not understand?
  - fqye 6y ago
    Bing is accessible from China. FB and Twitter must comply with censorship rules and storage of user data in China, among other things, to operate in China. Google was operating and accessible in China until China made clear the rules for them to follow. Google decided it couldn't follow they they pulled out the search engine business from China. China didn't force Google to sell. Censorship is bad but that is another issue. And to do personal attack doesn't make you look smart.
jimbob45 6y ago
Has MS ever not ruined an acquisition? Even TFS is markedly worse than the competition if you’re afforded the opportunity to shop around.
11thEarlOfMar 6y ago
If it is in fact a source of personal information gleaned from Tik Tok users illicitly made available to China, it may have far more value to the Chinese government than the market value assigned to it.
peacefulhat 6y ago
How much value is knocked off the valuation from US govt threatening a ban?
crystaln 6y ago
Is there any precedent for Microsoft operating a cutting edge consumer software product like TikTok? Welcome to Skype LinkedIn TikTok. We've make networking fun.
- millstone 6y ago
  Probably Xbox is the closest.
- askvictor 6y ago
  Minecraft?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- britmob 6y ago
  Mixer, most likely.
  - BbzzbB 6y ago
    R.I.P.
babesh 6y ago
How would this work? Splitting off US users would probably result in that part slowly dying because the non US part will / is going to be larger? Will US users be blocked from the non US TikTok?
knolax 6y ago
It's amazing the nochalance this forum has as they witness our own GFW being built around us. In all likelihood TikTok will get neutered, American teenagers will figure how to use VPNs to access Douyin just like their Chinese peers already do for Youtube, and some of you HNers will be the ones working on the anti-VPN systems used to stop them. You will tell yourself that you're doing good and that you're protecting the country from foreign influence, but the next generation of Hackers will hate you nonetheless.
alfiedotwtf 6y ago
Now I see why trump announced he’s banning TikTok this weekend - he’s going for an ultimatum... let Microsoft buy you out, or we’ll ban you. China doesn’t usually give in to US bullying, so I can’t see TikTok budging on this
grazhero99 6y ago
I think this would probably one of the better outcomes for this situation, outside of somehow convincing every teenager in the world to stop using garbage spyware apps (good luck with that). Microsoft and the US government are at least more of a "devil you know" than China I'd say. Obviously far from ideal, but cutting off the CCP's direct access to the personal data and impressionable minds of millions of young people seems a pressing matter to me. I mean ultimately my hope is that this dumb fad app's relevance just passes in 1 or 2 years. But considering how we've seen similar such abusive, shallow apps have long term success, that may be overly wishful thinking on my part.
- ponker 6y ago
  Also of all the big tech companies Microsoft is probably the worst at psychological warfare to hack into people’s brains and change their behaviors. As annoying as Microsoft Office is, it’s not trying to manipulate your political beliefs or get you to buy some shoes you don’t need.
  - grazhero99 6y ago
    Well, I can think of at least a couple examples where Microsoft or a subsidiary tries to do stuff like that. The big difference I think is that they almost always fail at it, due to how out of touch the higher ups are with how people actually think. Everyone pretty much knows that Microsoft is not, nor will they ever be, your friend.
urda 6y ago
I don't see how one can trust their Azure platform if Microsoft gets in bed with TikTok. It completely deletes all their digital trust.
bezmenov 6y ago
This aged well.
cable2600 6y ago
TikTok does the same thing VINE did. Only VINE went out of business as people stole VINE videos and posted them on YouTube.
- tehwebguy 6y ago
  The companies that ended up consolidating most of the rights to the most popular Vines ended up printing millions of dollars per month for quite a while, I’m sure they still do well.
xnx 6y ago
It appears as though very few Hacker News commenters have spent any time using Tiktok. It is the only enjoyable, enriching social media service I've ever used. Most everything many of us liked about the old/weird internet is present on Tiktok right now: almost no ads or commercial presense, personal content from real people (not hyper produced productions from influencers and pros), weird content, niche content, organically viral content, positive/encouraging comment sections. I've been exposed to such a huge diversity of things on Tiktok: people with physical disabilities, hilarious and creative videos from high schoolers, an elementary school kids frog journal, dance videos with single-digit views, large engine repair tips, home improvement tips, pet ducks, absurdist memes. You owe it to yourself to not dismiss Tiktok as a time-waster for idle teens. Those positive aspects of Tiktok are something we should be figuring out how to expand elsewhere.
- ptx 6y ago
  > almost no ads It usually starts out that way with any centralized for-profit communications platform. They wouldn't want to spring the trap before luring you in.
  - edoceo 6y ago
    Come into my parlour said the spider to the fly...
- monocasa 6y ago
  Ads are coming either way the platform goes. I was getting ads on Facebook _from_ TikTok trying to get me to create ads on TikTok. A meta-ad.
- Causality1 6y ago
  But it doesn't make up for the downside, which is installing robust surveillance software on your phone that sends data to and takes orders from China and is subject to their arbitrary control of messaging. You know what else has a super amazing upside that still doesn't make up for the downside? Methamphetamine.
leptoniscool 6y ago
And so the march towards WW3 hastens..
mythz 6y ago
This would be hugely disappointing, the first international appealing social network outside of US Tech giants and they're potentially being forced to sell due to US Govt political strong arming. The world could use some diversity away from the US Tech giants. As an aside, TikTok is the happiest & most enjoyable social network I've frequented, a few seconds to show off some talent is a great way to burn some downtime with unique entertainment. Would hate to see it fragmented & acquired, especially to a US giant.
- frank2 6y ago
  ICQ was an Israeli company, so there's that.
  - mythz 6y ago
    Yeah though much smaller by today's standards, it was a different era where social networks weren't valued as much as they are now. I'm meaning to say the world needs more diversity of powerful tech companies away from US Tech giants, that's relevant today.
fareesh 6y ago
A lot of the comments here seem to forget that the US isn't the only country that banned TikTok. Also Japan is about to ban it too.
- jerrygoyal 6y ago
  It's also banned in India which probably had the most tiktok users
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
duaoebg 6y ago
The one thing I liked about MS was that it didn’t have a successful social media asset. This allowed it to stay generally apolitical and out of the fray. This will be the beginning of the end of MS. (As opposed to the middle of the end of a very drawn out decline.) I’m sure they see it as another Skype. The US govt subsidizing an acquisition to get access to data. TikTok optimizes hard for popularity which involves many unpleasant choices in their algorithm. MS will feel compelled to ‘fix’ this both for a perceived social good but also for the benefit of the US government who is no doubt subsidizing this. MS will become a target for lobbying by interest groups and the US government to a degree it has never dealt with and I don’t think MS can handle it. This is not the same as criticism for being a monopoly or making crappy software. The best case scenario will be they screw with the algorithm early enough and bad enough that people leave en mass. These are the same people who couldn’t leave Skype alone.
Seasonwreckage 6y ago
Is it too much of a conspiracy to think TikTok deploys 'fans' to forums like this to cleanse their American image?
volgo 6y ago
ByteDance bought Musically for $1B in 2017 and turned it into TikTok. Three years later they are “forced” to divest it for $50B. They’re laughing their asses off to the bank
JosephHatfield 6y ago
Just saw in the WSJ: "Microsoft has paused negotiations to buy the U.S. operations of the video-sharing app TikTok after President Trump said late Friday he opposed the deal, according to people familiar with the matter."
vilesolid 6y ago
https://vilesolid.com/how-to-make-10-dollars-a-day/ https://vilesolid.com/how-to-make-10-dollars-a-day/

293 points by sandGorgon 6y ago

Big story!

Microsoft's ownership is a kiss of death. See: WebTV, Skype, Yammer, Hotmail, Groove, Danger, et cetera. The kids will always move on to something else.

samfisher83 6y ago
Facebook and Instagram seem to be doing ok.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  They haven’t been bought by Microsoft.
  - riffic 6y ago
    Microsoft has a significant ownership stake in Facebook: http://whoownsfacebook.com/#Microsoft http://whoownsfacebook.com/#Microsoft
ubercow13 6y ago
Linkedin? MSN messenger very cool with us when I was young.
- riffic 6y ago
  yeah, I feel the same way about LinkedIn too.
  - ubercow13 6y ago
    Linkedin is as uncool as ever but it doesn't feel like Microsoft's ownership has been much of a kiss of death
hilbertseries 6y ago
GitHub?
- riffic 6y ago
  Yep, not even GitHub is immune from the Microsoft kiss of death: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub#ICE_Contract https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub#ICE_Contract
  - tomjakubowski 6y ago
    ICE was a GitHub customer beginning in 2016, before the Microsoft acquisition. https://github.blog/2019-10-09-github-and-us-government-developers/ https://github.blog/2019-10-09-github-and-us-government-deve...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
adventured 6y ago
> Microsoft's ownership is a kiss of death. Strategically the only thing that matters is that TikTok is removed from foreign ownership and that that weak spot in US Internet dominance is removed, so the US can resume global hegemony over platforms (outside of China). Microsoft generates enough cash every year to safely buy a TikTok annually. The US Government is probably throwing Microsoft a wink on this one. Despite generating $53 billion pear year in operating income and still having a desktop monopoly, Microsoft was excluded from the recent government grilling. Maybe Microsoft will get a nice Azure contract in return. In a year or a few, Microsoft IPOs TikTok or works with private equity to shift its ownership and then Microsoft washes their hands of it, taking a small bath in the process (if they can pull an IPO fast enough, given this market, maybe even making some money on the deal). Sometimes you gotta do a favor for Uncle Sam.
quicklime 6y ago
SCP QDOS? :)
nickthegreek 6y ago
Disagree, this would give MS a strong foothold in social media that the next generation is flocking too.
- riffic 6y ago
  If you haven't noticed, the pendulum is swinging towards decentralized, distributed computing systems. This has happened previously in history (mainframe -> PC, back to Cloud Computing, and now to edge/IoT). If you want to "skate where the puck is going" you would be paying attention to the open web standards space.
  - walterbell 6y ago
    Any standards in particular?
  - astlouis44 6y ago
    Are you referring to WASM/WebGPU when you say open standards? Personally think it's going to revolutionize how software is delivered.
kgwxd 6y ago
Minecraft seems to have worked out ok so far.
haram_masala 6y ago
Nonsense. Skype has cornered the market in prank calling. Now they just need to monetize it.

samfisher83 6y ago

They should by many metrics it is the fastest growing social media app.

km3r 6y ago

How does an international app separate its operations enough to have a full distinct US operation? Will they be able to see post from someone in Canada? in China? Will China be able to see post from US users? Seems like something that needs to be all or nothing.

bigpumpkin 6y ago
You make another Douyin, but for the US only, call it Musicaly, with US data sovereignty and censorship. Creators from outside the US can make an account on it and reach American audiences. But Americans can no longer use the international version of Tiktok.
- bagacrap 6y ago
  but what happens to past data

nashashmi 6y ago

When a disciplined company like Microsoft buys a creative company like tiktok, the best Microsoft can do is monetize it. They will establish content providers. Create distributors. Add a healthy ad network. But most undoubtedly, the creativity and innovation that tiktok can further yield will disappear. And this will lay the next foundation for another company to take over.

SV_BubbleTime 6y ago

I’m sure people have better takes on it than I do... seems to me like data mining service became more popular than anyone would have ever guessed but.. Damn BusinessInsider... showing me a popup over the article on mobile saying: > Sorry for the wait. We’re experiencing tremendous demand right now. The page will reload in 30 seconds and you will then get a chance to buy your access. ... after the article was already fully loaded. That’s some serious anti-consumer dark pattern bullshit.

mtgx 6y ago

Now all the Windows 10 spying over these years will start to to bare fruit (to the detriment of all of us).

Lammy 6y ago

> Gasparino also reported the White House is "deeply concerned" about Microsoft's potential purchase and whether any Chinese investors would retain a stake in TikTok's US operations, citing unnamed sources. And there's the lede. Consider this "story in two headlines" from an earlier high-profile Microsoft acquisition: "NSA offering 'billions' for Skype eavesdrop solution" https://www.theregister.com/2009/02/12/nsa_offers_billions_for_skype_pwnage/ https://www.theregister.com/2009/02/12/nsa_offers_billions_f... "Microsoft Buys Skype for $8.5 Billion. Why, Exactly?" https://www.wired.com/2011/05/microsoft-buys-skype-2/ https://www.wired.com/2011/05/microsoft-buys-skype-2/

classified 6y ago
That's what concerns me. Will that acquisition make MS an appendage of the Chinese government? Will that create conflicts of interest with serving the NSA?
- KingMachiavelli 6y ago
  Isn't it just as likely that this is a backhand deal by the NSA to limit Chinese easedropping? I can't really image any other reason for Microsoft at the hight of it's profitability to want to enter such a competative and fickle social media market.
- techntoke 6y ago
  If the warez community, you'd actually be surprised to find that most of Microsoft internal leaks and hacks come from Russia. Russian groups like WZorNET produce unreleased internal builds of Microsoft solutions all the time.
lern_too_spel 6y ago
Snowden's leaks showed the government could wiretap Skype calls since at least 2010, when the FBI's Skype wiretaps started being ingested into PRISM. Your conspiracy theory for why Microsoft would buy Skype in 2011 doesn't survive even the most rudimentary investigation.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

Hopefully it will be rebranded MikMok or ZuneZok. This seems like a dumb move, why would MS want to get tied up in the horrors of social media when they have such a profitable empire. They couldn’t possibly tie in MicMok to Office 365 and have anything good come from it.

hyperdimension 6y ago
"Microsoft (R) Passport Live TikTok.NET 2020 Datacenter Edition, part of the Windows Live Social Dynamics suite"
- ourmandave 6y ago
  Assume they'll be a Visual Studio 2019 TikTok Xamarin project template.
- vidanay 6y ago
  Now with Containers!
- encom 6y ago
  This reminds me of this old classic. Microsoft Re-Designs the iPod Packaging https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k
- urda 6y ago
  Whatever it takes to bring back Microsoft Bob.
Belphemur 6y ago
I agree it doesn't make any sense ... They just sold their Mixer platform to Facebook. If they can't manage correctly a game streaming platform, I don't see them be able to take on a video social network one.
TrainedMonkey 6y ago
Because they have cash to burn and having a major social media platform is trendy. /s

mrweasel 6y ago

But why? It doesn't fit into anything. Sure Microsoft has previously bought weird things, but lately they've been pretty focused. Why would they buy TikTok+

todd3834 6y ago
The allure of a highly used social product seems to always tempt FAANG companies. The same reason Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook would want this is why Microsoft wants it too.
twoodfin 6y ago
There’s probably something to owning regular attention & data on a majority share of US smartphones, regardless of the specific platform or app. TikTok presumably hits a broad audience that Office / Outlook / Teams do not.
Firebrand 6y ago
The same reason why they bought Minecraft and tried Mixer: to acquire the next generation of technology consumers.
peter303 6y ago
Perhaps you could evolve another mobile OS out of TikTok that is not Android or iOS. MicroSoft failed to get traction with its two previous mobile OSes (perhaps because they were basically offering reworked Windows).
KoftaBob 6y ago
Companies can sometimes act as VC firms and make acquisitions purely as an investment, a growth engine they can use for their core businesses.

mullingitover 6y ago

I never really understood the panic over TikTok. Is the fear about security, or is the fear that China might actually have successful social media product in the US?

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
The fear is that any large Chinese project holding the personal data of Americans is inherently a security concern. It wouldn't be a big issue if Tiktok were French or Korean or something.
- emptysongglass 6y ago
  This is exactly it. There's widespread fear that China is buying its way into the personal data of billions through its state-sponsored businesses like Huawei and ByteDance.
  - franklampard 6y ago
    Is TikTok really state-sponsored? Do you have any source?
    - emptysongglass 6y ago
      It's not that ByteDance, owners of TikTok, are especially state-sponsored (though given the treasure trove of user data they're sitting on, especial isn't a stretch of the imagination): all Chinese corporations are either actively overseen by a CCP committee or potentials to be. See https://thediplomat.com/2019/12/politics-in-the-boardroom-the-role-of-chinese-communist-party-committees/ https://thediplomat.com/2019/12/politics-in-the-boardroom-th...
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      The CEO and cofounder has gone on record (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/05/tiktok-leader-schedules-washington-trip-meet-with-lawmakers-investigations-loom/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/05/tiktok-..., linking to a parent source https://chinamediaproject.org/2018/04/11/tech-shame-in-the-new-era/ https://chinamediaproject.org/2018/04/11/tech-shame-in-the-n...) pledging that he'd run the company in accordance with socialist values and the principles of Xi Jinping Thought. The degree of financial relationship is unknown and probably unknowable, but it seems clear that ByteDance feels obligated to behave how the government wants.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

cellis 6y ago

TikTok acquired an app called Musically, which was a US app. Edit: acquired

throw987542 6y ago
Musical.ly (stylized as musical.ly) was a social media service headquartered in Shanghai with a US office in Santa Monica, California. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musically

mrtksn 6y ago

What happens when Google is left out of having a social media business when most of the things are happening in the social media these days? They tried few times and looks like gave up.

Ataraxy 6y ago
They still have youtube which is in a league of its own and while it may not be consiered a "social network" it's still definitely social media, arguably more than even TikTok could be considered as.

ogre_codes 6y ago

This is not good. Facebook or Google would be worse, but Microsoft is only marginally less bad here.

fermienrico 6y ago
This is far better than having facial recognition data in the hands of CCP. I am not a fan of US gov, but if I had the choice, I wouldn't side with CCP. The genie is already out and we've failed to put laws in place to stop all this data collection way back in 2004. Surprisingly, I feel comfortable with Microsoft having this data. What a world we've created. For those who are skeptical, just watch the Vice doc on how China tracks people, it's on a whole another level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLo3e1Pak-Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLo3e1Pak-Y
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  I'm just against it getting gobbled up by one of the existing internet giants. Getting it out of China is fine by me.
- yorwba 6y ago
  Anyone who wants TikTok's facial recognition data can just scrape their videos and process them with their own models. If ByteDance can afford the storage and bandwidth, so can any interested surveillance agency.
jonas21 6y ago
If this is a bad outcome, can I ask what would be good in your opinion?
- bzb3 6y ago
  Keeping it independent
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  Ideally? TikTok would grow organically and become another viable platform. I'm a huge fan of competition and the free market. Consolidating social media platforms under ever-larger corporate banners is just bad.

thedogeye 6y ago

Satya jealous he didn't get dragged before congress this week.

techntoke 6y ago
Didn't make sense. I guess if you pay lobbyist enough you can get away with anything.

m0xte 6y ago

TikTok is politically poisonous. Why would they?!?

ssully 6y ago
Because it's incredibly popular. I think it's a bad idea because I think TicTok is only a year or two away from their peak until another app catches the zeitgeist.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  MySpace was incredibly popular. Now it's used by the underbelly of society.
bzb3 6y ago
Tiktok bans all political content. It's literally the opposite of politically poisonous.
ryanSrich 6y ago
I mean...money? TikTok is massive. Slightly smaller than Instagram, more than double the size of Twitter. It's a bargain even at $50bn.
AndrewBissell 6y ago
Watch as the political "poison" of TikTok's rampant user surveillance is magically transmuted away once it is acquired by an American tech company!
- newen 6y ago
  Yep, probably the main reason why they want to sell it to a US based company.
- xxpor 6y ago
  But that's the exact issue, it's political poison because of who owns it. Why would it be "magically transmuted away"? That's literally the entire point.

newbie578 6y ago

How would that even function in practice? I am honestly baffled at this. If Trump is so eager to hinder TikTok (China's influence), then he should just ban the company like he did with Huawei and be done with it. The instant he does it, TikTok is doomed (internationally), they are a pure digital product.

grezql 6y ago

Not sure if this is good. There is now a new trending app that is eating up TikTok users, its called Triller. Same concept but US made I think. What happens if MSFT buy TikTok only for the users to migrate to the new flavour of the social media app.

devenblake 6y ago
I use TikTok a lot (there are >1M combined views on my videos) and I've never heard of it. A lot of good TikTokers from before the app really took off went to Byte (made by the dudes that made Vine) and it seems like Byte is the logical successor. I expect most users will migrate eventually. TikTok had its charms because it was completely mismanaged. The discover feed had a mix between popular (>1M likes) and very unpopular (1-30 likes) videos and very odd videos, like someone slowly crushing a hornet to death inside a syringe, get popular often. Microsoft tends to have a "digital gentrification" effect on the services they take over; for example, when they bought Minecraft, they stopped adding `- removed Herobrine` to update logs. To a lot of fans it showed a lack of respect to the game and its culture. Many older players even refuse to play any Microsoft-created Minecraft versions because they changed a lot of core gameplay mechanics. This same effect will probably hit their acquisition of TikTok. They'll make it so pro-equality posts make it to the feed more often (TikTok has a semi-4chan-ish culture around its humor rather than an "accepting" environment, though a minority of users are actually bigoted), polish the horrid UX, make good video effects rather than the very odd choices available now, and I expect they'll make it so videos can be longer (the default length is 15 seconds but you can make videos up to 60). This would ruin TikTok. The limitations imposed by TikTok's designers are crucial for fostering creativity (in my opinion, but I've made literally hundreds of videos on the platform). Without them, TikTok is just another video app. One more thing- most TikTok users despise America. America, to the youth, is a rich bastard bully of a country with military bases across the world despite no other country having bases in America. They believe being spied on by China is preferable to being spied on by America; if you're spied on by China, what are they gonna do, try to send you propaganda? If you're spied on by America and they don't like you, they just send cops in plainclothes to your house to shoot you, and the cops don't even get charged. Even if Microsoft doesn't hurt TikTok, TikTok's further association with America alone will be enough to make users move.

amrrs 6y ago

Microsoft is definitely a good candidate here for TikTok. With them missing Mobile-rise and Social media-rise, this acquisition seems to be a desperate attempt to cement their position in a hyper growth consumer product that's both Mobile and Social Media. Question is, Would it impact Microsoft's image? I mean, Tik Tok is known for their addictive design and Privacy controversy, so not sure how it goes well with the recent Good-guy image Microsoft's trying to portray itself.

jczhang 6y ago
How does it fit in with the rest of their products and overall strategy is my question.

slipheen 6y ago

I think it's a clever play. It would help address the spyware concern by moving it to a US company, and give them a better foothold in Social Networking than Linked-in provides. I'd have a few concerns about if MS can keep it growing- For one, I worry that Microsoft may mismanage it, similar to how they treated Skype. We saw Yahoo buy many reasonable smaller social networks (Flickr, Delicious, Tumblr) and was never able to make it work. Microsoft has seemed to get better at acquisions lately though, so they may be able to pull it off. The other concern is that youth-based social networks tend to have a short half-life; Snap isn't exactly taking over the world anymore. But personally, I absolutely think it'd be worth the gamble. The price is relatively low (just over 1 quarter of revenue), and if they can keep it going it's a good hedge against FB, if nothing else.

sanxiyn 6y ago
TikTok is not a "youth-based social network". It is more similar to YouTube, with content creator ecosystem and advertisement profit sharing and all.
- slipheen 6y ago
  From https://www.omnicoreagency.com/tiktok-statistics/ https://www.omnicoreagency.com/tiktok-statistics/ > 41 percent of TikTok users are aged between 16 and 24. That seems rather youth-heavy when compared to Facebook (Timeline), Twitter, YouTube, Instagram. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but it does come with risks.
  - sprite 6y ago
    What percentage is between 13-15? Or younger and lying about it. I would think 16-24 is their older user base.
    - nicky0 6y ago
      My friend's kids, ages 9 and 11, are both obsessed with TikTok along with most of their school.

fermienrico 6y ago

Person confirming this: https://twitter.com/CGasparino?s=21 https://twitter.com/CGasparino?s=21 I don’t know how reputable the source is.

bdcravens 6y ago
Seems to have a solid reputation and experience. https://www.foxbusiness.com/person/g/charles-gasparino https://www.foxbusiness.com/person/g/charles-gasparino He doesn't say the source, only reports it, so not sure what the issue is here.
- AndrewBissell 6y ago
  Gasparino puts forth a lot of very dodgy or outright false "SCOOPS" (as he calls them on his Twitter account). They're always couched in terms like "according to my sources" or "this is what I'm hearing" so that he has plausible deniability if they don't come to pass. You can even see it in the headline to this story: "Sources speculate one name to buy TikTok is Microsoft"

quicklime 6y ago

Does Trump have the power to just order a company to be broken up like this? I get that there’s a national security angle to this, but I imagine there would be outrage if he unilaterally decided to break up Facebook, for example.

est31 6y ago
Trump is not acting totally unilaterally here. The intelligence community is critical of TikTok as well as multiple republican senators. In fact, it's even possible that the government is involved in this purchase in some form, by either using their good standing as big MS customers (how many federal employees run Windows+Ms Office computers?), or by offering money directly, something that is purported to have happened when Microsoft purchased Skype a few years ago. Getting rid of E2EE for Skype, which Microsoft eventually did, was a big request of the US intelligence community. Ultimately it'd be a good resolution to the issue. No more spying by China and American teenagers can safely continue using the app.

creaghpatr 6y ago

Would they merge it with Linkedin?

slipheen 6y ago
I don't think they'd be well served to, in the same way that the main Facebook app isn't merged with Instagram (although they can share some logins/etc). They're targetting different demographics, and are used very differently (Job searching vs short-form videos).
akerro 6y ago
LinkedIn is already indistinguishable from Facebook. Feels like a dead platform with no purpose. Congratz on new cat Mike!
- Closi 6y ago
  Dead platform with no purpose? I’ll assume you aren’t in management or the job market then

TimesOldRoman 6y ago

Another "If ya can't beat'em, join'em."?

ferest 6y ago

In short, only American companies can have access to the brains of Americans. There is no law to prohibit an app of being used in US, and there is no evidence TikTok broke any existing law operating within US. All the talking point being so far is because it's a chinese company. This is literally how black people was treated. It's interesting to see how protectionism change the country brand of equal business opportunity and spirit of the law.

colordrops 6y ago
The analogy would only make sense if black people were a foreign economic and nuclear powerhouse that have been blocking US apps with even more prejudice. Tit for tat restrictions are standard practice with international trade and not evidence of racism.
- ferest 6y ago
  fwiw china didn't block US apps, it's china blocks apps decide not to follow the chinese law, regardless if it's US app or from any other country. If tiktok has child porn or some other illegal stuff, i'm totally fine with blocking it. But in this case, the only evidence so far is, it's a chinese app, not because it's breaking any law.
  - colordrops 6y ago
    That is absolutely not true. China has blocked and shut down plenty of services that are following the law simply for protectionist or narrative control reasons. When twitter clones started popping up in China they shut down 11 services and chose a single one to survive, that being Weibo.
- sanxiyn 6y ago
  China does not block US apps.
  - ferest 6y ago
    yea that's how media made the headlines

eunos 6y ago

Will there be any restriction regarding board members or executive positioning? For example, are they allowed to offer board/executive position to Zhang Yiming (original owner of Bytedance)?

chvid 6y ago

So now the US is nationalising a foreign company because they are communist ...

logicchains 6y ago
It's not because they're communist, it's just because they're successful and not under America's control.

rectang 6y ago

It would take nothing less than a from-scratch rewrite to achieve a high degree of confidence that all backdoors have been eliminated from the TikTok codebase. I hope Microsoft is up for that.

mikkelewis 6y ago
What gives you the low degree of confidence MS engineers couldn't do a complete scan of TikTok's codebase?
- rectang 6y ago
  I don't have confidence about scans in general against novel attacks. Scans are effective against the threat model of off-the-shelf attacks, not a threat model of highly motivated, highly-skilled attackers capable of inserting subtle defects anywhere in a giant codebase.
Dahoon 6y ago
Funny how Americans see this. I would trust Tiktok less the second it became US owned. We think software and businesses from Russia and PRC does bad things. We know US owned does. It is mindbaffling to me how anyone could believe the risks are lower with US owned software. Snowden's leaks was a complete failure for the common American. They have learned nothing at all. Good old red scare still works way better than facts.
- chvid 6y ago
  That the US president is essentially threatening to nationalise TikTok shows just how far the US is willing to go to preserve their absolute dominance in social media. "National security". Well of course it is. All American social media allows the American intelligence services to surveil just about every person on this planet. No other nation has ever had this power.

muststopmyths 6y ago

Wait, so I'm going to have to install the TikTok For Business with Sharepoint integration in my Teams? I guess anything makes sense to a company that paid $26 billion USD for LinkedIn.

lhorie 6y ago
Jokes aside, it probably would be a nice addition to their consumer-oriented portfolio (i.e. xbox, minecraft, etc), if they're planning to stay relevant in the FAANG-taking-over-the-world state of reality these days.
- nothis 6y ago
  Steve Jobs once said about Microsoft that their only problem is that they have no taste. And it's decisions like this that illustrate what he meant. TikTok is such a clash with everything Microsoft stands for as a company (if there is such a thing). It makes no sense.
  - Hydraulix989 6y ago
    It's still a $1T+ company, that's the metric that matters when evaluating the "worth" of a business. So in that sense, the market has a "taste" for Microsoft.
    - kohtatsu 6y ago
      Honestly I don't give a flying fuck about a company's market cap, I care about what it offers to me and the world. Markets are a means to an end, not something to fetishize.
      - vogre 6y ago
        Market cap is actually a quite precise estimation of what company offers to the world. Money is just information about usefulness. If you are useful to other people you've got money. If someone is useful to you, you give money.

chvid 6y ago

This is from Bloomberg's coverage of the story: "President Donald Trump plans to announce a decision ordering Bytedance to divest its U.S. ownership of TikTok, according to people familiar with the matter. The U.S. has been investigating potential national security risks due to the Chinese company’s control of the app. Trump’s decision could be announced as soon as Friday, said the people." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-31/microsoft-is-said-to-be-in-talks-to-buy-tiktok-in-u-s?srnd=premium-europe https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-31/microsoft... Microsoft Is Said to Be in Talks to Buy TikTok in U.S.

uses 6y ago

I wonder what the ownership transfer of a multi-billion dollar app looks like? Like, what emails, button clicks, phone calls, etc, is involved in changing the ownership of the iOS app from one party to another? Presumably it's a different process from like, a toy app with zero downloads?

sanxiyn 6y ago
Mechanically speaking, App Store has App Transfer functionality. Here is Apple's documentation on it: https://help.apple.com/app-store-connect/#/deved688524f https://help.apple.com/app-store-connect/#/deved688524f
bagacrap 6y ago
I am more interested to know how you cut up the actual content. A user from Japan liked a video from an American user a year ago, what happens to that? Are the users still on the same tiktok shard? Do we somehow remove all foreign interaction from the American shard? Do users from Canada get to choose which shard to go with?

kumarvvr 6y ago

What value does Microsoft get out of this? Looks like a desperate deal pushed by TikTok to get rid of "Chinese spyware" tag. The deal makes no absolute sense.

johnghanks 6y ago
TikTok is massive. The deal would come with a _lot_ of data.
hellomyguys 6y ago
A massive video library for computer vision and a huge data set on user actions taken for each video. More bullish take... potentially the next YouTube.
- kumarvvr 6y ago
  Doesn't look like it's for the data. For one thing, user gesture data or user action data can be automated with 3D software. Provides a far better set of training data. Data for targeted advertisements? Microsoft is hardly in that business of selling ads. I understand Mojang, because Minecraft is a platform that engages kids in meaningful ways. But TikTok is an app to waste time and shit post.
  - hellomyguys 6y ago
    >For one thing, user gesture data or user action data can be automated with 3D software. Not sure I get what that means. >I understand Mojang, because Minecraft is a platform that engages kids in meaningful ways. But TikTok is an app to waste time and shit post. Kids are definitely engaging in meaningful and interesting ways on TikTok. It would be an incredible overgeneralization to say otherwise. Is there a bunch of crap on there too? Sure, but you can write off the internet with the same logic. Crap is also fun, which has some value too. The content on early YouTube wasn't what we have today either...
    - kumarvvr 6y ago

trekrich 6y ago

This is like writing the CCP is massive check! If anything it should be banned from all app stores.

billconan 6y ago

I tried TikTok, I don't think it is as great as what others told me. The content is very repetitive. I think imgur has better variations.

moreorless 6y ago

Not a single person seem to think that it is odd that we can simply order a foreign company to sell their business to an American company.

bigpumpkin 6y ago
You ain't seen nothing yet. Wait until they break out the "Entities List".
- moreorless 6y ago
  I find the whole Huawei situation to be quite riveting.
halfmatthalfcat 6y ago
Is it any more odd than China strong-arming the NBA, lest they are barred from operating there? If TikTok wants the American/European market and they’d sell the company in order to so, that’s just the reality of working within the current geopolitical landscape.
- moreorless 6y ago
  They do it, so we should too. Got it.
  - brandonmenc 6y ago
    Yes. Exactly. Welcome to the real world.
    - moreorless 6y ago
      Then it is high time we get off our high horse.
- xster 6y ago
  Wouldn't the logical equivalency be for China to strong-arm the NBA to sell ownership to a Chinese company if they want the NBA to continue to be watched by Chinese audience?

soniman 6y ago

Microsoft might want to get rid of the advertizing businesses (like Bing) and merging Bing with Tiktok would create a mini Google-Youtube spinoff that would be very hot.

swayson 6y ago

The ever decreasing robustness property of the ecosystem which loses diversity and becomes more centralized. I don't know if FAANG gaining more and more power is a good thing for the world.

data4lyfe 6y ago

Microsoft finally gets their own social media play

mrkramer 6y ago

Imo it doesn't make sense for Microsoft to buy it. They could' ve bought Facebook back in the day but Zuck probably wouldn't sell. Pls Microsoft buy it and destroy it by your mismanagement.

trollied 6y ago

Migrate it to Azure. It'll get renamed to TikTok 360 because of the downtime.

zxcvbn4038 6y ago

I always suspected that the US government had Microsoft buy Skype so they could centralize it under US authority and monitor the communications. I have a feeling that TikTok is the same scenario - instead of worrying about TikTok spying on Americans, the US will have Microsoft buy it and they it'll move the servers to the US and use it to spy on the Chinese. Google and Facebook will never get broken up as long as Uncle Sam gets access to everyone's communications.

chrisjc 6y ago
> and use it to spy on the Chinese How? Are you suggesting that Douyin will be included in the purchase?
- gastlygem 6y ago
  Yeah the international version of TikTok is already restricted here in China. Last time I tried to use it with VPN but it didn't work.

actuator 6y ago

This looks like such a mismatch. Also, does it make sense to pay the rumoured $50 billion for a company with no moat? Even US revenue expectations for this year were $0.5 billion.

crystaln 6y ago
trump's executive order should lower the price...

hujun 6y ago

what makes you all think ByteDance will agree to sell their top product in 1st place?

throwaway78359 6y ago

Throwaway for obvious reasons. I cannot understand what executive thinks this is a good idea or that it makes any sense in the broader organizational structure of Microsoft. It's been so nice to see five years or so of relatively GOOD acquisitions. LinkedIn made sense: it's allowed for a legitimate Salesforce compete, especially when paired with Dynamics. GitHub was incredibly smart and it aligns well with the resurgent dev tools division and the cloud. Even Beam (Mixer), which was an utter failure from an execution standpoint, made sense as a vertical integration play with Xbox. It failed, but the idea behind it was solid. The OpenAI investment and other AI initiatives have all made tons of sense. Buying Xamarin was brilliant. But this? What about Microsoft has any of the same DNA as TikTok? Insanity. I really, really hope this is just a bad joke and us being used by TikTok to juice offers from other people.

jychang 6y ago
I actually think it’s a good play, the same way buying Minecraft was a good idea. You’re talking about a company that made Halo and Minecraft the face of its consumer gaming brand, calls their AI assistant “Cortana”, and their internal windows builds “redstone”. Tiktok doesn’t make sense if you think of Microsoft as “not a social media company”, but it’s a part of a push to engage the GenZ audience that started with the Minecraft acquisition. I’m old enough to remember reading jokes on slashdot on wintel, but for the younger GenZ audience, that’s not what Microsoft is known for. The brand value isn’t in the enterprise stuff HN looks at, but in their consumer facing side. Does microsoft execute well on their consumer side? Results seems mixed, with Xbox doing ok and Mixer crashing and burning. We’ll see how this plays out.
- throwaway78359 6y ago
  I have absolutely zero faith in our ability to execute on the consumer side with this type of product. We couldn’t even make an also-ran Twitch competitor, despite literally owning one of the major consoles and being the platform for 99.99% of all PC games. Minecraft was a good acquisition. Xbox, by and large, has made good acquisitions. But the rumor isn’t Xbox is buying TikTok, it’s Microsoft. I would argue that with the exception of Xbox, Microsoft doesn’t have a strong consumer play and I would further argue it doesn’t need it. The re-emphasis on developer tools (GitHub, WSL2, Windows Terminal, Visual Studio Code) and productivity (Office 365 and M365, Power Platform) has been a boon for the business. Pure consumer pursuits like Cortana or Windows Phone or Groove Music have not worked. We’re not a company that has social in our DNA. GitHub and LinkedIn are acquisitions that are run with various degrees of autonomy, but even as independent entities, neither was ever social the way Twitter or Facebook are. When you talk about brand value for Gen Z, I understand what you’re saying, but I fully disagree chasing that potential value has legs. How many times has Microsoft tried to be “cool” over the last 45 years and how many times has it failed at it? Microsoft is at its most successful when it stops trying to chase trends and be cool and just focuses on the stuff it is good at.

sushshshsh 6y ago

This honestly would take the cake for for stupidest purchase ever. I couldn't think of a way to lose money faster. Maybe they should also purchase Snapchat too.

filoleg 6y ago
> This honestly would take the cake for for stupidest purchase ever. I couldn't think of a way to lose money faster. No comment on the potential TikTok acquisition by MSFT from me, but your quote reminds me of a lot of HN comments and opinions I heard elsewhere, but regarding Zuck and his WhatsApp and Instagram acquisition. Everyone was pretty much clowning him as figuratively the dumbest man on earth who was simply lucky to make a ton of money off Facebook, who now was just throwing that money around at random acquisitions without having any idea what he was doing. A lot of people were also saying that it was all just out of desperation on his end, given that Facebook was going to die any moment soon. Six years later, most people agree that it was one of the smartest decisions he could've made. In a similar vein, think back to when MSFT acquired Minecraft.
- sushshshsh 6y ago
  I appreciate this response. I agree that there is a parallel between the virality of WhatsApp and the virality of TikTok. I also thought the WhatsApp price was high, but now in retrospect we can see that actually it was quite low, because people around the world are using whatsapp to replace the functionality of so many different websites (social, ecommerce, gaming, news, payments, etc). For TikTok however I think there are two concerns. Number one would be the political situation between USA and China. Number two would be the fact that Instagram, Snapchat, Youtube, Twitter, WeChat and so on have already captured so much of whatever there is to capture in this market. I would be surprised if TikTok became the next WhatsApp, I think it's much more likely to be the next Snapchat or Viber. If I had to buy a Chinese company, it would be Huawei. But Microsoft would find a way to kill that too.

fqye 6y ago

If the US forced ByteDance to sell Tiktok, the US would lose its last bit of moral high ground in China, the spirit of free market and rule by law. If you are worried about data leakage to China, you set rules and law and enforce them. That is what China is doing. They asked Apple and other cloud service provider to store data in China. The US could setup clear rules and regulations about where to put data of US users and if it is allowed to send the data to third country like China and then enforce them. And China asked companies to set up jv in some sectors before they entered China market. They didn't do it after they were already here. Microsoft destroyed China's local word and spreadsheet editor software developers and China didn't ask MS to sell its China local business. This act is pure bullying and imperialism. After that happens, the US wouldn't be able to command any support from Chinese people when it accuses CCP of anything.

actuator 6y ago
Honestly, you have some valid points and this bullying by forcing it to be sold is bad. I think the fear is the manipulation that social media platforms can easily do of discourse and emotions. This is not as simple as just selling word processing software. We have seen manipulation on US's own social media platforms by actors not even inside the company. Imagine a government which has supreme control on the companies on its own soil, imagine what it can do. I would say the fear is well founded, the solution to is not. In case of the companies under free governments and justice systems, this becomes hard as any FB employee can go out and use the free press to expose if any manipulation like this is ordered.
nujabe 6y ago
What an embarrassingly delusional comment! And quite deceptive too. China, under no circumstances, no matter where the data is stored will allow Facebook or any other social/news media to have a presence in their country. What part of reciprocity do you not understand?
- fqye 6y ago
  Bing is accessible from China. FB and Twitter must comply with censorship rules and storage of user data in China, among other things, to operate in China. Google was operating and accessible in China until China made clear the rules for them to follow. Google decided it couldn't follow they they pulled out the search engine business from China. China didn't force Google to sell. Censorship is bad but that is another issue. And to do personal attack doesn't make you look smart.

jimbob45 6y ago

Has MS ever not ruined an acquisition? Even TFS is markedly worse than the competition if you’re afforded the opportunity to shop around.

11thEarlOfMar 6y ago

If it is in fact a source of personal information gleaned from Tik Tok users illicitly made available to China, it may have far more value to the Chinese government than the market value assigned to it.

peacefulhat 6y ago

How much value is knocked off the valuation from US govt threatening a ban?

crystaln 6y ago

Is there any precedent for Microsoft operating a cutting edge consumer software product like TikTok? Welcome to Skype LinkedIn TikTok. We've make networking fun.

millstone 6y ago
Probably Xbox is the closest.
askvictor 6y ago
Minecraft?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
britmob 6y ago
Mixer, most likely.
- BbzzbB 6y ago
  R.I.P.

babesh 6y ago

How would this work? Splitting off US users would probably result in that part slowly dying because the non US part will / is going to be larger? Will US users be blocked from the non US TikTok?

knolax 6y ago

It's amazing the nochalance this forum has as they witness our own GFW being built around us. In all likelihood TikTok will get neutered, American teenagers will figure how to use VPNs to access Douyin just like their Chinese peers already do for Youtube, and some of you HNers will be the ones working on the anti-VPN systems used to stop them. You will tell yourself that you're doing good and that you're protecting the country from foreign influence, but the next generation of Hackers will hate you nonetheless.

alfiedotwtf 6y ago

Now I see why trump announced he’s banning TikTok this weekend - he’s going for an ultimatum... let Microsoft buy you out, or we’ll ban you. China doesn’t usually give in to US bullying, so I can’t see TikTok budging on this

grazhero99 6y ago

I think this would probably one of the better outcomes for this situation, outside of somehow convincing every teenager in the world to stop using garbage spyware apps (good luck with that). Microsoft and the US government are at least more of a "devil you know" than China I'd say. Obviously far from ideal, but cutting off the CCP's direct access to the personal data and impressionable minds of millions of young people seems a pressing matter to me. I mean ultimately my hope is that this dumb fad app's relevance just passes in 1 or 2 years. But considering how we've seen similar such abusive, shallow apps have long term success, that may be overly wishful thinking on my part.

ponker 6y ago
Also of all the big tech companies Microsoft is probably the worst at psychological warfare to hack into people’s brains and change their behaviors. As annoying as Microsoft Office is, it’s not trying to manipulate your political beliefs or get you to buy some shoes you don’t need.
- grazhero99 6y ago
  Well, I can think of at least a couple examples where Microsoft or a subsidiary tries to do stuff like that. The big difference I think is that they almost always fail at it, due to how out of touch the higher ups are with how people actually think. Everyone pretty much knows that Microsoft is not, nor will they ever be, your friend.

urda 6y ago

I don't see how one can trust their Azure platform if Microsoft gets in bed with TikTok. It completely deletes all their digital trust.

bezmenov 6y ago

This aged well.

cable2600 6y ago

TikTok does the same thing VINE did. Only VINE went out of business as people stole VINE videos and posted them on YouTube.

tehwebguy 6y ago
The companies that ended up consolidating most of the rights to the most popular Vines ended up printing millions of dollars per month for quite a while, I’m sure they still do well.

xnx 6y ago

It appears as though very few Hacker News commenters have spent any time using Tiktok. It is the only enjoyable, enriching social media service I've ever used. Most everything many of us liked about the old/weird internet is present on Tiktok right now: almost no ads or commercial presense, personal content from real people (not hyper produced productions from influencers and pros), weird content, niche content, organically viral content, positive/encouraging comment sections. I've been exposed to such a huge diversity of things on Tiktok: people with physical disabilities, hilarious and creative videos from high schoolers, an elementary school kids frog journal, dance videos with single-digit views, large engine repair tips, home improvement tips, pet ducks, absurdist memes. You owe it to yourself to not dismiss Tiktok as a time-waster for idle teens. Those positive aspects of Tiktok are something we should be figuring out how to expand elsewhere.

ptx 6y ago
> almost no ads It usually starts out that way with any centralized for-profit communications platform. They wouldn't want to spring the trap before luring you in.
- edoceo 6y ago
  Come into my parlour said the spider to the fly...
monocasa 6y ago
Ads are coming either way the platform goes. I was getting ads on Facebook _from_ TikTok trying to get me to create ads on TikTok. A meta-ad.
Causality1 6y ago
But it doesn't make up for the downside, which is installing robust surveillance software on your phone that sends data to and takes orders from China and is subject to their arbitrary control of messaging. You know what else has a super amazing upside that still doesn't make up for the downside? Methamphetamine.

leptoniscool 6y ago

And so the march towards WW3 hastens..

mythz 6y ago

This would be hugely disappointing, the first international appealing social network outside of US Tech giants and they're potentially being forced to sell due to US Govt political strong arming. The world could use some diversity away from the US Tech giants. As an aside, TikTok is the happiest & most enjoyable social network I've frequented, a few seconds to show off some talent is a great way to burn some downtime with unique entertainment. Would hate to see it fragmented & acquired, especially to a US giant.

frank2 6y ago
ICQ was an Israeli company, so there's that.
- mythz 6y ago
  Yeah though much smaller by today's standards, it was a different era where social networks weren't valued as much as they are now. I'm meaning to say the world needs more diversity of powerful tech companies away from US Tech giants, that's relevant today.

fareesh 6y ago

A lot of the comments here seem to forget that the US isn't the only country that banned TikTok. Also Japan is about to ban it too.

jerrygoyal 6y ago
It's also banned in India which probably had the most tiktok users

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

duaoebg 6y ago

The one thing I liked about MS was that it didn’t have a successful social media asset. This allowed it to stay generally apolitical and out of the fray. This will be the beginning of the end of MS. (As opposed to the middle of the end of a very drawn out decline.) I’m sure they see it as another Skype. The US govt subsidizing an acquisition to get access to data. TikTok optimizes hard for popularity which involves many unpleasant choices in their algorithm. MS will feel compelled to ‘fix’ this both for a perceived social good but also for the benefit of the US government who is no doubt subsidizing this. MS will become a target for lobbying by interest groups and the US government to a degree it has never dealt with and I don’t think MS can handle it. This is not the same as criticism for being a monopoly or making crappy software. The best case scenario will be they screw with the algorithm early enough and bad enough that people leave en mass. These are the same people who couldn’t leave Skype alone.

Seasonwreckage 6y ago

Is it too much of a conspiracy to think TikTok deploys 'fans' to forums like this to cleanse their American image?

volgo 6y ago

ByteDance bought Musically for $1B in 2017 and turned it into TikTok. Three years later they are “forced” to divest it for $50B. They’re laughing their asses off to the bank

JosephHatfield 6y ago

Just saw in the WSJ: "Microsoft has paused negotiations to buy the U.S. operations of the video-sharing app TikTok after President Trump said late Friday he opposed the deal, according to people familiar with the matter."

vilesolid 6y ago

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