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Microsoft and Bytedance Put TikTok Talks on Hold After Trump Signals Opposition
- kanox 6y agoI can't believe business deals with such explicit political motivations are being considered.
- pjc50 6y agoThe new thing is the explicitness of the political motivations. There are plenty of countries where if you want to have a sufficiently large business, you have to pay off all the people with their hands out, right up the chain. And that's what this is. (The fact that this is illegal in the US and even for US companies to do abroad under FCPA will, I suspect, be rendered irrelevant)
- kanox 6y agoBribes are about money, this appears to be about media control. Much worse.
- shiado 6y agoEvery single piece of law granting the US government authority on national security grounds has enjoyed bipartisan support for a very long time. I'm only surprised it hasn't been used like this earlier.
- kanox 6y agoTreating foreign media as a "national security issue" is extremely scary. This is not something that free societies do.
- dvt 6y ago> Treating foreign media as a "national security issue" is extremely scary. Not really. RT and Al Jazeera has (rightfully) suffered much of the same scrutiny. There's a fundamental difference between something extremely partisan (think Breitbart or HuffPo) and something state-sponsored. Let's not bury our heads in the sand here.
- bigpumpkin 6y agoRT and Al Jazeera may suffer scrutiny, but the US government cannot ban Americans from reading them.
- kanox 6y ago> There's a fundamental difference between something extremely partisan (think Breitbart or HuffPo) and something state-sponsored. Not really, free speech should apply even to hostile foreign propaganda.
- nmfisher 6y agoBut this is tantamount to banning Americans from accessing the Al Jazeera website. It’s obscene.
- ChefboyOG 6y agoNon-walled link to TechCrunch coverage: https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/01/bytedance-and-microsoft-offer-a-deal-to-allow-tiktok-to-remain-in-the-u-s-per-report/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/01/bytedance-and-microsoft-of...
- lykr0n 6y agoI'm applying to work at ByteDance, and this whole thing is quite interesting. I'd most likely, if I get an offer, ask if they would wait to see how this plays out. Last thing I would want to do is join a company that's having these kind of issues.
- bilbo0s 6y agoIt's not likely they would give you an offer to be perfectly frank. In a very real way, they can't even know if they will have their own jobs in a month.
- sillysaurusx 6y agoNot sure about that. Companies tend to offer jobs right up until a hiring freeze comes down from above. Happened to me with nVidia, and seemed to happen to a bunch of people at Magic Leap. It might be best to accept the job offer pronto. What's the worst that happens? You have to look for another job, which is the situation you're already in.
- muststopmyths 6y agoI wonder if the "deal" was going to be just "we'll run your US infrastructure (and keep data) in the US, on Azure, and we split the money" rather than a buyout ? That would make more sense to me. So more like "Microsoft will invest X billion for a Y% of TikTok and run its US operations". You could satisfy the US government that Microsoft was guaranteeing the data would not be shipped to China.
- bigpumpkin 6y agoI thought Trump already said no to that plan.
- muststopmyths 6y agoYeah and the article also says that it was an actual buyout of Bytedance's share. oh well. interesting times.
- TooKool4This 6y agoI don't see how with that arrangement they could guarantee the app is also not collecting and uploading data in addition to the data saved on Microsoft's servers. It would come down to trying to prove a negative which is not really possible outside of trivial cases. The only way to make that arrangement work would be to give Microsoft access to the source and ability/responsibility to review the source/releases. Not exactly a great Setup for either party.
- whoisthemachine 6y agoThis is just wild. What will happen when or if a president of a different party is elected?
- bilbo0s 6y agoI understand your question, but I'm sorry, that just sounds bush league to me. So you have to change your business to suit every political party that comes to power? That's a lot of unpredictability. How can you run a business like that? Plus, what if elections are "postponed until a more appropriate time"? I mean, the environment would just be riddled with so much uncertainty that I'm not sure how an honest business would be able to engage in cogent decision making?
- scarface74 6y agoI’m so confused. Didn’t I just read several submissions where almost every person was cheering the government threatening to become involved in Big Tech?
- bilbo0s 6y agoYou may have, but not from me. I've never been big on the government getting involved. In my view, big tech has no problem that the market won't work out. The privacy problem, (well, I consider it a problem, others may not), happens when big government gets involved with big tech. We actually need less of that, not more.
- searchableguy 6y agoHN is an international site and has quite diverse population from what I have seen. Some Indian threads are pro government while others are completely anti-government. There are so many variables for this - one could be timezone and day of the week. I have a list of usernames for people who participate on those threads so I know it's different every time.
- searchableguy 6y ago
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- zmmmmm 6y agoThe idea that corporations are kowtowing to a polticians individual personal wishes - rather than operating under a framework of laws and regulations based on principles and administered fairly to all - should be offensive to every single American, regardless of who the players are or their country of origin.
- bdcravens 6y agoPerhaps they are waiting to allow government policy to create a better negotiating position.
- Seasonwreckage 6y agoEven more pronounced is the silence of life long legislators who were always opposed to this kind of strong man government all along. Ps: I side with Trump on this one. Just hate the fact that no Republican opposes him anymore.
- squarefoot 6y ago> Just hate the fact that no Republican opposes him anymore. Many do, few have the guts to admit it publicly. Politics is still a business after all. As an example, The Lincoln Project is made by past and current republicans strongly opposing Trump. https://lincolnproject.us/ https://lincolnproject.us/
- bilbo0s 6y agoIt's been my observation that political parties believe in whatever is convenient for them to believe in at any given time. So we shouldn't necessarily be surprised by lack of GOP opposition. In fairness, I guess people are like that as well. Maybe that sort of duplicity is simply endemic to being human?
- scarface74 6y agoWell, This is what HN posters want. As evidence by the numerous downvotes I get about not wanting the government involvement in tech. Even after the dog and pony show with the CEO’s last week where one representative grilled Zuckerberg about Twitter’s treatment of Don Jr.
- KKKKkkkk1 6y agoHow is it ok for the US president to ban a media company? How is it ok for the US president to put pressure on the owners of a company to sell to another company? This must violate > 1 article of the constitution.
- quantum_state 6y agoIt should be challenged in court. This is a country of rule of law.
- BooneJS 6y agoIt’s supposed to be. I think we’ve seen recently that laws only matter if they’re enforced. They can’t just exist.
- bgorman 6y agoWhy would a media company be special. This type of thing happens all the time, for example the US government banned a Chinese company from purchasing Lattice Semiconductor, the third biggest FPGA company (and really a much smaller player than the big two).
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- javagram 6y agoIf the president is taking this actions in retaliation for the expression of free speech on the platform (TikTok audience skews young, which is a very anti-trump demographic) that may violate the First Amendment if proven. Viewpoint discrimination is against the first amendment. We know Trump wasn’t offended by the idea that foreign countries might be trying to help him get elected, and has repeatedly called it a “Russia hoax”, but now that a social media app has anti-Trump users it’s suddenly a national security threat without any evidence provided?
- splintercell 6y ago
- ardit33 6y agoIf Tiktok was European/Japanese/Korean/Canadian this would not happen, as those countries are free democracies and work with a similar/common rule of law 1. China doesn’t play with the same rules, and it has been proven to be a malicious player 2. They don’t allow western companies to operate freely in their country, why should we let them to? 3. The US and to a lesser degree Europe, are in a de-facto new Cold War, and informational warefare is big part of it You can view either on the reciprocity Point of view, or data-safety point Of view, the US would be foolish/dumb to allow TikTok to flourish in the US., while American companies just can’t in China. Now, if the US was banning an app from another western country, that would be a true scandal. In this case they are doing the right thinks
- jackson1442 6y agoIf the government wants to restrict the ability of Chinese business to grow in the US, that's fine, but it should be under the existing framework of law that we follow. This should be passed through Congress and the SC as a law, not an executive order. We have Checks & Balances for a reason.
- ganfortran 6y agoI doubt that is the case. Look up how Japanese companies are treated in late 80s and 90s. When one felt under threat, all rules will be forgone.
- puranjay 6y agoFree Market for me, not for thee
- cscurmudgeon 6y agoIs China a free market for non-Chinese companies?
- s3r3nity 6y ago
- spanktheuser 6y ago- TikTok would seem to be an existential threat to Facebook. - Acquisition by Facebook is problematic given current scrutiny of their market position. - Facebook has been Trump’s media ally since 2016. - Trump is intervening clumsily to kill a rare Facebook competitor. Circumstantial to be sure. But the pattern match is bonkers.
- m3kw9 6y agoHe may not want the chinese benefiting from American money through such moves. This deal could set an example on new apps to come from China.
- morpheuskafka 6y agoWhy doesn't TikTok just move out of the US completely? As far as I know, Trump does not have the authority to block foreign websites that he doesn't agree with (for example, the webpages of foreign terrorist groups or criminal organizations are easily accessible). The whole authority for Trump to block this is that ByteDance (a Chinese firm) is investing in TikTok (a US company). If TikTok was run abroad, and had no presence in the US there is nothing Trump can do, and US customers could still use the site.
- jkulubya 6y agoThat was my initial line of thinking as well, until someone reminded me of some government list that TikTok could be added to which would require that they’re pulled from the app stores.
- zaptrem 6y agoProgressive Web Apps are a thing on all major platforms now. Is there anything TikTok does that wouldn't be possible on using Web APIs?
- seventytwo 6y agoBecause it was never about protecting American national security, it was about protecting Trumps ego from TikTok ridicule.
- tibbydudeza 6y agoWell TikTok is still working in India while it has been "banned" ... kids being kids will just sideload the app unless they are running Apple devices.