8 ms·

Pavel Durov on the TikTok Sale to U.S. company

84 points by AnonHP 6y ago

Barrin92 6y ago
Durov is right but what's even more hilarious was Trump's mention of 'key money' yesterday, implying that the US government is supposed to collect a sort of finders fee after the US government forces tiktok to sell their operations to another private company. Not only is that ridiculous on its face because it's the government that's forcing the sale in the first place, it's also a fairly shady real estate practise, so we know where he got the idea. Imagine thinking ten years ago that the US government would force a private company to sell all their assets and then pay the government for that 'privilege'.
- est31 6y ago
  Trump's threat to ban TikTok is likely decreasing the sale price as the sale is forced. Who should benefit from that decrease? The US government which made the decrease possible? Or the Microsoft shareholders? Also note that Trump is a TV personality, he wants to look like he's running the US like a business like he promised on the campaign trail. So he's making a lot of noise about the key money thing. He could just have done it silently but he wants people to admire how tough he is, and reelect him.
  - Barrin92 6y ago
    >. Who should benefit from that decrease? Nobody obviously because if the government gets a monetary incentive to ban foreign companies and sell them to the US government you encourage the government to act like some sort of mafia landlord, destroying the rule of law. That I'm being downvoted for this simply fact shows how far gone people even here are, Jesus Christ.
chenzhekl 6y ago
I would like to say that Uber was not forced to sell its Chinese business to the local corporation. At that time, Uber's throwing tons of money to compete with Didi and Kuaidi. No one knew when that would come to an end. That's why Uber exited the Chinese market. https://ig.ft.com/sites/uber-in-china/ https://ig.ft.com/sites/uber-in-china/
- eddieplan9 6y ago
  That is what they want you to believe, as everything in China must look reasonable. Google left because it decided censoring according to law was too much for them. Really? They suddenly got tired of censoring after doing it for years? Or is it [1]? The timing of Uber leaving China - Aug 2016 - coincided suspiciously with the Chinese government legalizing ridesharing - announced in July 2016 to kick in November 2016. Isn’t that interesting? Per HBR: > Under the new regulations, the data collected by Uber would come under the purview of the government. There would be no more subsidies. Market prices would prevail, the regulations state, “except when municipal government officials believe it is necessary to implement government-guided pricing.” According to Xinhua, ride-hailing companies would be urged to merge with taxi companies. (Many of those also happen to be owned by the local governments.) Uber would have to get both provincial and national regulatory approval for its activities anywhere in China. Online and offline services would be regulated separately. > Moreover, foreign companies like Uber would be subject to even more regulation than their competitors. This has always been the MO of Chinese government: blackmail though selective enforcement of broad-stroke laws. They tell you to leave without having to mouth it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora [2] https://hbr.org/2016/08/the-real-reason-uber-is-giving-up-in-china https://hbr.org/2016/08/the-real-reason-uber-is-giving-up-in...
  - beaunative 6y ago
    Didi has always been the target of local law enforcement to this day because local government collect taxes from taxi but not with Didi, as Didi pays tax to the city it's registered in. This shouldn't affects the national government because it collects taxes either way. This is similar to the issue with online sales tax.
  - dirtyid 6y ago
    Censorship laws became onerous after 2009 riots. FB/Twitter/Google didn't want to comply either due to politics or cost or combination. If they did, China wouldn't need Aurora to hack dissent gmail accounts, Google would just hand it over legally. Incidentally, after west started ML / mass human moderation Google and Facebook considered returning to Chinese market because it was now cost effective. Oh both companies kept ad sales open and were selling billions per year - they were free to operate in domains where they comply to local laws. Uber was sponsored by Baidu in China. Baidu is much more resources than any competition / incumbents at the time. Your article suggest regulations killed the industry for everyone, i.e not biased against Uber (and Baidu). >The country’s first nationwide regulation of the industry was truly bad news for Uber and, if followed to the letter, bad news for the entire industry. ... >In selling its China business to Didi Chuxing, Uber is getting out of its China operations at the right time and at a reasonable price.
nine_zeros 6y ago
When such godfather-like extortion becomes part of the federal government, that country soon becomes untouchable for business.
- londons_explore 6y ago
  Being untouchable for external businesses is a big problem if you are a small country - you miss out on goods and services that your population needs. For a big country, it isn't so bad - most people's needs can be fulfilled mostly with local services.
  - disgu 6y ago
    If you don't want to export anything, sure.
- gowld 6y ago
  Isn't the the point? To make the US untouchable for Chinese Communist Party controlled businesses.
  - Spooky23 6y ago
    No. The point is bread and circus and doing a solid for pal Zuckerberg. TikTok is pretty mild as a propaganda/influence delivery mechanism when you have fully operating mills like RT and OAN operating the US with impunity. If someone cared about "Chinese Communist Party controlled businesses", action would be taken to address the craven and obvious money laundering of commercial real estate. That's a far more subtle and dangerous threat, as people who control valuable real estate have more leverage to influence government on all levels.
- deleted 6y ago
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- gruez 6y ago
  So just like China right? Trade policies is one of the few places where eye-for-an-eye retaliation makes sense.
throwawayiionqz 6y ago
Can't wait the EU force FANNG to sell their EU activities to native EU firms
- deleted 6y ago
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- catalogia 6y ago
  I'm sensing some sarcasm, but would this not earnestly be a good development for everybody except current FANNG shareholders? Bringing internet firms operating in the EU into a position where they could be more effectively regulated by the EU seems like it would be a huge win for the EU.
  - throwawayiionqz 6y ago
    National security. Why would the EU let some foreign country have access to all their citizens' private and work email, social media profiles and e-commerce purchases? Especially when it has been proved that that country's intelligence agencies have access to all of FANNG's data on EU citizens through various intelligence programs.
    - catalogia 6y ago
      I agree, national security and privacy are both great reasons for the EU to take action against American megatech corps. Honestly I see little downside at all and I even think Americans citizens would also benefit from having these corporations knocked down a peg or three. Of course shareholders would squeal like stuck pigs about efficiency, economies of scale, etc... but that's to be expected and, depending on your perspective, might even be part of the fun.
    - cblconfederate 6y ago
      National security of EU countries is provided by NATO, though. Few EU countries spend a lot on defense.
ucha 6y ago
A free trade agreement must be abided by both parties. By prohibiting Chinese companies from operating on US soil, Americans aren't renouncing their values or losing the moral high ground as long as companies from other free countries are allowed to operate. The actions of the US admin are long overdue and Europe must muster up the courage (and incur the costs) of taking a similar position now. Saying if some countries aren't allowed to freely trade on American soil then none should is a non-sequitur.
- hobs 6y ago
  If this policy was applied across the board there would be a lot less complaining, but this is obviously targeting a company because they pissed off the president. The united states is in no way making this a universal policy, and is clearly just doing favoritism.
  - bitcurious 6y ago
    One way of interpreting is that this is a private company which pissed off the president. Another way is that this is a company beholden to our geopolitical adversary that intentionally interfered in our domestic politics.
    - mc32 6y ago
      Yep, what so sad is things have become so transparently partisan. If it were Telegram or Yandex interfering on behalf of Putin, there would be endless hours of call outs about the abuse and need for sanctions, but because it’s China (who have economic sway on a lot of corps and pols), it’s unfashionable to call them out and castigate them (by most media and pols).
      - TechBro8615 6y ago
        > it’s unfashionable to call them out and castigate them This is an exaggeration. Anti-China sentiment has been surprisingly uncontroversial and bipartisan. It’s actually one of the only things the American left/right can agree on right now.
plehoux 6y ago
> If you want to access the markets of other countries, you should also open your market to them – that would be fair. I don't understand the relation from ^ with the rest of his take. He is saying the US should ban Tik Tok instead of forcing a sale of the US operation to a US company?
- rhaps0dy 6y ago
  I think he is saying the US should just let TikTok be, because the Internet should be open to all.
  - deleted 6y ago
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- zzz61831 6y ago
  If economic protectionism is the concern here, the US could forbid Chinese companies from doing business in the US, but not censor their platforms, apps, websites in the US just because it has no influence over those platforms to do censorship, propaganda and spying on. But of course they are not really concerned about Chinese protectionism, they do it too just as much, only a bit differently. Control over mass communications platforms popular in the country is what it's all about, just as it is for China, Russia and other openly authoritarian countries, because this is what they deem important to protect power.
helios_invictus 6y ago
Did the USG force TikTok to sell to a US based company? Or did TikTok choose to sell under pressure? I know it's a matter of degree's here, but TikTok still has a very real choice. While the executive ban would have forced TikTok out of the US market, how effective would that have actually been? What if TikTok had just called the bluff on the executive ban?
- ab_testing 6y ago
  The problem with calling a bluff is that if that bluff comes true, your valuation just plummets from $30-50B to zero in an instant.
- elliekelly 6y ago
  > What if TikTok had just called the bluff on the executive ban? I’ve wondered this, too. I think TikTok has a strong argument for why the Administration shouldn’t/can’t be doing what they’re doing in forcing a sale. But, of course, TikTok’s whole argument kind of falls apart if they’ve actually done what the President has accused them of doing. Purely speculation but I suspect they might have a pretty strong incentive not to take this to a judge.
mikece 6y ago
1. TikTok busted for reading the contents of users' clipboard[1] 2. Microsoft and the NSA have had a very cozy relationship for a long time 3. Microsoft is bidding to buy TikTok's US operations. Yeah, I must be crazy to think something SIGINT-wise is afoot. [1]Didn't the LinkedIn app also get busted for reading the content of the clipboard on iOS?
- moksly 6y ago
  Sure, but at the same time you can understand why the US government is cool with the US government spying while not being cool with the Chinese government spying.
- mschuster91 6y ago
  > Yeah, I must be crazy to think something SIGINT-wise is afoot. The aim IMHO rather is to have an avenue to prevent Russian and Chinese propaganda from spreading.
- gruez 6y ago
  >Yeah, I must be crazy to think something SIGINT-wise is afoot. How is it useful to the NSA? I get how tiktok would be useful for propaganda purposes, but it doesn't seem useful for actual intelligence gathering. Are terrorists going to upload short video clips of themselves planning a bombing? Do criminals do their business transactions over tiktok?
- sct202 6y ago
  Microsoft also operates Bing, Linkedin and Github in China behind the firewall, so they're apparently trustworthy enough for China too.
- noahtallen 6y ago
  I think a pretty large number of apps read the clipboard to do things like content detection. For example, most map apps will tell you if you have an address copied to your clipboard, which would trigger that message every time you open the app. Though I understand the suspicion, these kinds of features are so common that I’m not a big fan of reading into it very much. That is, unless you are specifically a malicious developer. I honestly doubt that the majority of these features are malicious. You never know for sure, though.
cblconfederate 6y ago
"free trade and free speech" post-communism were about US trade and speech, of which the US had more than plenty to export. A multipolar world forces both parties to take off their masks and be more honest.
ridaj 6y ago
> the US move against TikTok is setting a dangerous precedent that may eventually kill the internet as a truly global network Well no. For many years now, the internet is no longer a truly global network, considering at least how China has been treating foreign-owned properties (Great Firewall). If you wanted to make a point in favor of a global internet, I guess you could suggest that the US should take the high road and reap the benefits of openness and competition, rather than get down to mudslinging Chinese foreign investors. Not that we should preserve something that in reality has been gone for over a decade now.
- deleted 6y ago
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diego_moita 6y ago
> Soon, every big country is likely to use “national security” as a pretext to fracture international tech companies. And ironically, it’s the US companies like Facebook or Google that are likely to lose the most from the fallout. He is 200% right: this isn't an isolated event, it is the end of an era. There was a time, starting in the Clinton administration when conservatives and liberals all over the world wanted open borders markets (with lots of trade agreements and China entering the WTO), democracy (in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia), migrants and open internet across borders. Then, little by little people soured on all of that openness and globalization. Now many of the places that sought democracy are returning to authoritarian rulers (e.g: Hungary, Turkey, Russia, Brazil, China). Protectionism and closed borders are on the rise (Trump's wall, tariffs and withdraw from Trans Pacific Partnership, Brexit, EU crackdown on immigrants and staled new trade deals). Tech will be the next victim. All over the world governments will begin restricting foreign companies, for economic, ethical, military or authoritarian reasons. China, Russia, Turkey and Iran always did it. Now the EU is getting sour on Google, Apple and Amazon. Trump is in full war against Huawei and now takes on TikTok. Businesses will need to find ways to navigate these hostilities. Those that aren't cautious will pay an heavy price. How do businesses handle that? I see two ways. Microsoft and IBM are two veterans on navigating regulations. Their secret has been a careful mix of compliance and heavy and expensive lobbying. Google seems to be learning this lesson. It seems to work. Huawei will need to learn it with them. Another way would be to make tech that is immune to regulation either by design (Bitcoin, Signal) or by it's scale and how deeply is supported by local communities (WhatsApp). I don't believe this is effective in the long run. China, Russia and Turkey have shown that they can simply block these technologies when they become a nuisance.
- dirtyid 6y ago
  Last 12 months: Wielding entity list against Huawei, IC industry talking about "deamericanizing", Barr lowkey suggesting getting US company to acquire controlling share in SE or Nokia to compete in 5G (Cisco said no), TSMC coerced into US plant, Google + Apple controlling contact tracing standards during a pandemic while rebuffing nation state request for more fine grain collection, an now forced sale of TikTok. Nvidia / ARM purchase in conjunction with reshoring IC production and containing Chinese IC industry smells like Barr too. Every line that could have been crossed has already been crossed. US done everything it accused China would do, which China has yet to. Even prior, many countries were moving towards data sovereignty and local warehousing laws. Not
throwaway194702 6y ago
The comments here would be funny if they weren't so sad. So much thinly veiled nationalist glee about finally doing something "against China". It's like the run up to the Iraq war all over again. Seriously, people, you can't justify something by pointing out how other people have also done something wrong. You can't justify something by positing a principle that never existed before. This whole story sounds like out of some dystopian bizarro fiction novel. So lip syncing teen girls are a national security risk now? What are you going to do when something real happens then?
- plehoux 6y ago
  The risk here, if I'm not mistaken, is far from being teens lip syncing, it's the ability for a foreign actor to control the algorithm of what Tik Tok users end up seeing in their feed days after days. This could potentially be used to stir the political discourse of a country towards one outcome or create unrest by putting groups of citizen against each others, etc. All done by controlling what users see.
  - throwaway194702 6y ago
    I understand that, and that's exactly what I meant to call out in an admittedly slightly polemic way. This is the argument for banning Hollywood movies in every country that isn't the US, because it gives "illegitimate influence to foreign actors" or something along these lines. It's completely antithetical to Western values.
    - throwaway194702 6y ago
      The downvotes without counterargument are frankly chilling given what I'm saying. But I am actually interested in dialog, so let me expand a little: American (online or not) media, advertising and tech companies have been vastly successful all over the world, and that has - rightfully, to a large degree - been attributed to the quality of their products. Now there's a successful tech company from China, and you're saying that means they must be banned or expropriated because they could influence public opinion? That's peak hypocrisy. Yes, China has done similar things. But that's an unfree, communist country! Stooping to their lows makes you wrong, not right. The other comments here pointing to how the EU could act similarly towards FAANG or Tesla are spot on. It definitely shouldn't in my opinion, but if it did I guarantee you you'd hear the same gleeful "good for you" rhetoric from this side of the Atlantic. It would make a few people feel all fuzzy and energized for a while, but in the long term it would simply destroy the free, open exchange of goods, people and ideas that has done so much for us and that's dear to so many of us. Thankfully, EU leaders aren't (yet) that unwise apparently.
krn 6y ago
There is a reason, why India banned not only TikTok, but 58 other apps of Chinese companies, after at least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a clash with Chinese forces this year. It's called national security. Russia's Yandex, Mail.ru, and VKontakte have been banned in Ukraine since 2017 for the same reason[1]: > Russia also continues to hack into individual cellphones, with Ukrainian Colonel Ivan Pavlenko saying that the Russians had gotten into his phone at least twice in 2018. He also confirmed that Russia has used its ability to tap into cellular networks to send SMS text messages to Ukranian troops. > These are tactics that the Kremlin has also reportedly used against NATO countries, including the United States, and allows Russia's intelligence services to both scrape potentially useful personal information and possibly insert disinformation onto these devices. The texts can also be psychological warfare tools, with past reports that some were purely insulting or threatening. Using hacked personal information, those threats could include very distressing ones directed at family members or significant others. I believe, that the Internet of the 2020s cannot be compared to the Internet of the 1980s. It has become a business platform, and any country has the right to ban a foreign company from operating in its territory. Especially so, if that company is based in a foreign state that is not considered trustworthy. And trust is based on mutually shared values: which the US and China have almost none. At least to the Communist Party of China this has been clear for decades. [1] https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/30741/ukrainian-officer-details-russian-electronic-warfare-tactics-including-radio-virus https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/30741/ukrainian-office...
- pjc50 6y ago
  I note that VK is not banned in other Western countries. I'm not sure what conclusions we can draw from that.
  - krn 6y ago
    VKontakte is not a national security risk in other Western countries, because it's only popular in Russian-speaking world. And Ukraine is currently the only country that is actively trying to break away from it.
- Barrin92 6y ago
juskrey 6y ago
Note this is the second paranoid Durov's message in a week (first was a pretty PR-ish rant about Apple store fees and in-app purchases a week ago - looks like this prevents him from launching of some grey token project). If anything, this tells much more about the financial state of Telegram.
- bzb3 6y ago
  How have you misinterpreted this message to get to that conclusion?
- beaunative 6y ago
  I don't recall Telegram ever shows signs to become a profitable company.
  - juskrey 6y ago
    But he still takes VC money from 3rd parties of quite the opposite views. Why? Durov is a cheap liar, running out of funds, period. Pity, Telegram was so usable app.
j45 6y ago
I wonder if this acqusisition explicitly would remove the monitoring in TikTok, or simply migrate it into Microsoft hands?
golemotron 6y ago
This seems like a bit of tech myopia. Forced divestures happen all across the world and in many other economic sectors.
cblconfederate 6y ago
The fragmentation of the internet will lead to separate technology stacks instead of the monolithic "vertical integration" of a handful of US companies that we have nowadays, and will be a good thing for overall technological innovation. Of course it will come with a lot of conflicts.
squarefoot 6y ago
TikTok sale has nothing to do with economics, it's all about internal politics, not even foreign. TikTok hosts many groups hostile to Trump that were successful at ruining his rally in Tulsa, and could have some more tricks in their arsenal with elections in sight, so he desperately needs to take control of the platform and the users, and the only way to do that is for a US company to acquire it. Before elections of course. It's a win-win scenario for both Microsoft and Trump: Microsoft gets a big user base and Trump their personal data.
edouard-harris 6y ago
I believe the focus on US precedent-setting here is a bit misplaced: India was in fact the first non-authoritarian regime to ban TikTok, and this set a precedent which may have influenced the US's own decision.
bg24 6y ago
Companies in this new era have the potential to get to the largest top 10 in 10 years. They can influence the world's economy. And displace lots of old laggards (20+ years and not innovating is old). I am absolutely supportive of all actions taken to promote US companies, particularly against countries (including China) who have taken repeated drastic steps to promote home grown companies. I have issues on how it is being handled by President Trump.
badrabbit 6y ago
This isn't about free trade, tiktok is seen as an arm of a hostile foreign government. The ban wouldn't have taken place if tiktok was based in Japan for example.
tekkk 6y ago
Now that is a very well thought-out post about the whole ordeal. I don't know why, but from what I've read here and in other sites, people tend to veer off to the extremes when discussing anything these days. This issue being no exception. So it's good to read something that does not attempt to play with your emotions or treat things as black and white. But yeah, the situation is sad to say at least. I wholly understand US blocking Chinese social media company to reciprocate how China (and others) have done in their markets. Yet the current US administration has not necessarily framed it in such light, rather just claimed ambiguous spying claims which are a bit of blanket statement. Is it actually the case here or is it just a distraction or a negotiation tactic, hard to say. Certainly democratic countries should not stand idle when authoritarian governments attempt to extend their influence and spying capabilities especially within their own borders, even when it happens indirectly through companies. Sometimes playing nice and keeping status quo won't get you anywhere. But in this case the play seems rather dirty coming from a nation as devout of a believer in the free trade as US. I guess at the core of this whole matter, is the imbalance in how the profits from internet, possibly the greatest invention since electricity and combustion engine, are distributed to the world. The way it's happening now shares some similarities to the imperialism age, where there were those who only produced goods (now consumers of internet services) to the richer countries without getting much in return. Similarly Google and Facebook might control the whole search and social media market in a country with local competitors having no chance of competing, without paying any taxes on the profits or contributing employment. So by not wanting to become just another colony of the foreign technology companies, I guess authoritarian government can exploit that to legitimize their banning of Google and Facebook to help establish their own. But which in reality serves a bigger purpose as part of their security apparatus to spy and censorship their own people. Of course I'm now completely omitting the angle that Google and Facebook could also be considered as part of US's spying apparatus, but I'll assume some good will here.

84 points by AnonHP 6y ago

Durov is right but what's even more hilarious was Trump's mention of 'key money' yesterday, implying that the US government is supposed to collect a sort of finders fee after the US government forces tiktok to sell their operations to another private company. Not only is that ridiculous on its face because it's the government that's forcing the sale in the first place, it's also a fairly shady real estate practise, so we know where he got the idea. Imagine thinking ten years ago that the US government would force a private company to sell all their assets and then pay the government for that 'privilege'.

est31 6y ago
Trump's threat to ban TikTok is likely decreasing the sale price as the sale is forced. Who should benefit from that decrease? The US government which made the decrease possible? Or the Microsoft shareholders? Also note that Trump is a TV personality, he wants to look like he's running the US like a business like he promised on the campaign trail. So he's making a lot of noise about the key money thing. He could just have done it silently but he wants people to admire how tough he is, and reelect him.
- Barrin92 6y ago
  >. Who should benefit from that decrease? Nobody obviously because if the government gets a monetary incentive to ban foreign companies and sell them to the US government you encourage the government to act like some sort of mafia landlord, destroying the rule of law. That I'm being downvoted for this simply fact shows how far gone people even here are, Jesus Christ.

chenzhekl 6y ago

I would like to say that Uber was not forced to sell its Chinese business to the local corporation. At that time, Uber's throwing tons of money to compete with Didi and Kuaidi. No one knew when that would come to an end. That's why Uber exited the Chinese market. https://ig.ft.com/sites/uber-in-china/ https://ig.ft.com/sites/uber-in-china/

eddieplan9 6y ago
That is what they want you to believe, as everything in China must look reasonable. Google left because it decided censoring according to law was too much for them. Really? They suddenly got tired of censoring after doing it for years? Or is it [1]? The timing of Uber leaving China - Aug 2016 - coincided suspiciously with the Chinese government legalizing ridesharing - announced in July 2016 to kick in November 2016. Isn’t that interesting? Per HBR: > Under the new regulations, the data collected by Uber would come under the purview of the government. There would be no more subsidies. Market prices would prevail, the regulations state, “except when municipal government officials believe it is necessary to implement government-guided pricing.” According to Xinhua, ride-hailing companies would be urged to merge with taxi companies. (Many of those also happen to be owned by the local governments.) Uber would have to get both provincial and national regulatory approval for its activities anywhere in China. Online and offline services would be regulated separately. > Moreover, foreign companies like Uber would be subject to even more regulation than their competitors. This has always been the MO of Chinese government: blackmail though selective enforcement of broad-stroke laws. They tell you to leave without having to mouth it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora [2] https://hbr.org/2016/08/the-real-reason-uber-is-giving-up-in-china https://hbr.org/2016/08/the-real-reason-uber-is-giving-up-in...
- beaunative 6y ago
  Didi has always been the target of local law enforcement to this day because local government collect taxes from taxi but not with Didi, as Didi pays tax to the city it's registered in. This shouldn't affects the national government because it collects taxes either way. This is similar to the issue with online sales tax.
- dirtyid 6y ago
  Censorship laws became onerous after 2009 riots. FB/Twitter/Google didn't want to comply either due to politics or cost or combination. If they did, China wouldn't need Aurora to hack dissent gmail accounts, Google would just hand it over legally. Incidentally, after west started ML / mass human moderation Google and Facebook considered returning to Chinese market because it was now cost effective. Oh both companies kept ad sales open and were selling billions per year - they were free to operate in domains where they comply to local laws. Uber was sponsored by Baidu in China. Baidu is much more resources than any competition / incumbents at the time. Your article suggest regulations killed the industry for everyone, i.e not biased against Uber (and Baidu). >The country’s first nationwide regulation of the industry was truly bad news for Uber and, if followed to the letter, bad news for the entire industry. ... >In selling its China business to Didi Chuxing, Uber is getting out of its China operations at the right time and at a reasonable price.

nine_zeros 6y ago

When such godfather-like extortion becomes part of the federal government, that country soon becomes untouchable for business.

londons_explore 6y ago
Being untouchable for external businesses is a big problem if you are a small country - you miss out on goods and services that your population needs. For a big country, it isn't so bad - most people's needs can be fulfilled mostly with local services.
- disgu 6y ago
  If you don't want to export anything, sure.
gowld 6y ago
Isn't the the point? To make the US untouchable for Chinese Communist Party controlled businesses.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  No. The point is bread and circus and doing a solid for pal Zuckerberg. TikTok is pretty mild as a propaganda/influence delivery mechanism when you have fully operating mills like RT and OAN operating the US with impunity. If someone cared about "Chinese Communist Party controlled businesses", action would be taken to address the craven and obvious money laundering of commercial real estate. That's a far more subtle and dangerous threat, as people who control valuable real estate have more leverage to influence government on all levels.
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gruez 6y ago
So just like China right? Trade policies is one of the few places where eye-for-an-eye retaliation makes sense.

throwawayiionqz 6y ago

Can't wait the EU force FANNG to sell their EU activities to native EU firms

deleted 6y ago
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catalogia 6y ago
I'm sensing some sarcasm, but would this not earnestly be a good development for everybody except current FANNG shareholders? Bringing internet firms operating in the EU into a position where they could be more effectively regulated by the EU seems like it would be a huge win for the EU.
- throwawayiionqz 6y ago
  National security. Why would the EU let some foreign country have access to all their citizens' private and work email, social media profiles and e-commerce purchases? Especially when it has been proved that that country's intelligence agencies have access to all of FANNG's data on EU citizens through various intelligence programs.
  - catalogia 6y ago
    I agree, national security and privacy are both great reasons for the EU to take action against American megatech corps. Honestly I see little downside at all and I even think Americans citizens would also benefit from having these corporations knocked down a peg or three. Of course shareholders would squeal like stuck pigs about efficiency, economies of scale, etc... but that's to be expected and, depending on your perspective, might even be part of the fun.
  - cblconfederate 6y ago
    National security of EU countries is provided by NATO, though. Few EU countries spend a lot on defense.

ucha 6y ago

A free trade agreement must be abided by both parties. By prohibiting Chinese companies from operating on US soil, Americans aren't renouncing their values or losing the moral high ground as long as companies from other free countries are allowed to operate. The actions of the US admin are long overdue and Europe must muster up the courage (and incur the costs) of taking a similar position now. Saying if some countries aren't allowed to freely trade on American soil then none should is a non-sequitur.

hobs 6y ago
If this policy was applied across the board there would be a lot less complaining, but this is obviously targeting a company because they pissed off the president. The united states is in no way making this a universal policy, and is clearly just doing favoritism.
- bitcurious 6y ago
  One way of interpreting is that this is a private company which pissed off the president. Another way is that this is a company beholden to our geopolitical adversary that intentionally interfered in our domestic politics.
  - mc32 6y ago
    Yep, what so sad is things have become so transparently partisan. If it were Telegram or Yandex interfering on behalf of Putin, there would be endless hours of call outs about the abuse and need for sanctions, but because it’s China (who have economic sway on a lot of corps and pols), it’s unfashionable to call them out and castigate them (by most media and pols).
    - TechBro8615 6y ago
      > it’s unfashionable to call them out and castigate them This is an exaggeration. Anti-China sentiment has been surprisingly uncontroversial and bipartisan. It’s actually one of the only things the American left/right can agree on right now.

plehoux 6y ago

> If you want to access the markets of other countries, you should also open your market to them – that would be fair. I don't understand the relation from ^ with the rest of his take. He is saying the US should ban Tik Tok instead of forcing a sale of the US operation to a US company?

rhaps0dy 6y ago
I think he is saying the US should just let TikTok be, because the Internet should be open to all.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
zzz61831 6y ago
If economic protectionism is the concern here, the US could forbid Chinese companies from doing business in the US, but not censor their platforms, apps, websites in the US just because it has no influence over those platforms to do censorship, propaganda and spying on. But of course they are not really concerned about Chinese protectionism, they do it too just as much, only a bit differently. Control over mass communications platforms popular in the country is what it's all about, just as it is for China, Russia and other openly authoritarian countries, because this is what they deem important to protect power.

helios_invictus 6y ago

Did the USG force TikTok to sell to a US based company? Or did TikTok choose to sell under pressure? I know it's a matter of degree's here, but TikTok still has a very real choice. While the executive ban would have forced TikTok out of the US market, how effective would that have actually been? What if TikTok had just called the bluff on the executive ban?

ab_testing 6y ago
The problem with calling a bluff is that if that bluff comes true, your valuation just plummets from $30-50B to zero in an instant.
elliekelly 6y ago
> What if TikTok had just called the bluff on the executive ban? I’ve wondered this, too. I think TikTok has a strong argument for why the Administration shouldn’t/can’t be doing what they’re doing in forcing a sale. But, of course, TikTok’s whole argument kind of falls apart if they’ve actually done what the President has accused them of doing. Purely speculation but I suspect they might have a pretty strong incentive not to take this to a judge.

mikece 6y ago

1. TikTok busted for reading the contents of users' clipboard[1] 2. Microsoft and the NSA have had a very cozy relationship for a long time 3. Microsoft is bidding to buy TikTok's US operations. Yeah, I must be crazy to think something SIGINT-wise is afoot. [1]Didn't the LinkedIn app also get busted for reading the content of the clipboard on iOS?

moksly 6y ago
Sure, but at the same time you can understand why the US government is cool with the US government spying while not being cool with the Chinese government spying.
mschuster91 6y ago
> Yeah, I must be crazy to think something SIGINT-wise is afoot. The aim IMHO rather is to have an avenue to prevent Russian and Chinese propaganda from spreading.
gruez 6y ago
>Yeah, I must be crazy to think something SIGINT-wise is afoot. How is it useful to the NSA? I get how tiktok would be useful for propaganda purposes, but it doesn't seem useful for actual intelligence gathering. Are terrorists going to upload short video clips of themselves planning a bombing? Do criminals do their business transactions over tiktok?
sct202 6y ago
Microsoft also operates Bing, Linkedin and Github in China behind the firewall, so they're apparently trustworthy enough for China too.
noahtallen 6y ago
I think a pretty large number of apps read the clipboard to do things like content detection. For example, most map apps will tell you if you have an address copied to your clipboard, which would trigger that message every time you open the app. Though I understand the suspicion, these kinds of features are so common that I’m not a big fan of reading into it very much. That is, unless you are specifically a malicious developer. I honestly doubt that the majority of these features are malicious. You never know for sure, though.

cblconfederate 6y ago

"free trade and free speech" post-communism were about US trade and speech, of which the US had more than plenty to export. A multipolar world forces both parties to take off their masks and be more honest.

ridaj 6y ago

> the US move against TikTok is setting a dangerous precedent that may eventually kill the internet as a truly global network Well no. For many years now, the internet is no longer a truly global network, considering at least how China has been treating foreign-owned properties (Great Firewall). If you wanted to make a point in favor of a global internet, I guess you could suggest that the US should take the high road and reap the benefits of openness and competition, rather than get down to mudslinging Chinese foreign investors. Not that we should preserve something that in reality has been gone for over a decade now.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

diego_moita 6y ago

> Soon, every big country is likely to use “national security” as a pretext to fracture international tech companies. And ironically, it’s the US companies like Facebook or Google that are likely to lose the most from the fallout. He is 200% right: this isn't an isolated event, it is the end of an era. There was a time, starting in the Clinton administration when conservatives and liberals all over the world wanted open borders markets (with lots of trade agreements and China entering the WTO), democracy (in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia), migrants and open internet across borders. Then, little by little people soured on all of that openness and globalization. Now many of the places that sought democracy are returning to authoritarian rulers (e.g: Hungary, Turkey, Russia, Brazil, China). Protectionism and closed borders are on the rise (Trump's wall, tariffs and withdraw from Trans Pacific Partnership, Brexit, EU crackdown on immigrants and staled new trade deals). Tech will be the next victim. All over the world governments will begin restricting foreign companies, for economic, ethical, military or authoritarian reasons. China, Russia, Turkey and Iran always did it. Now the EU is getting sour on Google, Apple and Amazon. Trump is in full war against Huawei and now takes on TikTok. Businesses will need to find ways to navigate these hostilities. Those that aren't cautious will pay an heavy price. How do businesses handle that? I see two ways. Microsoft and IBM are two veterans on navigating regulations. Their secret has been a careful mix of compliance and heavy and expensive lobbying. Google seems to be learning this lesson. It seems to work. Huawei will need to learn it with them. Another way would be to make tech that is immune to regulation either by design (Bitcoin, Signal) or by it's scale and how deeply is supported by local communities (WhatsApp). I don't believe this is effective in the long run. China, Russia and Turkey have shown that they can simply block these technologies when they become a nuisance.

dirtyid 6y ago
Last 12 months: Wielding entity list against Huawei, IC industry talking about "deamericanizing", Barr lowkey suggesting getting US company to acquire controlling share in SE or Nokia to compete in 5G (Cisco said no), TSMC coerced into US plant, Google + Apple controlling contact tracing standards during a pandemic while rebuffing nation state request for more fine grain collection, an now forced sale of TikTok. Nvidia / ARM purchase in conjunction with reshoring IC production and containing Chinese IC industry smells like Barr too. Every line that could have been crossed has already been crossed. US done everything it accused China would do, which China has yet to. Even prior, many countries were moving towards data sovereignty and local warehousing laws. Not

throwaway194702 6y ago

The comments here would be funny if they weren't so sad. So much thinly veiled nationalist glee about finally doing something "against China". It's like the run up to the Iraq war all over again. Seriously, people, you can't justify something by pointing out how other people have also done something wrong. You can't justify something by positing a principle that never existed before. This whole story sounds like out of some dystopian bizarro fiction novel. So lip syncing teen girls are a national security risk now? What are you going to do when something real happens then?

plehoux 6y ago
The risk here, if I'm not mistaken, is far from being teens lip syncing, it's the ability for a foreign actor to control the algorithm of what Tik Tok users end up seeing in their feed days after days. This could potentially be used to stir the political discourse of a country towards one outcome or create unrest by putting groups of citizen against each others, etc. All done by controlling what users see.
- throwaway194702 6y ago
  I understand that, and that's exactly what I meant to call out in an admittedly slightly polemic way. This is the argument for banning Hollywood movies in every country that isn't the US, because it gives "illegitimate influence to foreign actors" or something along these lines. It's completely antithetical to Western values.
  - throwaway194702 6y ago
    The downvotes without counterargument are frankly chilling given what I'm saying. But I am actually interested in dialog, so let me expand a little: American (online or not) media, advertising and tech companies have been vastly successful all over the world, and that has - rightfully, to a large degree - been attributed to the quality of their products. Now there's a successful tech company from China, and you're saying that means they must be banned or expropriated because they could influence public opinion? That's peak hypocrisy. Yes, China has done similar things. But that's an unfree, communist country! Stooping to their lows makes you wrong, not right. The other comments here pointing to how the EU could act similarly towards FAANG or Tesla are spot on. It definitely shouldn't in my opinion, but if it did I guarantee you you'd hear the same gleeful "good for you" rhetoric from this side of the Atlantic. It would make a few people feel all fuzzy and energized for a while, but in the long term it would simply destroy the free, open exchange of goods, people and ideas that has done so much for us and that's dear to so many of us. Thankfully, EU leaders aren't (yet) that unwise apparently.

krn 6y ago

There is a reason, why India banned not only TikTok, but 58 other apps of Chinese companies, after at least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a clash with Chinese forces this year. It's called national security. Russia's Yandex, Mail.ru, and VKontakte have been banned in Ukraine since 2017 for the same reason[1]: > Russia also continues to hack into individual cellphones, with Ukrainian Colonel Ivan Pavlenko saying that the Russians had gotten into his phone at least twice in 2018. He also confirmed that Russia has used its ability to tap into cellular networks to send SMS text messages to Ukranian troops. > These are tactics that the Kremlin has also reportedly used against NATO countries, including the United States, and allows Russia's intelligence services to both scrape potentially useful personal information and possibly insert disinformation onto these devices. The texts can also be psychological warfare tools, with past reports that some were purely insulting or threatening. Using hacked personal information, those threats could include very distressing ones directed at family members or significant others. I believe, that the Internet of the 2020s cannot be compared to the Internet of the 1980s. It has become a business platform, and any country has the right to ban a foreign company from operating in its territory. Especially so, if that company is based in a foreign state that is not considered trustworthy. And trust is based on mutually shared values: which the US and China have almost none. At least to the Communist Party of China this has been clear for decades. [1] https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/30741/ukrainian-officer-details-russian-electronic-warfare-tactics-including-radio-virus https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/30741/ukrainian-office...

pjc50 6y ago
I note that VK is not banned in other Western countries. I'm not sure what conclusions we can draw from that.
- krn 6y ago
  VKontakte is not a national security risk in other Western countries, because it's only popular in Russian-speaking world. And Ukraine is currently the only country that is actively trying to break away from it.
Barrin92 6y ago

juskrey 6y ago

Note this is the second paranoid Durov's message in a week (first was a pretty PR-ish rant about Apple store fees and in-app purchases a week ago - looks like this prevents him from launching of some grey token project). If anything, this tells much more about the financial state of Telegram.

bzb3 6y ago
How have you misinterpreted this message to get to that conclusion?
beaunative 6y ago
I don't recall Telegram ever shows signs to become a profitable company.
- juskrey 6y ago
  But he still takes VC money from 3rd parties of quite the opposite views. Why? Durov is a cheap liar, running out of funds, period. Pity, Telegram was so usable app.

j45 6y ago

I wonder if this acqusisition explicitly would remove the monitoring in TikTok, or simply migrate it into Microsoft hands?

golemotron 6y ago

This seems like a bit of tech myopia. Forced divestures happen all across the world and in many other economic sectors.

cblconfederate 6y ago

The fragmentation of the internet will lead to separate technology stacks instead of the monolithic "vertical integration" of a handful of US companies that we have nowadays, and will be a good thing for overall technological innovation. Of course it will come with a lot of conflicts.

squarefoot 6y ago

TikTok sale has nothing to do with economics, it's all about internal politics, not even foreign. TikTok hosts many groups hostile to Trump that were successful at ruining his rally in Tulsa, and could have some more tricks in their arsenal with elections in sight, so he desperately needs to take control of the platform and the users, and the only way to do that is for a US company to acquire it. Before elections of course. It's a win-win scenario for both Microsoft and Trump: Microsoft gets a big user base and Trump their personal data.

edouard-harris 6y ago

I believe the focus on US precedent-setting here is a bit misplaced: India was in fact the first non-authoritarian regime to ban TikTok, and this set a precedent which may have influenced the US's own decision.

bg24 6y ago

Companies in this new era have the potential to get to the largest top 10 in 10 years. They can influence the world's economy. And displace lots of old laggards (20+ years and not innovating is old). I am absolutely supportive of all actions taken to promote US companies, particularly against countries (including China) who have taken repeated drastic steps to promote home grown companies. I have issues on how it is being handled by President Trump.

badrabbit 6y ago

This isn't about free trade, tiktok is seen as an arm of a hostile foreign government. The ban wouldn't have taken place if tiktok was based in Japan for example.

tekkk 6y ago

Now that is a very well thought-out post about the whole ordeal. I don't know why, but from what I've read here and in other sites, people tend to veer off to the extremes when discussing anything these days. This issue being no exception. So it's good to read something that does not attempt to play with your emotions or treat things as black and white. But yeah, the situation is sad to say at least. I wholly understand US blocking Chinese social media company to reciprocate how China (and others) have done in their markets. Yet the current US administration has not necessarily framed it in such light, rather just claimed ambiguous spying claims which are a bit of blanket statement. Is it actually the case here or is it just a distraction or a negotiation tactic, hard to say. Certainly democratic countries should not stand idle when authoritarian governments attempt to extend their influence and spying capabilities especially within their own borders, even when it happens indirectly through companies. Sometimes playing nice and keeping status quo won't get you anywhere. But in this case the play seems rather dirty coming from a nation as devout of a believer in the free trade as US. I guess at the core of this whole matter, is the imbalance in how the profits from internet, possibly the greatest invention since electricity and combustion engine, are distributed to the world. The way it's happening now shares some similarities to the imperialism age, where there were those who only produced goods (now consumers of internet services) to the richer countries without getting much in return. Similarly Google and Facebook might control the whole search and social media market in a country with local competitors having no chance of competing, without paying any taxes on the profits or contributing employment. So by not wanting to become just another colony of the foreign technology companies, I guess authoritarian government can exploit that to legitimize their banning of Google and Facebook to help establish their own. But which in reality serves a bigger purpose as part of their security apparatus to spy and censorship their own people. Of course I'm now completely omitting the angle that Google and Facebook could also be considered as part of US's spying apparatus, but I'll assume some good will here.