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There's only one thing that could end this relationship, and that's an outright ban of TikTok in the US. And no, not some kind of awkward "US shell company buy

There's only one thing that could end this relationship, and that's an outright ban of TikTok in the US. And no, not some kind of awkward "US shell company buys it" arrangement like we saw proposed during the Trump admin, but a complete and total ban, akin to what all international tech companies face in China. It seems to me that if Facebook (or heck, even non-US apps like LINE) are unable to operate in China, then TikTok shouldn't be able to operate in the US either.

aurareturn 3y ago
Facebook could have operated in China if they followed Chinese laws. What laws are TikTok breaking?
- infotainment 3y ago
  Not sure about Facebook, but LINE specifically complied with all Chinese censorship laws (there was a bit of an uproar over it) and was still shut down, presumably because it wasn't WeChat.
  - yorwba 3y ago
    Are you sure they were compliant? At the time, BBC wrote https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-28156725 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-28156725 that "In May, some Line users in China complained that the app had started to censor sensitive terms related to the 4 June anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre" but "A Line spokesman told Bloomberg that its users in China had not been able to access all services since 1 July, which was the anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to the mainland. Tens of thousands took to the streets of Hong Kong that day in a major pro-democracy protest. A representative of anti-censorship site GreatFire.org told Reuters news agency this was not a technical malfunction, suggesting the services were blocked because they allowed users to share photos." Censoring well-known keywords is necessary, but not sufficient to run a social media service in China. You also need a large team of human censors looking for signs of new protests and suppress them as fresh pictures keep getting posted.
- bhaney 3y ago
  > What laws are TikTok breaking? None yet. That's what US lawmakers are trying to change.

aurareturn 3y ago

Facebook could have operated in China if they followed Chinese laws. What laws are TikTok breaking?

infotainment 3y ago
Not sure about Facebook, but LINE specifically complied with all Chinese censorship laws (there was a bit of an uproar over it) and was still shut down, presumably because it wasn't WeChat.
- yorwba 3y ago
  Are you sure they were compliant? At the time, BBC wrote https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-28156725 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-28156725 that "In May, some Line users in China complained that the app had started to censor sensitive terms related to the 4 June anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre" but "A Line spokesman told Bloomberg that its users in China had not been able to access all services since 1 July, which was the anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to the mainland. Tens of thousands took to the streets of Hong Kong that day in a major pro-democracy protest. A representative of anti-censorship site GreatFire.org told Reuters news agency this was not a technical malfunction, suggesting the services were blocked because they allowed users to share photos." Censoring well-known keywords is necessary, but not sufficient to run a social media service in China. You also need a large team of human censors looking for signs of new protests and suppress them as fresh pictures keep getting posted.
bhaney 3y ago
> What laws are TikTok breaking? None yet. That's what US lawmakers are trying to change.