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It seems to me that the most likely outcome is that some money will opaquely change hands and that TikTok will remain available, either because of a shell game

by jMyles 3y ago

It seems to me that the most likely outcome is that some money will opaquely change hands and that TikTok will remain available, either because of a shell game divestiture or because of a policy change. There's just too much money at stake. But even if that doesn't happen, and the US state starts to regard TikTok as banned, what makes anyone think people will stop using it? Many western resources are banned in China, and it seems that the primary effect of this is simply the proliferation of tools to subvert the ban. One thing I don't understand, at a high level: how, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, can anyone believe that the internet will shape itself around the whims of legacy states on anything but very short timescales? There is no case of successful censorship of this nature, let alone with such a large and popular resource. Conversely, there are many, many cases of failed attempts at censorship, even by the largest and most powerful states and corporations in the world. Is there some reason to believe that this trend will very suddenly reverse?

THENATHE 3y ago
The thing about China banning stuff is that it is sponsored by the whole government, so every ISP in China is forced to comply with the ban. In the US, unless all of the ISPs are forced to ban tiktok at a network level, the ban will essentially be on new downloads I'm sure. If the ban is on new downloads, it will mean that the ban doesn't hit particularly hard, except for there will be no more platform growth, which would mean that the company sees all of the issue with it, but the users do not which would stagnate the platform and lead to its eventual death. Frogs in a pot of water turned up to a boil, instead of dropped in at a rolling boil kind of thing. If it is banded in ISP level, there is essentially no real chance that anybody will put any effort to get around it. I see big statements all the time about how people slightly younger than me don't even know what command prompt is, which is frankly a wild statement because even people I know my age that are not techy. Like I am still know how to do almost all of the basic commuter commands and know how to download a VPN and similar. We are either going to see a Renaissance of tech people opened up because of the ban on tick tock and them learning about technology to try and circumvent it, or we are going to see the total death of the platform because most people don't really know how to do anything technical on a phone or computer anymore. Either way, it's going to cause some fairly large shifts until something is done, and if nothing is done, maybe the main shift will be just to a different platform rather than a different societal state of mind.
nebula8804 3y ago
Keep in mind the politicians who pushed this stuff are so old they still think in terms of physical assets and not digital. By banning something they think its like blocking a ship entering port. We will have to see how things play out but if ByteDance moves faster to circumvent rules than the government can update the rules they might be able to establish a consistent loyal foothold no matter whatever the government will do.

by jMyles 3y ago

THENATHE 3y ago

The thing about China banning stuff is that it is sponsored by the whole government, so every ISP in China is forced to comply with the ban. In the US, unless all of the ISPs are forced to ban tiktok at a network level, the ban will essentially be on new downloads I'm sure. If the ban is on new downloads, it will mean that the ban doesn't hit particularly hard, except for there will be no more platform growth, which would mean that the company sees all of the issue with it, but the users do not which would stagnate the platform and lead to its eventual death. Frogs in a pot of water turned up to a boil, instead of dropped in at a rolling boil kind of thing. If it is banded in ISP level, there is essentially no real chance that anybody will put any effort to get around it. I see big statements all the time about how people slightly younger than me don't even know what command prompt is, which is frankly a wild statement because even people I know my age that are not techy. Like I am still know how to do almost all of the basic commuter commands and know how to download a VPN and similar. We are either going to see a Renaissance of tech people opened up because of the ban on tick tock and them learning about technology to try and circumvent it, or we are going to see the total death of the platform because most people don't really know how to do anything technical on a phone or computer anymore. Either way, it's going to cause some fairly large shifts until something is done, and if nothing is done, maybe the main shift will be just to a different platform rather than a different societal state of mind.

nebula8804 3y ago

Keep in mind the politicians who pushed this stuff are so old they still think in terms of physical assets and not digital. By banning something they think its like blocking a ship entering port. We will have to see how things play out but if ByteDance moves faster to circumvent rules than the government can update the rules they might be able to establish a consistent loyal foothold no matter whatever the government will do.