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Because there is no "TikTok" ban and never has been. There is a "TikTok cannot be controlled by the CCP" law. TikTok is completely legal under the law as long
by _2d30 2y ago
Because there is no "TikTok" ban and never has been.
There is a "TikTok cannot be controlled by the CCP" law. TikTok is completely legal under the law as long as they divest it. However, in a great act of self-incrimination, Bytedance (de facto controlled by CCP) has decided to not divest and would rather shutdown instead.
- pradn 2y ago> "de facto controlled by CCP" Where is the evidence for this?
- gWPVhyxPHqvk 2y agoAs evidenced that TikTok would rather shut down than continue to print money in the US
- derektank 2y agoCommittees representing the interests of the Chinese Communist Party exist inside of most major corporations in China. It would not be possible to operate a company like ByteDance without acquiescing to government interference https://www.seafarerfunds.com/prevailing-winds/party-committees-in-chinese-companies/ https://www.seafarerfunds.com/prevailing-winds/party-committ...
- sadeshmukh 2y agohttps://www.cnn.com/2024/03/18/tech/tiktok-bytedance-china-ownership-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/18/tech/tiktok-bytedance-china-o... > However, like most other Chinese companies, ByteDance is legally compelled to establish an in-house Communist Party committee composed of employees who are party members. > In 2018, China amended its National Intelligence Law, which requires any organization or citizen to support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence work. > That means ByteDance is legally bound to help with gathering intelligence. I would say yes.
- barbazoo 2y agohttps://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/03/12/5-things-to-know-about-bytedance-tiktoks-parent-company/ https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/03/12/5-things-to-know-abo... I found the first three alone quite compelling: > ByteDance is Closely Connected to China’s Military-Industrial Complex > ByteDance is Bound by Chinese State Surveillance Laws > ByteDance’s Board is Beholden to Beijing
- kube-system 2y agoChina's economic reform didn't quite embrace capitalism the same way many other places did. Their businesses still inherently do not have the same managerial independence that many have come to expect as normal in the rest of the world. While Chinese businesses are allowed to have some private control, the government still exercises control over "private" businesses when they decide they are important or large enough. Imagine if all Fortune 500 companies were required to have Trump appointees on their boards. That would sound crazy here, but that's how things still work in China.
- xdennis 2y agoYou can read about it here: https://thediplomat.com/2020/09/are-private-chinese-companies-really-private/ https://thediplomat.com/2020/09/are-private-chinese-companie... You can read the full "Opinion on Strengthening the United Front Work of the Private Economy in the New Era" here[1] in English, though I suspect you don't need the translation. Excerpts from what the Party says openly: > Strengthening united front work in the private economy is an important means by which the Party’s leadership over the private economy is manifested. > This will help continuously strengthen the Party’s leadership over the private economy, bring the majority of private economy practitioners closer to the Party > Strengthening united front work in the private economy is an important part of the development and improvement of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics. > Educate and guide private economy practitioners to arm their minds and guide their practice with Xi Jinping’s Thoughts on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era; maintain a high degree of consistency with the Party Central Committee on political positions, political directions, political principles, and political roads; and always be politically sensible. Further strengthen the Party building work of private enterprises and sincerely give full play to the role of Party organizations (党组织) as battle fortresses and to the vanguard and exemplary role of Party members. > Enhance ideological guidance: Guide private economy practitioners to increase their awareness of self-discipline; build a strong line of ideological and moral defense; strictly regulate their own words and actions [1]: https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/201008_Livingston_CCP%20Targets%20Private%20Sector_WEB%20FINAL.pdf https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publi...
- Manuel_D 2y agoThe Chinese government directly owns shares of ByteDance. It has representatives of the government working in the company ensuring it takes the "correct political direction": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ByteDance#Management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ByteDance#Management
- gnkyfrg 2y ago[dead]
- cbg0 2y agoIt's common knowledge that the CCP has a lot of control over various companies registered there: https://sccei.fsi.stanford.edu/china-briefs/reassessing-role-state-ownership-chinas-economy https://sccei.fsi.stanford.edu/china-briefs/reassessing-role... The above is based on a linked research paper but the numbers may actually be much higher as it can't really account for proxy ownership, various CCP committees influencing these companies, state banks providing loans only for companies that play ball, etc.
- arp242 2y agoAnd even if it wouldn't directly have fingers in the pie, it's an authoritarian state, and it always has de-facto control over anything it decides to control. The state can always just waltz in like a mafia boss: "nice outfit you have here, would be a shame if anything were to happen to it..." While more democratic nations are not entirely flawless on this, the separation of powers, independent judiciary, and free press do offer protections against this, as does having a general culture where these sort of things aren't accepted. Again, not flawless 100% foolproof protections, but in general it does work reasonably well.
- reaperducer 2y agoWhere is the evidence for this? "Another way the Chinese government could assert leverage over a deal involving TikTok would be by exercising its “golden share” in a unit of ByteDance. In such an arrangement, the Chinese government buys a small portion of a company’s equity in exchange for a seat on its board and veto power over certain company decisions. In 2021, an investment fund controlled by a state-owned entity established by a Chinese internet regulator took a 1 percent stake in a ByteDance subsidiary and appointed a director to its board." https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/01/17/us/tiktok-ban-supreme-court#tiktok-addiction-ban https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/01/17/us/tiktok-ban-suprem...
- patmcc 2y agoWhat if Congress passed a law that said "The New York Times must shut down unless all foreign owners divest"? That's effectively impossible for a publicly traded corporation. Is that just a ban, in practice?
- IncreasePosts 2y agoExcept this isn't a law against any foreign owner, just specifically a foreign owner that is essentially the #1 geopolitical adversary of the US. A large part of the US-China relationship is zero-sum. If America loses, china wins, and vice versa. That relationship is not the same for, say, the US-France relationship.
- patmcc 2y agoOk, replace my sentence with "The New York Times must shut down unless all Chinese foreign owners divest"; does that change the analysis?
- IncreasePosts 2y agoYes, because the NYT is a publicly traded company. And it is majority-controlled by a single American family - the Sulzbergers. I'm not sure you could argue that a Chinese national owning a single share of NYT stock could have any kind of sway on the operation of the company. Could the same be said for the relationship China has with TikTok?
- zamadatix 2y agoThe ban is not rooted in the concept ByteDance has a minority of investors who are Chinese citizens so any comparisons framed around that concept will not change the analysis. The reason for the ban, agree with it or not, is the perceived control and data sharing with the Chinese government made possible by many things (mainly that they are HQ'd in that government's jurisdiction and then have all of these other potentially concerning details, not that they just have one of these other details). If the NYT were seen as being under significant control of and risking sharing too much user data with the Chinese government then it would indeed make sense to apply the same ban. Personally, I'm still on the fence about the ban. On one hand having asymmetry in one side banning such things and the other not is going to be problematic. On the other the inherent problems of banning companies by law. Such things work out in other areas... but will it work out in this specific type of example? Dunno, not 100% convinced either way.
- Cookingboy 2y ago>owever, in a great act of self-incrimination, Bytedance (de facto controlled by CCP) has decided to not divest and would rather shutdown instead. How is it self-incrimination? That logic doesn't work. 80% of TikTok's users are outside of the U.S., why would they sell the whole thing? And the law is written in a way that there is no value to just sell the American operation without the algorithm, they have to sell the whole thing, including the algorithm, in order for there to be a serious buyer. It's technology highway robbery. Imagine if China told Apple "sell to us or be banned", we'd tell them to pound sand too.
- Wheaties466 2y agofrom what I know the bids that have been put in place are just for the US operations and there are some bids that dont include the algo as a part of the deal.
- chollida1 2y agoNo one is asking them to sell the entire company. Just the US arm. Not sure that changes much but you seem to be talking about non US users, which wouldn't fall under this ruling.
- hobom 2y agoThe West told plenty of its companies, through public pressure or laws, that they have to divest from Russia, and they did. Rationally they recognized that selling their assets is financially more lucrative than just closing their operations and making 0$. Now why would an corporation which alleges to not be controlled by a government refuse to sell and forego billions in income, even though it is against the interest of their shareholders?
- waffleiron 2y agoBecause they don’t want to have a strong competitor in case they come back, or gave they competitor enter other markets they are still active in. Also, not all (if any) companies that divested from Russia sold "their assets" including IP such as algorithms.
- randomcatuser 2y agoThe divestiture clause is just a red herring -- sure, that sounds perfectly fine. But you can substitute it (in the future) with anything. In the future, the owners of a free press will be permitted to operate if and only if there is board seat made out to a CIA member. Unions will be permitted to congregate as long as they register with the Office of Trade Security All in all, a huge blow to the potential power of individual rights (essentially goes to the Founding Fathers' point that having a list of rights set in stone is NOT the end-all, be-all, it's who decides the rights that count)
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> There is a "TikTok cannot be controlled by the CCP" law It’s also not a ban on the content. It’s a ban on hosting and the App Store. TikTok.com can still legally resolve to the same content.
- hintymad 2y agoExactly. And what puzzles me is that the evidences offered by the Congress was quite speculative, whether it's about data collection, content manipulation, influence of Chinese laws, or the potential future threat. Yet ByteDance chose not to argue about the evidence, but to argument about 1A.
- doctorpangloss 2y agoIt would have been great for ByteDance to IPO TikTok in the USA, it has had plenty of time to do so, it would have made lots of people boatloads of money, Chinese and Americans alike. Even Snapchat, which had similar levels of pervasive arrogance, IPO'd.
- cm2012 2y agoYes. The Chinese government probably lost its citizens around $100b by not allowing TikTok to sell.
- encoderer 2y agoWhen you think of it as enough money to give a $100 bill to ~everybody in china, wow. That’s quite a bit of money.
- callc 2y agoAny amount of $$$ earned by CCP will not be easily passed down to citizens. I’d be interested if there’s any objective measure of how much a countries money is passed down back to its citizens or hoarded by people in power. Is there any such measure?
- dmix 2y agoEven if the money from the IPO itself doesnt go to directly to random citizens it still pumps a ton of money into their economy providing capital for other investments in new markets creating jobs, spending on goods/services by the company, hiring internally (IPOs always allow companies to expand), etc etc. That money doesn't just sit in a giant pile being unused, like Scrooge McDuck's gold pile. Not to mention the training and development it would give a whole new class of people in China to operate global businesses.
- nashashmi 2y agoIt doesn’t label ccp. It denigrates four countries as foreign adversaries. And then allows the president to remove any company located in those adversaries. Kaspersky was banned this way. Tiktok was hard coded in the law to be banned. The law allows for sale. It doesn’t enforce sale.
- collinstevens 2y agoit's more specifically ByteDance must divest. The effects that happen because of a divestment by ByteDance, such as TikTok losing access to "the algorithm", are just incidental. The oral arguments for the case are on YouTube and are worth a listen.
- x0x0 2y agoSeparately, it's hard to get upset about this when China absolutely does not allow similar foreign ownership of large apps in their country. Look at all the hoops, including domestic ownership requirements, required to sell saas or similar in China.
- 34679 2y agoThat would be like telling Facebook to "divest" from the US government. Which, in this case, means ignoring all government requests for data and censorship. Facebook obviously cannot do that.
- hk1337 2y agoTo fix your analogy, it would be like EU passing a law that Facebook in the EU would have to be divested so they are not owned by Facebook in the US
- llamaimperative 2y agoNot really. There is no analogous concept in the US of the CCP's relationship with large companies.
- bpodgursky 2y ago1) TikTok was already theoretically a US company, but the strings were being pulled by the parent org in China. 2) US and China regulatory burdens and rule of law aren't equivalent, and I'm not going to grant that equivalency.
- LeifCarrotson 2y agoVaguely like that. Ostensibly, the US government honors the 1st and 4th amendments, and only restricts speech on the platform in rare instances where that speech is likely to incite or produce imminent lawless action, and only issues warrants for private data which are of limited scope for evidence where the government has probable cause that a crime has occurred. The accusation is that the CCP and Bytedance have a much more intimate relationship than that, censoring (or compelling) speech and producing data for mere political favors. Whether or not this is true of Facebook's relationship with US political entities is up for debate.
- gunian 2y agoCross the US government and see how fast that turns into shadow bans, your loved ones getting tortured, someone else working with your SSN, dummy up and fish, imprisoned algorithmically etc you won't even have to cross them just be guilty by association No horse in this race as both horses hate and will trample me but just saying lol
- gunian 2y agoWait is it actually controlled by the CCP? Did they present evidence for policies implemented by TikTok directed by the CCP? Does divest in this context mean sell it to a non Chinese owner?
- insane_dreamer 2y agoAll large companies in China are ultimately controlled by the CCP. It's not a secret, but the de facto modus operandi.
- hujun 2y agoquote from tiktok's webiste https://usds.tiktok.com/usds-myths-vs-facts/ https://usds.tiktok.com/usds-myths-vs-facts/: ``` Myth: TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance Ltd., is Chinese owned. Fact: TikTok’s parent company ByteDance Ltd. was founded by Chinese entrepreneurs, but today, roughly sixty percent of the company is beneficially owned by global institutional investors such as Carlyle Group, General Atlantic, and Susquehanna International Group. An additional twenty percent of the company is owned by ByteDance employees around the world, including nearly seven thousand Americans. The remaining twenty percent is owned by the company’s founder, who is a private individual and is not part of any state or government entity. ```
- glenstein 2y agoBytedance is HQ'd in Beijing and required by law to comply without exception with national security requests.
- archagon 2y agoSo why is Apple being forced to evict a free app from their store?
- olalonde 2y agoYou could say that about all the American tech companies that are banned in China. They just have to comply with Chinese law and will be unbanned. For example, Google, unlike Microsoft/Apple, chose to withdraw from China rather than comply with Chinese law.
- qingcharles 2y agoSelling TikTok means handing over the source code for the algorithm. I can see, say, Coca-Cola refusing to sell a local subsidiary if they would be forced to hand over their recipe.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]