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The people pretending that the TikTok law is a speech issue are ignoring that no one was requiring TikTok to change their content at all. The law was written to
by sekai 2y ago
The people pretending that the TikTok law is a speech issue are ignoring that no one was requiring TikTok to change their content at all. The law was written to allow for 0 impact on users if the CCP-connected parent company simply divested.
Their preference to shut down instead of receiving tens of billions of dollars would be a clear violation of a company’s fiduciary duty to shareholders for any normal company. But ByteDance’s allegiance isn’t to their shareholders.
- skizm 2y agoI'm not defending them here, but the laws in China prevent a sale, so technically they have a duty to uphold China's laws first before upholding their fiduciary responsibility. Same with any American company and following American laws.
- pjc50 2y ago> the laws in China prevent a sale First I've heard of this. The conflicting legal obligations remind me of the Microsoft "safe harbour" case, which is becoming a lot more relevant and still isn't really adequately resolved.
- adastra22 2y agoThey’re confusing the US TikTok subsidiary with ByteDance parent organization. They were only required to sell the subsidiary. Ironically this would be enforcing the very same law that exists in China, where all companies have to be majority Chinese owned.
- rfoo 2y agoI believe the law mentioned here isn't focused on which organization it is. The law itself basically said you can't export recommendation algorithm. Yes, in the very similar wording as in "you can't export certain GPU chips".
- adastra22 2y agoWhich is fine. The whole point of the divestment was to NOT use the CCP-controlled recommendation algorithm.
- ants_everywhere 2y agoI think that's a major part of the concern. Their first duty is to the Chinese Communist Party. Historically all sources of information in communism have to serve the goals of the party above all else, and this is tightly controlled.
- BriggyDwiggs42 2y agoThe CCP doesn’t run a communist nation.
- janalsncm 2y agoYeah they’re communist like FedEx is federal.
- ants_everywhere 2y agoYes I'm aware this trope is applied to every communist country that's ever existed. I've never been in a conversation where it added anything. It's like saying the Pope isn't Christian. It's really a hidden statement about gatekeeping.
- BriggyDwiggs42 2y agoIt’s not a hidden statement about anything. China is not communist; communist means something. North Korea isn’t a democratic republic; that also means something. We can go into definitions if you want, but I think this is trivial to observe for China. Edit: I think the distinction is important because the US has a tendency to label things communist before it goes to war with them, whether cold or hot.
- beepbooptheory 2y agoBut then how can you use it the other way around, to say that it is bad?
- ants_everywhere 2y agoI think the same way we can talk about monkeys or squirrels. It's a family tree of related ideas. But there's no official checklist of features it has to have. To give an example for comparison, a lot of people want to say socialism is about workers controlling the means of production. But that doesn't come close to covering all of the things that were called socialism that existed before someone proposed that definition. With communism it's similar but at least I'm not aware of any one jingle that people are pushing as the one true definition. But there are definitely lots of people who want to say they understand Marx better than everyone else and the Soviet Union doesn't count as communist because of x. China doesn't count as communist because of y. Etc etc. it's a way to preserve an identity as a communist without having to admit there are any downsides. For what it's worth I'd argue that capitalism is even less well defined and I've heard it used to describe every economic system that's ever existed including all communist countries.
- dawnerd 2y agoThey’re majority owned by non Chinese investors. I don’t see how china law would have any say.
- skizm 2y agoGoogle "Golden Share CCP ByteDance". CCP has direct influence over how ByteDance is run.
- acje 2y agoShares aren’t the sole mechanism for influence though. In Russia there are open sixth floor windows one could fall out of. In China you could disappear to a camp for a few months. Shares are kind of soft in comparison.
- wordofx 2y agolol no.
- steveBK123 2y agoChinese laws are whatever Xi says they are, so that's where Trump negotiating a deal for himself / his rich buddies comes into play..
- Supermancho 2y agoThis is correct. His power is effectively absolute. Any time his eye focuses on an issue, the issue is resolved to his specification or heads roll and another puppet is appointed to resolve it so.
- steveBK123 2y agoI spoke a few years back with a tech analyst who specialized in Chinese equities. She herself is a Chinese ex-pat living in the states. She, quite exasperatedly described investing in Chinese equities as "you basically need to guess what Xi is thinking". One day test prep schools are illegal and immediately shut down. Tech CEOs suddenly became pariahs and started getting carted off to re-education camps. Etc. You never know what could happen to an executive, company, or sector.
- curt15 2y agoDoes this mean they would be obligated to censor tank man content in the US at the CCP's request?
- enjo 2y agoWhen I worked for an American subsidiary of a Chinese company (Video Games) we were only required to honor censorship requests for Chinese users.
- tripletao 2y agoThat's a policy decision by the Chinese government. They still have the authority, but the Streisand effect makes blunt censorship counterproductive in an open society. For example, TikTok took down the viral "Uighur makeup tutorial" but quickly reinstated it after the backlash. That backlash couldn't occur in China, but it can in the USA for as long as uncensored outlets exist. Subtler manipulation still works great, and the opacity of algorithmic content recommendation makes that an ideal instrument. Nobody outside ByteDance knows to what extent the CCP is putting its thumb on that scale already, but they certainly have the power to.
- throw283724 2y agoIf we're talking about the same video, the reason they initially took it down is because she had pictures of Bin Laden and was praising him.
- tripletao 2y agoI'm talking about this one: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/an-update-on-recent-content-and-account-questions https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/an-update-on-recent-conten... A different account operated by the same user was banned for something relating to an image of bin Laden in a different video. I've been unable to locate that video. I haven't found any reference stating that she praised him. She described her use of that image as satirical, and TikTok itself seems to recognize that (but stands by that ban): > *While we recognize that this video may have been intended as satire, our policies on this front are currently strict. In any case, the video in question is the Uighur one. TikTok quickly stated that one was a "human moderation error" and reversed it. My point is irrespective of whether their rules were morally correct or correctly applied, though--whatever those merits, they clearly drew more attention to the topic by censoring here, not less. So it's not surprising they don't apply blunt Chinese-style censorship outside China, since it's counterproductive without Chinese-style control of all major media.
- ikmckenz 2y agoExcept now they get to remain the owners and they don’t have to sell at fire sale prices, so it turned out to be the best possible outcome for their shareholders.
- School-Cotton 2y agoIn practice, US social networks usually promote content that is aligned with US cultural values and geopolitical interests. Whether this is because the government is actively leaning on them or just because being run by Americans colors them with those values, I don’t know. But the fact is, it’s not a coincidence that TikTok is the main place pro-Palestinian content was allowed to go viral, and it’s likely that changing owners would change the content on TikTok even if the law doesn’t actually require it to do so.
- user3939382 2y ago> Whether this is because the government is actively leaning on them or just because being run by Americans colors them with those values, I don’t know Look up Mitt Romney’s comments where he plainly says they need to ban TikTok because they can’t control the narrative on Israel-Palestine. Narrative being his word.
- GordonS 2y agoHere's a source that confirms: https://newrepublic.com/post/181327/mitt-romney-congress-ban-tiktok-israel-gaza https://newrepublic.com/post/181327/mitt-romney-congress-ban...
- djcapelis 2y agoI’m not arguing it’s a restriction on TikTok’s speech or bytedance’s speech. It’s a restriction on my speech. Telling me where I can publish a video? Telling me what apps I can download? Telling my software vendor what software they’re allowed to let me get? Telling internet providers what servers they’re allowed to let my device access? The law doesn’t fine TikTok. The law fines the people who let me download an application I’ve chosen to use. At $5,000 per instance. It’s not about TikTok’s rights being violated. It’s about mine, and yours.
- abigail95 2y agoThere isn't this much fuss about the foreign ownership of physical and broadcast media laws. Is the difference really about whether you can post on the platform or not?
- djcapelis 2y agoI think that’s a huge difference, yes. And about what apps my phone is able to download, and what servers it is able to access. Another huge difference is broadcasting is about usage of a shared resource and has always had regulations on who is allowed to do what. They don’t ban RT from setting up their own venue or printing a newspaper. RT and other outlets are able to operate in the US and people are able to chose to watch them.
- corimaith 2y agoWhy is it a huge difference? If you want absolute free speech places like 4chan will offer far more freedom than even TikTok ever would.
- threeseed 2y ago> It’s a restriction on my speech. Telling me where I can publish a video? Telling me what apps I can download? Telling my software vendor what software they’re allowed to let me get? Telling internet providers what servers they’re allowed to let my device access? You are being ridiculous now. None of those are forms of speech. And restrictions on your ability to perform certain actions is literally what being in a society is about. If you don't like it then find another society. Just like you can find another ISP, place to publish your video or platform to use apps you want to use.
- yibg 2y agoI keep seeing this type of comment here, like a sell is the obvious thing to do. Why? Selling / divesting TikTok US under these circumstances would surely not fetch the best price. In addition they would immediately create a global competitor that have the same product. Why would ByteDance the company or its investors want that?
- rchaud 2y agoNot to mention, why would they trust the US to pay tens of billions of dollars after this rigmarole? The incoming head of state doesn't exactly have a great track record of seeing through on promises to pay and is threatening tariffs against all and sundry. Anybody with that kind of financing readily available is throwing it at AI and not another social network, no matter how useful it might be for domestic propaganda.
- threeseed 2y ago> Not to mention, why would they trust the US to pay tens of billions of dollars Why would the US government be involved in paying tens of billions ? The idea is that ByteDance would sell it to Meta, X, etc and would be a private transaction.
- jeff4f5da2 2y ago> Their preference to shut down instead of receiving tens of billions of dollars would be a clear violation of a company’s fiduciary duty to shareholders for any normal company. It is not. A company would be (financially) punished if it didn't follow regulations. DiDi was an example. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/23/investing/didi-us-delisting-wall-street-intl-hnk/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/23/investing/didi-us-delisti...
- bjourne 2y agoMany American civil liberties organizations think that the the ban is a free speech issue: https://action.aclu.org/send-message/tell-congress-no-tiktok-ban https://action.aclu.org/send-message/tell-congress-no-tiktok... https://www.thefire.org/news/fire-scotus-tiktok-ban-violates-americans-first-amendment-rights https://www.thefire.org/news/fire-scotus-tiktok-ban-violates... https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/eff-statement-us-supreme-courts-decision-uphold-tiktok-ban https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/eff-statement-us-supre... It seems to me that they aren't "pretending" they honestly believe the issue is about free speech. Laws that does not explicitly curtail free speech but effectively still does just that can certainly be created.
- richwater 2y agoACLU is a biased organization and only supports the bill of rights when it suits their political alignment.
- freehorse 2y agoAnd what is their political alignment in this case (and in general)? Considering that banning tiktok got voted with bipartisan support.
- michaelt 2y agoAs I understand things, they tend to leave gun rights stuff to the enormous and well-funded NRA. In cases from "Roe vs Wade" to "Masterpiece Cakeshop" and "Hobby Lobby" the ACLU came out against things supported by the religious right. And although the ACLU regularly supports the free speech rights of swastika-tattoed nazis - Republicans don't see that as supporting their side, because no reasonable person wants to think people with swastika tattoos are on their side.
- bigstrat2003 2y agoUnfortunately so. It didn't use to be that way - the ACLU used to be so principled that they would defend literal Nazis' rights. But they've fallen a long way since then.
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2y agoPersonally, I am more concerned about people pretend it is not.
- ThinkBeat 2y agoYou should talk to the ACLU. Get them straighten out. https://action.aclu.org/send-message/tell-congress-no-tiktok-ban https://action.aclu.org/send-message/tell-congress-no-tiktok... https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/banning-tiktok-is-unconstitutional-the-supreme-court-must-step-in https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/banning-tiktok-i...
- stuaxo 2y agoFifuciary duty to shareholders is one of the most pernicious forces against progress there is. The short term "number go up" mentality is breeds is a cancer.
- roboror 2y agoThat's somewhat of a myth that lets these companies off easy, there's no ruling that says you have to maximize profit at all costs, or at all to an extent. The sole motivator is greed.
- jahewson 2y agoThe former does not imply the latter. Look at Bezos, he spent years re-investing in Amazon to provide long-term financial benefits to his shareholders. Pressure for short-term gains comes from shareholders on Wall St, it’s not a fundamental property of shareholders.
- maeil 2y agoIt's a complete myth used by the greedy to justify corporate greed. The only way someone would ever be succesfully prosecuted for this is if they'd clearly intentionally crash the company. Go do a search, you won't find a single other prosecution. I really hope this changes your mindset. The number go up mentality is purely a result of avarice from those enacting it, it has 0 to do with any laws, it's all personal greed.
- freehorse 2y agoI do not understand this line of argument. On the one hand there is a political decision to ban-or-annex a foreign company, on the other hand the reaction should not be political and in general political implications should not be discussed? And if anything, if tiktok US is sold it will be way below its actual value, so there are many reasons to resist this apart from the political ones. And I assume they expect they will come to a concession in the first place.
- sethammons 2y agoAnother free speech interpretation: the right to assemble. I cannot assemble with the group of people I once was with TikTok gone
- josephcsible 2y agoIf you used to assemble at a public park, and the city closes the park entirely to turn it into something else, does that violate your right to assemble too?
- sethammons 2y agodepends. Was it the de facto town square?
- pixl97 2y agoEven if it was the town square, if the property went from public to private ownership property ownership laws trump your free speech laws. You cannot come on to my properly and say whatever you want, more so you can't say it's not trespassing because of freedom of speech.
- afiori 2y agoIf the city sold the public property with the specific intent of having a private entity stop protected speech they were powerless to stop then yes, it would be a free speech issue
- DangitBobby 2y agoIf the specific intent was to make it difficult to assemble, then yes.
- lupusreal 2y agoThe law hasn't made it difficult to use alternatives to tiktok, which are free and numerous.
- slt2021 2y agoThis is a shakedown and violation of property rights.
- flir 2y agoInteresting position. I wonder if another country could just force Musk to divest himself of Twitter in the same way. Could solve a lot of headaches that way. Maybe the EU could force the issue.
- imgabe 2y agoPossibly they could force him to divest from whatever legal entity Twitter operates under in that country, or force Twitter to stop operating in that country, but they would have no authority over the US corporation.
- flir 2y agoThe post I'm replying to is arguing that fiduciary duty would force the sale, not a law. The banning just... sets a chain of events in motion.
- pixl97 2y agoDepends on the political power of the entity and it's existing laws. In your example, Musk could stop the app in the EU, much like TT is/was doing. With this said, is the EU law written like the long standing US laws that give the TT law the power it has? If they have to enact new laws that would conflict with its member states wishes/dealings with other nations, expect it go to nowhere.
- maeil 2y agoIt won't. It would be fantastic if the EU banned Meta or X. Instead they're suddenly scared of continuing to fine them for their endless illegal data harvesting and gatekeeping to cozy up to Trump.
- pjmlp 2y agoThat would be if they were American, even if they were not Chinese, not every country puts shareholders capitalism above everything else a company is suppose to decide upon.
- ryan_j_naughton 2y agoBut those running corporations are fiduciaries - the have a legal and ethical obligation to their shareholders. If those shareholders want to not maximize profits and have other objectives, then that's totally fine and then the managements obligations are to those aims of the shareholders.
- pjmlp 2y agoAs per US law....
- blahedo 2y ago> pretending that the TikTok law is a speech issue A lot of folks here are saying that the TT ban had nothing to do with free speech. A couple of indirect rhetorical questions that might be relevant to help illuminate opinions about TT: 1. If there were a single newspaper (in the pre-internet era) that developed and printed a lot of reporting with a particular political outlook and was the home of many columnists known for being the premier thinkers with that outlook, and a law were passed that had nothing to do with the content but had the effect of shutting down that paper, and only that paper, would this be a speech issue? 2. If a political rally were assembling to petition for redress of their grievances, and a law were passed that told them they could say what they wanted but the rally was only allowed to occur in a specific field 30 miles outside the city and 3 miles from the nearest paved road, would this be a speech issue? 3. Given that deadtree-books-in-physical-libraries are not the primary point of reference for most people anymore, if you wanted to block access to certain kinds of information and/or make a statement about doing so, what action would you take in the 21st century to do the equivalent of a book burning? And would this be a speech issue? There are obvious and easy things you can point out about how the TT law is different from each of those three scenarios, don't @ me about that. But it seems to me that most people who are serious (or, publicly serious, which is a little different) about supporting the TT ban give reasons for it that would be inconsistent with their answers to one or more of those three questions.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 2y agoWhich of these examples includes the parts about foreign control? This is the primary issue as far I was aware. The chinese state does not have first amendment protections because they are not american citizens.
- emidoots 2y ago(1) Doesn't match the situation at all, because the law didn't require the paper to shutdown - it required a foreign company to divest so that it is US-owned, and the paper could continue operations as normal. That's a pretty substantial difference. (2) Also doesn't match the situation, there is no requirement that TikTok restrict the reach or audience of their content in any way AFAIK. (3) The situation is more akin to "foreign government owns the local library, and can decide based on the identity of the person walking in which books the person is allowed to see and check out" - seems obviously problematic at least /if they do that/
- FpUser 2y ago>"Their preference to shut down instead of receiving tens of billions of dollars would be a clear violation of a company’s fiduciary duty to shareholders" I am shedding tears for those poor shareholders.
- wongarsu 2y ago> Their preference to shut down instead of receiving tens of billions of dollars would be a clear violation of a company’s fiduciary duty to shareholders for any normal company This is only true if you assume the US is the only market that matters. But TikTok is very much an international phenomenon, and selling would likely harm the company far more than a couple billion. Firstly it would give another company everything they need to run a global competitor to TikTok, including software, infrastructure and userbase. Secondly it might encourage other countries to also force TikTok to sell. Giving in here would be the beginning of the end of TikTok and could well be argued to be a violation of the company's fiduciary duty to shareholders. It would be the ultimate version of chasing short-term gains by selling the long-term future.
- josephcsible 2y ago> Secondly it might encourage other countries to also force TikTok to sell. Wouldn't that be a no-op if they already did so?
- aimanbenbaha 2y agoBytedance is privately held. With a 20% stake by founders and employees. Divesting according to the bill terms would have them giving away portion of their most precious IP that is the fyp recommendation system. Any reasonable company would refuse to totally divest and create a competitor just because a government said so. Also TikTok makes money for advertizing to the entire world not just the US.
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoIt's not "give away" when they get to charge the market price for it. They presumably also wouldn't inherently even have to split up the company, rather than e.g. do an IPO for the entire global enterprise.
- aimanbenbaha 2y agoThe valuation and acquisition process of the US branch of TikTok would take more than 8 months as outlined by the language of the bill. So it's already forcing them to receive chump change for it. Besides I don't think any company's strategic decisions like this should be solicited by a government. That goes against the free enterprise.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago> 8 months This has been a possibility for a lot longer than 8 months. Trump was talking about it during his first term more than four years ago. You can take the time to line up buyers even if you don't end up having to sell, but if you have the time and then don't use it, whose fault is that? > Besides I don't think any company's strategic decisions like this should be solicited by a government. That goes against the free enterprise. Of course it's not free enterprise. It's a government regulation. If the US passes a law that says US companies aren't allowed to do business with Russia, that's not free enterprise either. Should those laws be unconstitutional? Maybe, but not any less than this one.
- sangnoir 2y ago> Their preference to shut down instead of receiving tens of billions of dollars would be a clear violation of a company’s fiduciary duty to shareholders for any normal company. This is not strictly true - when a company leaves a huge market, it is imprudent to leave behind a well-resourced competitor in place. If I were a ByteDance shareholder, I'd hate if it spun off TikTok America LLC, and then having TikTok America compete against ByteDance in Europe and the Rest of the world on an equal technological footing, but perhaps even deeper pockets from American markets.
- vitorgrs 2y agoWhat would happen if Brazil says they would ban X if Elon Musk didn't divest from it?
- rcstank 2y agoWhat does this have to do with X, Brazil, or Musk?
- bdangubic 2y agoeverything… the world does not revolve solely around USA. the EU should ban all US social media companies too unless they are sold to one of EU countries, that makes sense, right?
- dagss 2y agoYou joke, but with the power these companies have over peoples minds (enough people to sway elections) it is a reality we may be going towards; each power constellation a different social media universe. TikTok has the power to sway any election how they want. The data available to them about what reels sways what people in what direction is immense. The only question is if they are doing it. In 20 years I expect either democracy to vanish, or algorithmic social media to be widely banned, or control over algorithmic social media to be viewed more like control over nuclear weapons...
- vitorgrs 2y agoBecause seems insane to think that only because U.S says that Bytedance need to be divest or be banned, that any company will prefer to divest... And if the company doesn't do it, it's because of "hidden reasons" We are talking about a single country.
- pixl97 2y agoX would be blocked in Brazil. Now, expect Musk and his billions to push lobbying weight around to ensure Brazil paid dearly for it. International politics is a treacherous game.
- tensor 2y ago"Shut down in the US" not shut down everywhere, if I'm not mistaken. It also doesn't seem like an obvious violation of their fiduciary duty. The eventual growth in all other jurisdictions could easily be claimed to be worth more than the sale price, and it could also be argued that selling to US holders would harm the platform internationally.
- protocolture 2y ago"You may speak if..." Is a freedom of speech issue.
- afiori 2y agoThis does not make sense, it is like saying that requiring bezos to sell his newspapers is not a free speech issue (I might or might not support such action as I am not a free speech absolutist)
- nemothekid 2y ago>Their preference to shut down instead of receiving tens of billions of dollars would be a clear violation of a company’s fiduciary duty to shareholders for any normal company. Would you argue for Tesla or Apple to sell to China? Do you think Musk would divest his China business? The parallels are almost identical 1. Tesla cars collect a huge amount of data. 2. Tesla is already banned from being driven by government officials. 3. Tesla has the best self driving algorithm 4. Chinese cars are already banned in the US 5. China is Tesla's second largest market 6. Tesla is the 3rd largest EV company in China Would you be surprised if Elon decided to exist China instead of "receiving tens of billions of dollars" from China?
- hot_gril 2y agoRep Mike Gallagher, the sponsor of the bill, published this op-ed making it sound like a speech issue: https://www.thefp.com/p/tik-tok-young-americans-hamas-mike-gallag https://www.thefp.com/p/tik-tok-young-americans-hamas-mike-g...
- JimmaDaRustla 2y agoI'm not buying this drivel - the company stands to make way more than one rushed and limited buyout would garner. Your argument is a false dichotomy, and it's made in bad faith. You argue that they should have taken a 10B pay day, meanwhile they are alive today and arguable worth over 100B.