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Key details: 1. New, US-specific TikTok App, separate from the main TikTok app in content and users. 2. 80% owned by a U.S. investor consortium led by Oracle,
by gpt5 1y ago
Key details:
1. New, US-specific TikTok App, separate from the main TikTok app in content and users.
2. 80% owned by a U.S. investor consortium led by Oracle, Silver Lake, and Andreessen Horowitz, 20% by Bytedance.
3. Board will include one U.S. government–appointed director.
4. All U.S. user data would sit on Oracle infrastructure in the US.
5. Algorithm will be initially licensed, but has to be reengineered to comply with the law.
Not discussed - whether the US tiktok app is allowed to compete with TikTok outside of the US. My guess is NO.
- hvb2 1y ago> All U.S. user data would sit on Oracle infrastructure in the US. Legally required to use the services of a specific company, that's a sweet deal right there.
- rtehfm 1y agoAs part of Project Texas[1], they've already been using Oracle's infrastructure. > The central feature of Project Texas is our work with Oracle to isolate the TikTok services serving U.S. users within Oracle’s U.S. cloud environment as an additional safeguard. Although gateways to the storage infrastructure are strictly monitored and controlled, U.S. users of the TikTok platform can still communicate and interact with global users for a cohesive global experience. [1]https://usds.tiktok.com/usds-about https://usds.tiktok.com/usds-about
- hamburglar 1y agoTikTok has been on Oracle cloud for years. One of its biggest customers.
- justapassenger 1y agoVendor lock-in, with a heavy legal implications, is Oracle's bread and butter of operation.
- foota 1y agoI suspect the legal requirement is for it to be in the US, the Oracle part is probably just because they're the ones investing.
- fluidcruft 1y agoKey details: 1. DOA app nobody wants 2. whocares 3. see 2 Good luck to the administration while trying to roll this out.
- jfengel 1y agoBoard will include one U.S. government–appointed director. Why? The nominal reason for all this is that we didn't want a Chinese company controlling an important social media outlet. I don't love that reasoning, but fine, whatever. So they're forcibly selling it to an American company. Which should solve the problem, right? Are we going to be putting government-appointed directors on all social media companies? Or just the one that used-to-be-Chinese? Is there something so overwhelmingly devious about the TikTok format in particular that the government has to supervise it?
- yibg 1y agoRemember though, it's only bad when the other guy does it. We don't want Chinese government involvement in TikTok, but we do want US government involvement. /s
- groggler 1y agoThe "Be all you can be" slogan requires more than just a great firewall that China should pay for, it needs a constant vigil to protect it from German nihilists.
- gorgoiler 1y agoBuild a [fire]wall and make China pay for it is an amusing — if bleak — joke. Thank you :) What do you mean though by protection from “German nihilists”? Is that a satirical name you imagine the US government might use for the EU?
- doctoboggan 1y ago> 1. New, US-specific TikTok App, separate from the main TikTok app in content and users. IMO this significantly impacts the value I would get from TikTok, as much of the content I consume on the app is from outside the US I guess they are hoping the US market will be big enough so self sustain and even entice some foreigners to join the US only app?
- morkalork 1y agoWait, so for everyone else this means American content will be off the main app and be contained? If this stems the tide of MAGA brain rot seeping north into Canada it's an absolute win.
- raydev 1y agoMAGA content is easily avoidable, because the algo already prioritizes what you engage with. For me in Canada, there's just a lot of funny/insightful US-based content I do watch. TikTok got significantly less interesting when the US blocked themselves earlier this year, if that happens permanently it'll probably hurt TikTok worldwide.
- UncleOxidant 1y agoWill people just stay with the old app out due to inertia? Or will there be annoying "blocked in your country" type messages until you switch? (at which point you won't know what's been blocked in your country)
- aranelsurion 1y agoWill there be an old app and new app available both to US residents? I don't see how that'd help them reach any of their stated goals, as I'd expect overwhelming majority of users to a) simply not care and stay, b) prefer the better international app with more content from all around the world
- mrtksn 1y agoThat’s very interesting, I wonder if the toxicity of the American culture wars can be contained this way. Also, I see creators, trying to create US based TikTok accounts because they believe that this way their content will be shown to Americans, which are better monetized. If that’s the case, I wonder if international creator will move to the American TikTok for the better payout. It the international creators stay with the international TikTok IMHO that will be a huge win for China, practically displacing American culture for the younger demographic in the rest of the world.
- basisword 1y ago>> I wonder if international creator will move to the American TikTok for the better payout. If I were China I would do this deal and then ensure that the payout is better outside the US. Try to sway US content creators to use VPN's and post outside the US and essentially limit the impact of the deal.
- dr-detroit 1y ago[dead]
- imiric 1y ago> I wonder if the toxicity of the American culture wars can be contained this way. Huh? Are you not aware of US social media companies? Everything that's happening on TikTok is also happening on X, Facebook, Friendster, or whatever the kids are using these days. The only difference is that the TikTok algorithm promotes Chinese propaganda and ideology, and enriches the Chinese government and ByteDance. The US can't have that, hence this deal. This won't affect the American downward spiral a single iota. That would require strong regulation of social media companies and adtech in general, and there would be a nationwide revolt if that were even proposed. This is far from being considered anyway, now that Big Tech is deeply entrenched in the government.
- glenstein 1y ago>This won't affect the American downward spiral a single iota. Broadly speaking, I think you're probably right that the dynamics on tiktok already exist elsewhere in social media. But I do think a practical upshot of it could be a version of Tiktok where you can criticize the Hong Kong takeover or Xinxianj labor camps or harassment of expatriate dissidents or Taiwan indepence openly and not have it soft-deplatformed. Which could cause stronger domestic consciousness of those issues, and stronger solidarity with Europe and the rest of the Western world.
- basisword 1y ago>> US-specific TikTok App, separate from the main TikTok app in content and users Very interesting! The separate "in content" bit in particular. Sounds like US TikTok will now be one giant echo chamber. Users outside the US will miss some US content but tbh, I find TikTok content is actually quite localised anyway. Big benefits for users outside the US are: 1. US doesn't get my data. 2. Hopefully less US political BS to swipe past. 3. I am much less concerned with the sway China has on Western Europe than the sway the US has and am therefore much happier using a China-backed version of the app sans US content/users/control/propaganda. The extreme brain rot causing people outside the US to care about 'MAGA' or that recently assassinated man will hopefully start to recede. That can only be a good thing. We have plenty of our own polarising issues without importing irrelevant ones.
- roughly 1y ago> 5. Algorithm will be initially licensed, but has to be reengineered to comply with the law. The government board director is one thing, but what exactly does this mean?
- doctoboggan 1y ago"Hey Claude, please re-write this algorithm"
- downrightmike 1y agoI'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
- cvoss 1y agoThe law simply requires that the content recommendation algorithm not be shared between the two apps. [0] Thus, it must be rebuilt by the new team, and not maintained or controlled by the old team. The licensing approach is a temporary solution to keep the app working from day 1. One of ByteDance's complaints during the lawsuit earlier this year was that is was going to be technically infeasible for engineers to rebuild something as complex and essential as the content algorithm in the short window of time they had before the law went into effect. [0] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521/text#H7B5ED71582884BC8A1B2719242877358 https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521... "The term “qualified divestiture” means a divestiture or similar transaction that ... would result in the relevant foreign adversary controlled application no longer being controlled by a foreign adversary; and ... precludes the establishment or maintenance of any operational relationship between [the two apps/teams], including any cooperation with respect to the operation of a content recommendation algorithm or an agreement with respect to data sharing."
- roughly 1y agoGotcha, ok - that’s less alarming.
- downrightmike 1y ago10% of intel 80% of TikTok ??% Meta ??% Google ??% Amazon ??% S&P500
- vehemenz 1y ago> Board will include one U.S. government–appointed director. In other words, one's data will now be under the scrutiny of amoral radicals who have decided to target people for political speech.
- delfinom 1y agoWe are slowly becoming Communist China. Won't be long until all companies will be required to have a party office.
- jimmydoe 1y agomaybe, but i think what I see here is trump is not interested to beat china, just see what he did with s korea and india. the only thing may indicate that trump is competing with china is how hard he's trying to please putin, but apparently he needs to work harder to get into the organ harvesting club.
- athorax 1y agoThis is such a funny take. In China corporations operate at the behest of the government. In the US the government operates at the behest of corporations.
- oblio 1y agoThat's changing, though. They <are> working together, but the balance is tilting towards the US government and worse, towards individuals controlling it.
- pcthrowaway 1y agoThe U.S. is moving to state capitalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism) which is common in fascist regimes (think Nazi Germany or fascist Italy)
- 1y ago
- sharadov 1y agoOf all the tech companies, Oracle seems to be making the most and a killing due to Larry's cosy relations with Trump. Last week's announcement that they have a 500 B deal with Open AI, and now this. Elon really fucked up!
- the_gipsy 1y agoWho would have thunk, that a favor would evaporate soon! Isn't this like negotiating 101?
- rs186 1y agoIn other words, TikTok US becomes TruthSocial Reels? I wonder where all the liberal content will go.
- mullingitover 1y agoThis seems like the microwaved corpse of the original 2020 deal. Bytedance keeps all the IP, sells Oracle the nearly worthless right to operate the US infra. They can't even call their franken-app Tiktok. The US user data already sits in the US but they'll expect everyone to forget about that so they can brag about this token win. They'll probably get what they really want, which is an admin console for the algorithm that has a 'political slant' slider that they can slide as far to the reich as they wish.
- ivape 1y agoThis shit is crazy that it’s really happening. The double whammy is that the youth is not prepared intellectually and will continue contributing their data to this platform.
- bitmasher9 1y agoSome will. There’s a good chance any modification to the algorithm will make it less sticky and the youth will migrate to another app. It’s part of a larger trend of the buying platforms for obvious propaganda. It seems to be a successful strategy.
- wyre 1y agoYouth will be on whichever app the creators are on. As long as they can hold the status quo keeping creators on the app the people that will leave will be few.
- marbro 1y agoAdults are pretty stupid, too, especially legislators who voted to ban TikTok.
- throwoutway 1y agoSo Bytedance can still access user data going forward?
- gexla 1y ago
- jodacola 1y agoDisclaimer: I’m not a fan of TikTok and have many critical opinions of Ayn Rand’s philosophies, but… This gives me vibes of a weird company takeover, a la the kinds of things that happened in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged: government-driven benefits to large corporations and investors with friends in the right places, government involvement, forced licensure of a core aspect of the product (Rearden Metal?). I’d like to learn more about: what are some other similar instances of such a thing?
- Spooky23 1y agoCool. Chuck Schumer will clutch something and say “this may be a sign of something not good.”
- 8note 1y agoid like to see a similiar setup done in canada for each of the US big tech companies. owned by canadian oligarchs, with one CBC appointed director
- herbst 1y agoI could see local variants of American data dealers for Europe as well. Facebook without all the privacy issues would be borderline useable, maybe.
- Pxtl 1y ago> Oracle... Horowitz tl;dr: the entire US media is now controlled by men who've bent the knee to Trump and have demonstrated that theyre willing to take an activist editorial role.
- BatteryMountain 1y agoAll this to "protect the children"... why are US politicians so interested in kids? Politicians being involved in a kids app? Why? Could it be to curate some naughty list for future exploitation (blackmails anyone?) or to get location data about the kids? Mmm wonder when masked """"law enforcement"""" will disappear the parents and traffic the kids somewhere? Just ban children from the internet, make it the responsibility of the parents. Its that simple. Make it illegal for kids to have access, especially to user generated content (incl chat), same level as firearms, pharma drugs, voting, entering into contracts etc. Internet is and was never a place for children to begin with.
- discordance 1y agoThis is a land grab under the guise of "protecting the children"
- qingcharles 1y agoMassive win for Meta as it'll push a lot of folks towards Instagram Reels, which won't be siloed from the rest of the world.
- herbst 1y agoThe split between the US and the rest of the world maybe never was bigger than today
- PHGamer 1y agogovernment appointed commissars eh. i see were bringing it back eh. bet they will make sure it wont criticize a certain group of people lol
- GardenLetter27 1y agoWon't this separate out the US community on TikTok completely? Almost like the GFW ironically.
- immibis 1y agoThe name "Great Firewall of America" is already taken (and refers to Cloudflare), so we'll have to call this one something else.
- motbus3 1y agoN. 2 and 3 concerns me quite a lot. This looks like a thing people would 'mock' China for
- mrkramer 1y ago>New, US-specific TikTok App, separate from the main TikTok app in content and users. I'm from Europe so if I want to follow US content creators, I need to download separate US specific app?! Kinda silly.