9 ms·

TikTok Deal Is the Shittiest Possible Outcome, Making Everything Worse

320 points by lateforwork 10mo ago

anthem2025 10mo ago
[flagged]
- SilverElfin 10mo ago
  Why do people keep repeating this point? TikTok bans have been repeatedly considered for a while. It is as a topic in 2020. And October 7 happened in 2023. The reasons to ban it are a lot more simple than a conspiracy relating to Israel.
  - reactordev 10mo ago
    They have to make it political because without that there’s no justification.
  - takoid 10mo ago
    Fair point, but it's hard to ignore the timing. Netanyahu literally just called TikTok "the most important purchase going on right now" and described social media as a "weapon" to secure Israel's influence in the US [1]. When you see a massive donor to the IDF and Israeli causes like Larry Ellison leading the consortium to buy it right after those comments, dismissing it as a conspiracy is ignorant considering they're basically saying the quiet part out loud. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3tdrO8bA7rs https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3tdrO8bA7rs
  - miohtama 10mo ago
    Because Jewish organisations say it themselves: https://www.jewishfederations.org/blog/all/jewish-federations-to-new-tiktok-owners-501907 https://www.jewishfederations.org/blog/all/jewish-federation... And new owners have directly donated to Israeli's war efforts: https://www.newarab.com/news/pro-israel-billionaires-and-uae-royals-meet-tiktoks-new-owners https://www.newarab.com/news/pro-israel-billionaires-and-uae...
  - ToucanLoucan 10mo ago
    > Why do people keep repeating this point? Probably because like 1/4 of the American economy at this point is held up by surveillance capitalism firms like Meta, Google, Amazon, etc. all of whom's bread and butter is violating privacy on an industrial scale, so saying "TikTok is dangerous because it spies on people" is flagrantly hypocritical. The fact that the big scary Chinese Government can tweak algorithms to elevate content and potentially sway public opinion is a fair criticism and I would agree with it, if not for the fact that the hypothetical situation being used to justify it is America equally openly funding and supporting an ongoing genocide. That barely qualifies as propaganda, that's literally just pointing out what the United States is doing and why it's ethically indefensible, and we could stop doing it tomorrow and utterly defang the aforementioned propaganda. But we don't. And, lastly, TikTok is not going away. It's simply going to enrich Americans now, instead of the Chinese. A bit. And I'm sure plenty of that money will find it's way back to the Trump administration because our country is corrupt as all hell. So forgive me if I've just absolutely not one ounce of patience for this bullshit.
- empath75 10mo ago
  This is such conspiracy theory bullshit. The point was that China controlled an algorithm and platform that was capable of manipulating the views of millions of Americans on _any_ topic. Maybe some people cared about Israel especially, but that wasn't the overall reason for trying to get TikTok in the US out of Chinese control. You can, of course, make the argument that Facebook, Twitter, etc are also similar threats to other countries and _that is why they aren't allowed in China_. I agree that this resolution is a worst-case-scenario outcome, though.
  - disgruntledphd2 10mo ago
    This argument means that the Europeans should ban Facebook, X and TikTok. I'm not saying you're wrong, but that's the logical endgame here.
    - mlinhares 10mo ago
      They should have done that.
      - disgruntledphd2 10mo ago
        Do you feel the same way about Google? Surely search is something that should be more neutral than social media.
    - phailhaus 10mo ago
      Facebook and X are not directly controlled by the US government like TikTok is.
      - basisword 10mo ago
        The fact that they u-turned on so many policies the second Trump got into power shows otherwise. Not to mention the owner of X was Trumps right hand man for the first 6 months post-election.
    - acdha 10mo ago
- morellt 10mo ago
  While I agree with this, it confuses me that the same isn't happening to Instagram as well, since it has essentially 0 censorship of anti-Israeli content. However, within the last year it seems that there was a deliberate lift in that censorship, with the whole area of the platform blowing up since the early summer. What I imagine the incentive is is not the ability to censor the media, but to have the media on record of who posts it and who engages with it and maintain that ledger. When people get banned and slandered for denouncing a genocide, it becomes harder and harder to call this stuff "low-IQ conspiracy slop".
SilverElfin 10mo ago
This rant has some truth in it but it goes too far and comes off as unbalanced. From the conclusion: > This was never about addressing privacy, propaganda, or national security. It was always about the U.S. stealing ownership of one of the most popular and successful short form video apps in history because companies like Facebook were too innovatively incompetent to dethrone them in the open market. Ultimately this bipartisan accomplishment not only makes everything worse, it demonstrates we’re absolutely no better than the countries we criticize. I think when PAFACA passed and set up a ban of TikTok, it was in fact about privacy and propaganda and national security. It’s just that the Trump administration looks at every single situation as an opportunity for grift and corruption, and they abused the opportunity. The deal does shift algorithmic control and moderation to US based entities. I am not sure what that means in reality. Maybe they can just say they’re in control but choose to use the existing system? Who knows. The terms of the deal look like they help with the original concerns on the face of it.
- basisword 10mo ago
  >> This was never about addressing privacy, propaganda, or national security. I disagree. I think was about making sure Americans see the "RIGHT" propaganda.
  - xp84 10mo ago
    Taking the bait here: are you suggesting that the CPC has our (everyday Americans) best interests at heart more than a randomly-picked American company? American companies just want to acquire all our money. China wants to convince us to withdraw from the rest of the world so they can take over everything they want.
- bena 10mo ago
  I'm also a little "meh" on the "innovatively incompetent" bit. People get tunnel-vision. Facebook is for "Facebook things", TikTok is for "TikTok things". Reels, stories, whatevers isn't "TikTok". It's why Facebook bought Instagram. No matter if Facebook copied Instagram down to the pixel, it still wouldn't be Instagram. And it's why the branding has remained consistent. Same thing with Google and YouTube. It's why these acquisitions happen and why these companies become something else. Google to Alphabet, Facebook to Meta, etc. This just forces the sale of TikTok to someone in the U.S.
cons0le 10mo ago
They can do whatever they want with it with the sure knowledge that the users will never leave it. Tiktok is the digital equivalent of "getting kids addicted to heroin"
- CuriouslyC 10mo ago
  Not true, YouTube is the dominant player in short form content, and while TikTok has a loyal fanbase, I don't think it's a wall YouTube couldn't climb. For those that are downvoting this based on vibes, please feel free to get recent view counts that prove me wrong.
  - doublerabbit 10mo ago
    YouTube is the dominant player in Western Fronts. TikTok is the dominant in Asian fronts. TikTok is Chinese Youtube & YouTube is Western TikTok Both are cancer.
    - nxor 10mo ago
      [dead]
    - esafak 10mo ago
      Youtube Shorts, maybe, but Youtube is obviously broader than TikTok, and it is not just a dopamine machine, unlike TikTok. Can you find research seminars on TikTok?
      - doublerabbit 10mo ago
        > Youtube is obviously broader than TikTok Well yeah, it's existed longer. You can't compare one service like YouTube, a streaming platform for video vs TikTok which is a viral social platform. > Can you find research seminars on TikTok? TikTok isn't nor the platform for such. This link has results. https://www.tiktok.com/tag/researchseminar https://www.tiktok.com/tag/researchseminar
farceSpherule 10mo ago
Social Media is the digital equivalent of "getting kids addicted to heroin" reply > This was never about addressing ... national security You have no idea what you are talking about.
jacknews 10mo ago
lol, so 'We know this is crack cocaine mind-control spyware. Give us a seat in the control room'
Meekro 10mo ago
The stated purpose of the law was to get TikTok out of the hands of a foreign adversary, and that was accomplished. Remember when Trump took office, and lots of people were worried he would refuse to enforce this law? It sounds like the author would have preferred that a different group of billionaires take over.
- jnovek 10mo ago
  I wish no one had taken over. The threat of TikTok is easy to understand right now. It’s going to be much more murky after this deal is complete.
  - Meekro 10mo ago
    From a libertarian perspective, I also thought this was a bad law. It totally abandons faith in the idea of free speech, and admits that China’s “great firewall” was the right idea. I think it’s better to document any lies that were being spread on TikTok, and counter them with truth. If your first reaction is “but that won’t work!” then you don’t really believe in a free speech based society, and all that’s left to do is argue over which group of shadowy billionaires should get to control everyone.
    - Nevermark 10mo ago
      > If your first reaction is “but that won’t work!” then you don’t really believe in a free speech based society While I believe in free speech, free speech isn't some panacea. Nor does it magically exist without protection from powerful interests. What good does speaking up do, if "algorithms" managing the majority of speech have big money riding on promoting irresponsible speech at the expense of sidelining responsible speech. This isn't a neutral open marketplace of ideas, battling on merit. It is a pervasively manipulated market for profit, and those who will pay to tilt it. The right way to deal with surveillance and dossier based manipulation by external actors, is not to pick on one actor, but to make surveillance and dossier based manipulation illegal for all actors. Nobody buys a TV wanting their watching habits to end up impacting what ads they see in web views, and vice versa. That kind of behind the scenes coordination of unpermissioned data, as leverage against the sources of the data, is deeply anti-libertarian. Anti-liberty in both right and left formulations. (The idea that "libertarian" means the rich have a pass to do anything they can achieve with money, underhanded or not, is a corruption of any concept of individual liberty.) The enshittification of the world is being driven by this hostile business model. Via permissionless (or permissioned by dark pattern) coordinated privacy violations. And it isn't just foreign adversaries who are benefiting at societies cost. The constant collecting, collating, and converging of data on anyone doing anything that pervades the private/public economy now is deeply parasitical. Free speech, like every other right, only achieves its real value in a healthy environment. I.e. a healthy idea competitive environment. I believe in voting too. But similarly, voting only matters in a healthy competitive candidate environment.
dpark 10mo ago
So ByteDance maintains majority control. A huge win for the American people as always.
Gormanu 10mo ago
The deal itself feels messy and political, not like a serious solution to data or security concerns. In the end, the risks are still there, and it’s hard to see what regular users actually win from this.
- MangoToupe 10mo ago
  > it’s hard to see what regular users actually win from this They won't. The entire point of this charade is to remind Americans we can't expect any better than instagram or youtube.
  - xp84 10mo ago
    lol are you really suggesting that China, out of the goodness of their hearts, made TikTok with the objective to give Americans “better” trash social media sites?
    - MangoToupe 10mo ago
      No, of course not. They're simply more competent.
    - johnnyanmac 10mo ago
      Yes. Because the US forgot what soft power and actual nationalism entails. China didn't. Its not out of goodwill, but the objective of "don't be ad ridden slop maximizing shareholder gain" was a bar you didn't even need to step over
- sfifs 10mo ago
  The point of the whole Congressional exercise was to grab ownership of a highly lucrative social network on the cheap to the American investor class. Whoever won the presidential election got to choose the winners.
  - spencerflem 10mo ago
    This and censor opinions inconvenient to American interests (genocide in Gaza)
biophysboy 10mo ago
I think one of my biggest frustrations with tech right now is how credulous they are with regard to China vs USA arguments. I see it on HN regularly. I am not saying the China shock was fake, or state surveillance is fine, or that they don’t exploit migrant workers, or that their currency manipulation and financial repression were/are good. I just think we should be skeptical that national security arguments are motivated by virtue, especially when “the good” is largely confined to what’s good for USA tech
- afavour 10mo ago
  I don’t know. In a way I don’t think it matters if China are currently actively engaged in altering the opinions of Americans, what matters is whether they can. And an unknowable algorithm absolutely gives them the power to. IMO the bigger problem is that national security is only part of the problem. An unknowable algorithm controlled by the Ellisons is not necessarily less dangerous than one controlled by China, the motivations are just different.
  - biophysboy 10mo ago
    Yes, and the counterfactual scenario (Ellison or anyone else) does not even preclude foreign manipulation. Other platforms demonstrate this daily
- xp84 10mo ago
  Regardless of where you stand on American politics, it is just plain bad for all Americans for China to advance its geopolitical ambitions. This is not a left versus right thing. China being unchallenged in the world will spell a quality of life decrease for us in the West. They are not “the good guys.” You’re free to see both parties as ‘neutral’ in alignment, but you still don’t want to have to be the losing party when they come into conflict. My point is China is not going to be sharing any of what they gain with Americans, even the ones who cheer for them - it’ll in fact be coming at your expense. The CPC having a direct feed into the brains of every Gen Z and younger American is trivially easy to exploit - and there is a 0% chance that they won’t do so next year when they will likely invade Taiwan. If China is in control of TikTok, they’ll boost a ton of propaganda, supposedly people “from Taiwan” who greet the PLA as liberators, explaining how Taiwan being independent is actually oppression, and how they’ve always considered themselves part of the PRC, only evil politicians were keeping them apart. And they’ll make sure to suppress all media that exposes the violence on the ground. Finally, they’ll boost content urging Americans to protest US involvement and to sabotage the military, such as by chaining themselves to ships, etc. Ryan McBeth has made a ton of videos laying out how this will work, and he does a better job than I have of explaining this. TikTok is a cyberweapon.
asadm 10mo ago
[flagged]
- 849263292939 10mo ago
  [flagged]
apawloski 10mo ago
I am still baffled, because wasn't there a bipartisan law passed banning TikTok? Is that just being ignored while a deal is orchestrated to sell it to Larry Ellison (and install Barron Trump on the TikTok Board of Directors)? The enforcement of the law is confusing to me here.
- philistine 10mo ago
  You're not wrong. It was very clearly illegal for TikTok to maintain operations in the US since the law started applying, and yet the US government ordered everyone to disregard the law and they just went along with it. This is another sign of the US' decline. The refusal to follow inconvenient laws.
  - nine_zeros 10mo ago
    [dead]
  - derektank 10mo ago
    Technically, the law did allow the president to approve a one-time extension if there was a deal under negotiation. But every subsequent extension (I think we’re on number 3 or 4 now) had no legal basis in the text of the legislation and both Apple and Google are clearly in violation of the law for not banning it from their app stores after the 1st extension
    - mapontosevenths 10mo ago
      This is a bug in the system that should be corrected. The fourteenth amendment guarantees everyone equal protection under the law. Allowing the executive branch sway over the enforcement of laws that they're ostensibly beholden to prevents enforcement at all, which robs the citizens of the United States of the protection they've been afforded.
      - paulddraper 10mo ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_Action_for_Childhood_Arrivals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_Action_for_Childhood_...
DudeOpotomus 10mo ago
Its a Trump deal. Everything the man touches turns to shit.
- sgt 10mo ago
  But inside that shit, tiny little gold nuggets
  - LightBug1 10mo ago
    ... that end up being like gold Christmas chocolate coins ... filled with shit. (TL/DR: It's shit all the way down).
yieldcrv 10mo ago
Now it won't be Beijing having coercive access to your data It'll be Larry Ellison, a slaver nation, and a PE surveillance focused firm having consensual access to your data! And the US government! we did it guys!
- lateforwork 10mo ago
  It is not access to our data that was the concern. It is manipulating the opinions of Americans by controlling the algorithms that determine what Americans see. How is that concern alleviated by this deal? It is not. And that's the problem with this deal. The algorithm is still controlled by China.
- xp84 10mo ago
  “Your information” was never the important thing. That’s a sideshow. The important thing is that controlling an algorithmic feed that is wildly popular amongst multiple generations of Americans means the CPC can control American public opinion at the touch of a button. Literally no country would allow a sworn adversary to do that. Why do you think China doesn’t allow Facebook or Twitter? And those aren’t even government-controlled American companies (sure, they’re subject to coercion, but not to the extent Chinese companies are).
  - advisedwang 10mo ago
    OK so now "Larry Ellison, a slaver nation, and a PE surveillance focused firm" can "can control American public opinion at the touch of a button"? That seems just as bad.
    - ericmcer 10mo ago
      What do you mean by "a slaver nation"?
      - edaemon 10mo ago
        They're probably referring to MGX, one of the major investment groups. It's the UAE's state-owned investment fund.
Braxton1980 10mo ago
Now Republicans directly control X and Tiktok. I place the blame on their supporters, especially those who are engineers and others who are on Hackernews. The most frustrating aspect is they won't face any justice for their support.
lateforwork 10mo ago
China is outsmarting the current administration in every way, see here: "From Chips to Security, China Is Getting Much of What It Wants From the U.S." https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/world/asia/nvidia-china-trump-security-japan.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/world/asia/nvidia-china-t...
- masfuerte 10mo ago
  Not long into Trump's second term I read that senior Chinese officials were calling him Orange Santa. I hope it's true.
  - spiderfarmer 10mo ago
    I’m pretty sure everyone who sees him for what he is has called him worse.
  - rchaud 10mo ago
    Christmas has been coming early for China ever since the invasion of Iraq.
    - pphysch 10mo ago
      [flagged]
      - louthy 10mo ago
        > There's considerable evidence Yet you provide none.
        pphysch 10mo ago
        [flagged]
        louthy 10mo ago
        You said: “There's considerable evidence and reason to believe Washington invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to supercharge opium production”, yet you provide nothing to back up your claim. It is not trolling to point that out. Your link to some stats on levels of poppy production does not support your conspiracy theory.
shevy-java 10mo ago
The TikTok deal seems to be more about empowering US corporations than anything else. It seems as if they hate all forms of competition under the orange man ruling the USA right now, so of course TikTok must be crushed (not that I use any of those antisocial media, it is just an observation made). We see something similar in Europe in that Musk burps out the EU must disband after they fined his company for breaking local laws. It's like a really stupid variant of corporatocracy dominating the USA right now; at the least in the past it was a bit more subtle. Now it is like barbarian posing as oligarchs are having crazy fits. I think 99.9% of their wealth must be confiscated and given to The People - too much wealth makes the mind weak and leads them to act as tyrannical parasites.
- lenerdenator 10mo ago
  I hate to tell you this, but that's how most countries operate. Actually, China is a shining example of digital protectionism. Turnabout is fair play.
lenerdenator 10mo ago
Is there some provision that enabled the executive branch to keep extending the purchase deadline? If not, the sale is illegal. Congress passed a law saying that TikTok was to be banned. Not "can be sold after a bunch of backroom deals by tech aristocracy that happens to be friends with an incredibly corrupt President", but banned. SCOTUS agreed that the law held up to scrutiny.
- advisedwang 10mo ago
  The law [1] does not work as an magic all encompassing "ban". It says operating and distributing the app is is unlawful, and the consequence is a huge fine and the enforcement mechanism is suit from the US AG. Nothing says that a sale after doing something unlawful is illegal. The bigger issue is that the Trump directed the AG not to enforce the law. So something is plainly illegal but is de-facto legal because of executive pronouncement. That is extremely worrying because one aspect of totalitarianism is that the dicta of the ruler has effect of law. [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/815/text#d1063e6560 https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/815/...
- spencerflem 10mo ago
  Yeah it’s illegal. What are you gonna do about it
standardUser 10mo ago
> if these folks were all so concerned about U.S. consumer privacy, they should have passed a functional modern internet privacy law applying to all U.S. companies and their executives. This is the way. I wonder if we'll ever see the day that consumers get a fighting chance.
diogenescynic 10mo ago
Ah but it’s the best outcome for Israel so they can now suppress videos from Gaza.
ojbyrne 10mo ago
“Shittiest Possible Outcome” is basically the motto of the current administration.
_menelaus 10mo ago
Does anyone actually not realize this was to stymie criticism of Israel? You Netanyahu bragging about how this is central to winning the propaganda war. Ellison is the biggest private donor to the IDF. Put it together.
- leoh 10mo ago
  Did you create this account just to say stuff like this? Incidentally, TikTok is still as anti-Israel as ever.
  - guizadillas 10mo ago
    Yeah, that's why they are trying to censor it and they are doing it actively, now they will do it more effective
- spencerflem 10mo ago
  +1 - the timing of the bill makes this extremely clear.
- tastyface 10mo ago
  That and to promote the regime’s white supremacist agenda. (Expect to see a lot more nauseating propaganda along the lines of the memes that official Administration accounts have been posting.)
- roncesvalles 10mo ago
  Jonathan Greenblatt (CEO of the ADL) was on record saying "TikTok is Al Jazeera on steroids" before the ban bill got a lot of wind. What's ironic is that ultimately their suspicion that TikTok was influenced by the PRC to push an anti-Israel agenda was most probably incorrect. Israel lost the narrative in the West because it simply did a lot of shitty things in the war, and everyone from homeless people to war refugees carry around an HD camcorder in their pocket now. I still see shocking videos of what the IDF is doing in Gaza on a monthly basis, on Instagram of all places.
  - 10mo ago
jadar 10mo ago
This tells me nothing except the author’s politics.
rconti 10mo ago
They keep mentioning "innovation". What's innovative about shoveling mindless junk in people's faces 24x7? We've got a lot of these platforms already. Do we need an even MORE mindless one to dethrone TikTok? Is that a win for literally anyone other than investors?
- eli 10mo ago
  Is TikTok fundamentally different from HN in some way? Seems like you could say that about any platform you don't like.
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  - criddell 10mo ago
    I don't think HN has ever claimed to be especially innovative.
  - hashstring 10mo ago
    Fundamentally it’s super different from HN, what do you mean?
  - rconti 10mo ago
    The short video platforms are almost exclusively individual-algorithmic garbage-recommending platforms designed for maximum passivity. A couple major differences here are: * Not video * Meant more for commmunity/interactivity * Not individual algorithmic So a site like this optimizes for most-user-upvoted content, to try to surface content that is found interesting by people who are presumably somewhat like you. That seems pretty different from a self-serving platform that optimizes for whatever keeps you from blinking.
  - insane_dreamer 10mo ago
    > Is TikTok fundamentally different from HN in some way? absolutely! - not ad driven - not follower / likes driven (yes, there's karma but there's no concept of following people, notifications for likes, etc.) - not engagement driven - not algorithmically driven (yes, the home page is, but you can just do /active for example, or /new ; I rarely go the home page) - there isn't an endless amount of "new content" - no hosted content (you have to link to something to show it) - no revenue
mcs5280 10mo ago
Welcome to the Ellisonverse
NoGravitas 10mo ago
One thing I've been trying to find since the deal was announced, and this article doesn't help either, is when this actually takes effect, i.e., when does Larry the Lawnmower get access to everyone's TikTok's comments?
tkel 10mo ago
For all the people who appear to want a say in this, perhaps you should advocate for a structure in which you actually have a say? As in, nationalization of TikTok? All other outcomes on the table, you have no input or direction on this company. And people seem to be justifying US interference on the basis that its influence warrants public direction. Well then that same logic would justify it being controlled by the public, no?
mayo369 10mo ago
As a Chinese, I think we know from the first place that this is all about political and money. It's interesting to see lots of people "shocked" by this outcome.
geekraver 10mo ago
ETTD

320 points by lateforwork 10mo ago

anthem2025 10mo ago

[flagged]

SilverElfin 10mo ago
Why do people keep repeating this point? TikTok bans have been repeatedly considered for a while. It is as a topic in 2020. And October 7 happened in 2023. The reasons to ban it are a lot more simple than a conspiracy relating to Israel.
- reactordev 10mo ago
  They have to make it political because without that there’s no justification.
- takoid 10mo ago
  Fair point, but it's hard to ignore the timing. Netanyahu literally just called TikTok "the most important purchase going on right now" and described social media as a "weapon" to secure Israel's influence in the US [1]. When you see a massive donor to the IDF and Israeli causes like Larry Ellison leading the consortium to buy it right after those comments, dismissing it as a conspiracy is ignorant considering they're basically saying the quiet part out loud. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3tdrO8bA7rs https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3tdrO8bA7rs
- miohtama 10mo ago
  Because Jewish organisations say it themselves: https://www.jewishfederations.org/blog/all/jewish-federations-to-new-tiktok-owners-501907 https://www.jewishfederations.org/blog/all/jewish-federation... And new owners have directly donated to Israeli's war efforts: https://www.newarab.com/news/pro-israel-billionaires-and-uae-royals-meet-tiktoks-new-owners https://www.newarab.com/news/pro-israel-billionaires-and-uae...
- ToucanLoucan 10mo ago
  > Why do people keep repeating this point? Probably because like 1/4 of the American economy at this point is held up by surveillance capitalism firms like Meta, Google, Amazon, etc. all of whom's bread and butter is violating privacy on an industrial scale, so saying "TikTok is dangerous because it spies on people" is flagrantly hypocritical. The fact that the big scary Chinese Government can tweak algorithms to elevate content and potentially sway public opinion is a fair criticism and I would agree with it, if not for the fact that the hypothetical situation being used to justify it is America equally openly funding and supporting an ongoing genocide. That barely qualifies as propaganda, that's literally just pointing out what the United States is doing and why it's ethically indefensible, and we could stop doing it tomorrow and utterly defang the aforementioned propaganda. But we don't. And, lastly, TikTok is not going away. It's simply going to enrich Americans now, instead of the Chinese. A bit. And I'm sure plenty of that money will find it's way back to the Trump administration because our country is corrupt as all hell. So forgive me if I've just absolutely not one ounce of patience for this bullshit.
empath75 10mo ago
This is such conspiracy theory bullshit. The point was that China controlled an algorithm and platform that was capable of manipulating the views of millions of Americans on _any_ topic. Maybe some people cared about Israel especially, but that wasn't the overall reason for trying to get TikTok in the US out of Chinese control. You can, of course, make the argument that Facebook, Twitter, etc are also similar threats to other countries and _that is why they aren't allowed in China_. I agree that this resolution is a worst-case-scenario outcome, though.
- disgruntledphd2 10mo ago
  This argument means that the Europeans should ban Facebook, X and TikTok. I'm not saying you're wrong, but that's the logical endgame here.
  - mlinhares 10mo ago
    They should have done that.
    - disgruntledphd2 10mo ago
      Do you feel the same way about Google? Surely search is something that should be more neutral than social media.
  - phailhaus 10mo ago
    Facebook and X are not directly controlled by the US government like TikTok is.
    - basisword 10mo ago
      The fact that they u-turned on so many policies the second Trump got into power shows otherwise. Not to mention the owner of X was Trumps right hand man for the first 6 months post-election.
  - acdha 10mo ago
morellt 10mo ago
While I agree with this, it confuses me that the same isn't happening to Instagram as well, since it has essentially 0 censorship of anti-Israeli content. However, within the last year it seems that there was a deliberate lift in that censorship, with the whole area of the platform blowing up since the early summer. What I imagine the incentive is is not the ability to censor the media, but to have the media on record of who posts it and who engages with it and maintain that ledger. When people get banned and slandered for denouncing a genocide, it becomes harder and harder to call this stuff "low-IQ conspiracy slop".

SilverElfin 10mo ago

This rant has some truth in it but it goes too far and comes off as unbalanced. From the conclusion: > This was never about addressing privacy, propaganda, or national security. It was always about the U.S. stealing ownership of one of the most popular and successful short form video apps in history because companies like Facebook were too innovatively incompetent to dethrone them in the open market. Ultimately this bipartisan accomplishment not only makes everything worse, it demonstrates we’re absolutely no better than the countries we criticize. I think when PAFACA passed and set up a ban of TikTok, it was in fact about privacy and propaganda and national security. It’s just that the Trump administration looks at every single situation as an opportunity for grift and corruption, and they abused the opportunity. The deal does shift algorithmic control and moderation to US based entities. I am not sure what that means in reality. Maybe they can just say they’re in control but choose to use the existing system? Who knows. The terms of the deal look like they help with the original concerns on the face of it.

basisword 10mo ago
>> This was never about addressing privacy, propaganda, or national security. I disagree. I think was about making sure Americans see the "RIGHT" propaganda.
- xp84 10mo ago
  Taking the bait here: are you suggesting that the CPC has our (everyday Americans) best interests at heart more than a randomly-picked American company? American companies just want to acquire all our money. China wants to convince us to withdraw from the rest of the world so they can take over everything they want.
bena 10mo ago
I'm also a little "meh" on the "innovatively incompetent" bit. People get tunnel-vision. Facebook is for "Facebook things", TikTok is for "TikTok things". Reels, stories, whatevers isn't "TikTok". It's why Facebook bought Instagram. No matter if Facebook copied Instagram down to the pixel, it still wouldn't be Instagram. And it's why the branding has remained consistent. Same thing with Google and YouTube. It's why these acquisitions happen and why these companies become something else. Google to Alphabet, Facebook to Meta, etc. This just forces the sale of TikTok to someone in the U.S.

cons0le 10mo ago

They can do whatever they want with it with the sure knowledge that the users will never leave it. Tiktok is the digital equivalent of "getting kids addicted to heroin"

CuriouslyC 10mo ago
Not true, YouTube is the dominant player in short form content, and while TikTok has a loyal fanbase, I don't think it's a wall YouTube couldn't climb. For those that are downvoting this based on vibes, please feel free to get recent view counts that prove me wrong.
- doublerabbit 10mo ago
  YouTube is the dominant player in Western Fronts. TikTok is the dominant in Asian fronts. TikTok is Chinese Youtube & YouTube is Western TikTok Both are cancer.
  - nxor 10mo ago
    [dead]
  - esafak 10mo ago
    Youtube Shorts, maybe, but Youtube is obviously broader than TikTok, and it is not just a dopamine machine, unlike TikTok. Can you find research seminars on TikTok?
    - doublerabbit 10mo ago
      > Youtube is obviously broader than TikTok Well yeah, it's existed longer. You can't compare one service like YouTube, a streaming platform for video vs TikTok which is a viral social platform. > Can you find research seminars on TikTok? TikTok isn't nor the platform for such. This link has results. https://www.tiktok.com/tag/researchseminar https://www.tiktok.com/tag/researchseminar

farceSpherule 10mo ago

Social Media is the digital equivalent of "getting kids addicted to heroin" reply > This was never about addressing ... national security You have no idea what you are talking about.

jacknews 10mo ago

lol, so 'We know this is crack cocaine mind-control spyware. Give us a seat in the control room'

Meekro 10mo ago

The stated purpose of the law was to get TikTok out of the hands of a foreign adversary, and that was accomplished. Remember when Trump took office, and lots of people were worried he would refuse to enforce this law? It sounds like the author would have preferred that a different group of billionaires take over.

jnovek 10mo ago
I wish no one had taken over. The threat of TikTok is easy to understand right now. It’s going to be much more murky after this deal is complete.
- Meekro 10mo ago
  From a libertarian perspective, I also thought this was a bad law. It totally abandons faith in the idea of free speech, and admits that China’s “great firewall” was the right idea. I think it’s better to document any lies that were being spread on TikTok, and counter them with truth. If your first reaction is “but that won’t work!” then you don’t really believe in a free speech based society, and all that’s left to do is argue over which group of shadowy billionaires should get to control everyone.
  - Nevermark 10mo ago
    > If your first reaction is “but that won’t work!” then you don’t really believe in a free speech based society While I believe in free speech, free speech isn't some panacea. Nor does it magically exist without protection from powerful interests. What good does speaking up do, if "algorithms" managing the majority of speech have big money riding on promoting irresponsible speech at the expense of sidelining responsible speech. This isn't a neutral open marketplace of ideas, battling on merit. It is a pervasively manipulated market for profit, and those who will pay to tilt it. The right way to deal with surveillance and dossier based manipulation by external actors, is not to pick on one actor, but to make surveillance and dossier based manipulation illegal for all actors. Nobody buys a TV wanting their watching habits to end up impacting what ads they see in web views, and vice versa. That kind of behind the scenes coordination of unpermissioned data, as leverage against the sources of the data, is deeply anti-libertarian. Anti-liberty in both right and left formulations. (The idea that "libertarian" means the rich have a pass to do anything they can achieve with money, underhanded or not, is a corruption of any concept of individual liberty.) The enshittification of the world is being driven by this hostile business model. Via permissionless (or permissioned by dark pattern) coordinated privacy violations. And it isn't just foreign adversaries who are benefiting at societies cost. The constant collecting, collating, and converging of data on anyone doing anything that pervades the private/public economy now is deeply parasitical. Free speech, like every other right, only achieves its real value in a healthy environment. I.e. a healthy idea competitive environment. I believe in voting too. But similarly, voting only matters in a healthy competitive candidate environment.

dpark 10mo ago

So ByteDance maintains majority control. A huge win for the American people as always.

Gormanu 10mo ago

The deal itself feels messy and political, not like a serious solution to data or security concerns. In the end, the risks are still there, and it’s hard to see what regular users actually win from this.

MangoToupe 10mo ago
> it’s hard to see what regular users actually win from this They won't. The entire point of this charade is to remind Americans we can't expect any better than instagram or youtube.
- xp84 10mo ago
  lol are you really suggesting that China, out of the goodness of their hearts, made TikTok with the objective to give Americans “better” trash social media sites?
  - MangoToupe 10mo ago
    No, of course not. They're simply more competent.
  - johnnyanmac 10mo ago
    Yes. Because the US forgot what soft power and actual nationalism entails. China didn't. Its not out of goodwill, but the objective of "don't be ad ridden slop maximizing shareholder gain" was a bar you didn't even need to step over
sfifs 10mo ago
The point of the whole Congressional exercise was to grab ownership of a highly lucrative social network on the cheap to the American investor class. Whoever won the presidential election got to choose the winners.
- spencerflem 10mo ago
  This and censor opinions inconvenient to American interests (genocide in Gaza)

biophysboy 10mo ago

I think one of my biggest frustrations with tech right now is how credulous they are with regard to China vs USA arguments. I see it on HN regularly. I am not saying the China shock was fake, or state surveillance is fine, or that they don’t exploit migrant workers, or that their currency manipulation and financial repression were/are good. I just think we should be skeptical that national security arguments are motivated by virtue, especially when “the good” is largely confined to what’s good for USA tech

afavour 10mo ago
I don’t know. In a way I don’t think it matters if China are currently actively engaged in altering the opinions of Americans, what matters is whether they can. And an unknowable algorithm absolutely gives them the power to. IMO the bigger problem is that national security is only part of the problem. An unknowable algorithm controlled by the Ellisons is not necessarily less dangerous than one controlled by China, the motivations are just different.
- biophysboy 10mo ago
  Yes, and the counterfactual scenario (Ellison or anyone else) does not even preclude foreign manipulation. Other platforms demonstrate this daily
xp84 10mo ago
Regardless of where you stand on American politics, it is just plain bad for all Americans for China to advance its geopolitical ambitions. This is not a left versus right thing. China being unchallenged in the world will spell a quality of life decrease for us in the West. They are not “the good guys.” You’re free to see both parties as ‘neutral’ in alignment, but you still don’t want to have to be the losing party when they come into conflict. My point is China is not going to be sharing any of what they gain with Americans, even the ones who cheer for them - it’ll in fact be coming at your expense. The CPC having a direct feed into the brains of every Gen Z and younger American is trivially easy to exploit - and there is a 0% chance that they won’t do so next year when they will likely invade Taiwan. If China is in control of TikTok, they’ll boost a ton of propaganda, supposedly people “from Taiwan” who greet the PLA as liberators, explaining how Taiwan being independent is actually oppression, and how they’ve always considered themselves part of the PRC, only evil politicians were keeping them apart. And they’ll make sure to suppress all media that exposes the violence on the ground. Finally, they’ll boost content urging Americans to protest US involvement and to sabotage the military, such as by chaining themselves to ships, etc. Ryan McBeth has made a ton of videos laying out how this will work, and he does a better job than I have of explaining this. TikTok is a cyberweapon.

asadm 10mo ago

[flagged]

849263292939 10mo ago
[flagged]

apawloski 10mo ago

I am still baffled, because wasn't there a bipartisan law passed banning TikTok? Is that just being ignored while a deal is orchestrated to sell it to Larry Ellison (and install Barron Trump on the TikTok Board of Directors)? The enforcement of the law is confusing to me here.

philistine 10mo ago
You're not wrong. It was very clearly illegal for TikTok to maintain operations in the US since the law started applying, and yet the US government ordered everyone to disregard the law and they just went along with it. This is another sign of the US' decline. The refusal to follow inconvenient laws.
- nine_zeros 10mo ago
  [dead]
- derektank 10mo ago
  Technically, the law did allow the president to approve a one-time extension if there was a deal under negotiation. But every subsequent extension (I think we’re on number 3 or 4 now) had no legal basis in the text of the legislation and both Apple and Google are clearly in violation of the law for not banning it from their app stores after the 1st extension
  - mapontosevenths 10mo ago
    This is a bug in the system that should be corrected. The fourteenth amendment guarantees everyone equal protection under the law. Allowing the executive branch sway over the enforcement of laws that they're ostensibly beholden to prevents enforcement at all, which robs the citizens of the United States of the protection they've been afforded.
    - paulddraper 10mo ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_Action_for_Childhood_Arrivals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_Action_for_Childhood_...

DudeOpotomus 10mo ago

Its a Trump deal. Everything the man touches turns to shit.

sgt 10mo ago
But inside that shit, tiny little gold nuggets
- LightBug1 10mo ago
  ... that end up being like gold Christmas chocolate coins ... filled with shit. (TL/DR: It's shit all the way down).

yieldcrv 10mo ago

Now it won't be Beijing having coercive access to your data It'll be Larry Ellison, a slaver nation, and a PE surveillance focused firm having consensual access to your data! And the US government! we did it guys!

lateforwork 10mo ago
It is not access to our data that was the concern. It is manipulating the opinions of Americans by controlling the algorithms that determine what Americans see. How is that concern alleviated by this deal? It is not. And that's the problem with this deal. The algorithm is still controlled by China.
xp84 10mo ago
“Your information” was never the important thing. That’s a sideshow. The important thing is that controlling an algorithmic feed that is wildly popular amongst multiple generations of Americans means the CPC can control American public opinion at the touch of a button. Literally no country would allow a sworn adversary to do that. Why do you think China doesn’t allow Facebook or Twitter? And those aren’t even government-controlled American companies (sure, they’re subject to coercion, but not to the extent Chinese companies are).
- advisedwang 10mo ago
  OK so now "Larry Ellison, a slaver nation, and a PE surveillance focused firm" can "can control American public opinion at the touch of a button"? That seems just as bad.
  - ericmcer 10mo ago
    What do you mean by "a slaver nation"?
    - edaemon 10mo ago
      They're probably referring to MGX, one of the major investment groups. It's the UAE's state-owned investment fund.

Braxton1980 10mo ago

Now Republicans directly control X and Tiktok. I place the blame on their supporters, especially those who are engineers and others who are on Hackernews. The most frustrating aspect is they won't face any justice for their support.

lateforwork 10mo ago

China is outsmarting the current administration in every way, see here: "From Chips to Security, China Is Getting Much of What It Wants From the U.S." https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/world/asia/nvidia-china-trump-security-japan.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/world/asia/nvidia-china-t...

masfuerte 10mo ago
Not long into Trump's second term I read that senior Chinese officials were calling him Orange Santa. I hope it's true.
- spiderfarmer 10mo ago
  I’m pretty sure everyone who sees him for what he is has called him worse.
- rchaud 10mo ago
  Christmas has been coming early for China ever since the invasion of Iraq.
  - pphysch 10mo ago
    [flagged]
    - louthy 10mo ago
      > There's considerable evidence Yet you provide none.
      - pphysch 10mo ago
        [flagged]
        louthy 10mo ago
        You said: “There's considerable evidence and reason to believe Washington invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to supercharge opium production”, yet you provide nothing to back up your claim. It is not trolling to point that out. Your link to some stats on levels of poppy production does not support your conspiracy theory.

shevy-java 10mo ago

The TikTok deal seems to be more about empowering US corporations than anything else. It seems as if they hate all forms of competition under the orange man ruling the USA right now, so of course TikTok must be crushed (not that I use any of those antisocial media, it is just an observation made). We see something similar in Europe in that Musk burps out the EU must disband after they fined his company for breaking local laws. It's like a really stupid variant of corporatocracy dominating the USA right now; at the least in the past it was a bit more subtle. Now it is like barbarian posing as oligarchs are having crazy fits. I think 99.9% of their wealth must be confiscated and given to The People - too much wealth makes the mind weak and leads them to act as tyrannical parasites.

lenerdenator 10mo ago
I hate to tell you this, but that's how most countries operate. Actually, China is a shining example of digital protectionism. Turnabout is fair play.

lenerdenator 10mo ago

Is there some provision that enabled the executive branch to keep extending the purchase deadline? If not, the sale is illegal. Congress passed a law saying that TikTok was to be banned. Not "can be sold after a bunch of backroom deals by tech aristocracy that happens to be friends with an incredibly corrupt President", but banned. SCOTUS agreed that the law held up to scrutiny.

advisedwang 10mo ago
The law [1] does not work as an magic all encompassing "ban". It says operating and distributing the app is is unlawful, and the consequence is a huge fine and the enforcement mechanism is suit from the US AG. Nothing says that a sale after doing something unlawful is illegal. The bigger issue is that the Trump directed the AG not to enforce the law. So something is plainly illegal but is de-facto legal because of executive pronouncement. That is extremely worrying because one aspect of totalitarianism is that the dicta of the ruler has effect of law. [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/815/text#d1063e6560 https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/815/...
spencerflem 10mo ago
Yeah it’s illegal. What are you gonna do about it

standardUser 10mo ago

> if these folks were all so concerned about U.S. consumer privacy, they should have passed a functional modern internet privacy law applying to all U.S. companies and their executives. This is the way. I wonder if we'll ever see the day that consumers get a fighting chance.

diogenescynic 10mo ago

Ah but it’s the best outcome for Israel so they can now suppress videos from Gaza.

ojbyrne 10mo ago

“Shittiest Possible Outcome” is basically the motto of the current administration.

_menelaus 10mo ago

Does anyone actually not realize this was to stymie criticism of Israel? You Netanyahu bragging about how this is central to winning the propaganda war. Ellison is the biggest private donor to the IDF. Put it together.

leoh 10mo ago
Did you create this account just to say stuff like this? Incidentally, TikTok is still as anti-Israel as ever.
- guizadillas 10mo ago
  Yeah, that's why they are trying to censor it and they are doing it actively, now they will do it more effective
spencerflem 10mo ago
+1 - the timing of the bill makes this extremely clear.
tastyface 10mo ago
That and to promote the regime’s white supremacist agenda. (Expect to see a lot more nauseating propaganda along the lines of the memes that official Administration accounts have been posting.)
roncesvalles 10mo ago
Jonathan Greenblatt (CEO of the ADL) was on record saying "TikTok is Al Jazeera on steroids" before the ban bill got a lot of wind. What's ironic is that ultimately their suspicion that TikTok was influenced by the PRC to push an anti-Israel agenda was most probably incorrect. Israel lost the narrative in the West because it simply did a lot of shitty things in the war, and everyone from homeless people to war refugees carry around an HD camcorder in their pocket now. I still see shocking videos of what the IDF is doing in Gaza on a monthly basis, on Instagram of all places.
- 10mo ago

jadar 10mo ago

This tells me nothing except the author’s politics.

rconti 10mo ago

They keep mentioning "innovation". What's innovative about shoveling mindless junk in people's faces 24x7? We've got a lot of these platforms already. Do we need an even MORE mindless one to dethrone TikTok? Is that a win for literally anyone other than investors?

eli 10mo ago
Is TikTok fundamentally different from HN in some way? Seems like you could say that about any platform you don't like.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- criddell 10mo ago
  I don't think HN has ever claimed to be especially innovative.
- hashstring 10mo ago
  Fundamentally it’s super different from HN, what do you mean?
- rconti 10mo ago
  The short video platforms are almost exclusively individual-algorithmic garbage-recommending platforms designed for maximum passivity. A couple major differences here are: * Not video * Meant more for commmunity/interactivity * Not individual algorithmic So a site like this optimizes for most-user-upvoted content, to try to surface content that is found interesting by people who are presumably somewhat like you. That seems pretty different from a self-serving platform that optimizes for whatever keeps you from blinking.
- insane_dreamer 10mo ago
  > Is TikTok fundamentally different from HN in some way? absolutely! - not ad driven - not follower / likes driven (yes, there's karma but there's no concept of following people, notifications for likes, etc.) - not engagement driven - not algorithmically driven (yes, the home page is, but you can just do /active for example, or /new ; I rarely go the home page) - there isn't an endless amount of "new content" - no hosted content (you have to link to something to show it) - no revenue

mcs5280 10mo ago

Welcome to the Ellisonverse

NoGravitas 10mo ago

One thing I've been trying to find since the deal was announced, and this article doesn't help either, is when this actually takes effect, i.e., when does Larry the Lawnmower get access to everyone's TikTok's comments?

tkel 10mo ago

For all the people who appear to want a say in this, perhaps you should advocate for a structure in which you actually have a say? As in, nationalization of TikTok? All other outcomes on the table, you have no input or direction on this company. And people seem to be justifying US interference on the basis that its influence warrants public direction. Well then that same logic would justify it being controlled by the public, no?

mayo369 10mo ago

As a Chinese, I think we know from the first place that this is all about political and money. It's interesting to see lots of people "shocked" by this outcome.

geekraver 10mo ago

ETTD