I mean I’d be all fucking for it and honestly take the rest of facebook with you if you could.
ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in US if legal options fail, sources say
Submitted 6 months ago by misk@sopuli.xyz to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 6 months ago
fiercekitten@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Yes, but this not the way. The US needs federal privacy laws that would regulate all these tech companies. Instead, congress shows that don’t care about the privacy of US Americans; they just don’t trust China.
Then, in one of the biggest FUs ever to the constitution, they expand the FISA amendment.
SorteKanin@feddit.dk 6 months ago
So everyone here is probably like “please do it” but I do wonder how the general populace would react. Would people actually miss TikTok if it just disappeared?
Lath@kbin.earth 6 months ago
Nope. They'd probably move to YouTube shorts or some other lower quality copy of Vine.
disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 6 months ago
They’d reluctantly use Shorts or Slides if there’s no alternative, but realistically it’ll be something new. TikTok’s absence creates a vacuum that could be a huge opportunity for a new platform.
exanime@lemmy.today 6 months ago
Which is in my opinion the actual goal here… The USA talks about free market and crap but usually cannot compete unless they make the rules, set the referees, start with double the money, can’t go to jail and charge triple passing go
Either tiktok becomes an American company or leaves… Ah, the free market has spoken
misk@sopuli.xyz 6 months ago
TikTok creators I follow get miserable amounts of views on YouTube. Shorts algorithm is nowhere near as good as TT and it’s missing loads of features that make TT unique. If those creators were forced to move they’d probably go with Instagram but that’s a poor replacement too.
As a European I’m curious how TT will look like without Yanks. It’s already much more usable after it was banned in India so there’s that.
EngineerGaming@feddit.nl 6 months ago
Or, just as likely, would download some VPN and go on.
Sgn@programming.dev 6 months ago
They are going to reels
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 6 months ago
I’m curious about the practicality. IP addresses only roughly correlate to geographic location. Are they going to geofence their app?
Obviously the app can be removed from the US app stores, but I doubt they can prevent sideloading or just using a VPN to get access to a different country’s app store. And what about all the devices that already have it installed? It’s not like it will auto-delete.
vinniep@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It won’t matter if there are ways to side load or circumvent, though. 99.9% of users will not be willing to be bothered with such things and the US market would effectively die for the app.
fuzzzerd@programming.dev 6 months ago
it’s not like it will auto-delete.
You’re probably right it won’t, but it definitely could be done by Apple and Google.
cyd@lemmy.world 6 months ago
As I understand, using VPNs to access will be illegal in principle, and the VPNs can be on the hook for stuff penalties.
In practice, it will depend on how zealously the government plays the cat and mouse game. Kind of like China with VPNs, ironically enough.
scytale@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Heavy users will definitely complain for the first couple of weeks, then they’ll just move on to the next platform.
nick@midwest.social 6 months ago
Good.
ikidd@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Yah yah, sure sure.
ex10n@lemm.ee 6 months ago
A win is a win
Dearth@lemmy.world 6 months ago
What’s the win here? For Facebook and cable news? Because it looks like another example of the American government strong all over the 1st amendment rights of its citizens because they don’t like what they’re taking about
ex10n@lemm.ee 6 months ago
The main win is banning a content recommendation algorithm that is influenced by the CCP. A secondary win is reducing consumption of short form content. A tertiary win is eliminating that God awful narrator voice.
There’s no valid 1st amendment argument here. This doesn’t ban American voices, that can continue to be shared on alternative platforms, it bans the CCP Government’s propaganda inserting itself in American media consumption.
TheControlled@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Please oh please
Mastengwe@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Can’t fucking wait.
EnderMB@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I mean…if operating in a country meant selling your US business, you’re probably not going to say “oh gods someone please buy us 🙏”, if you want a big payout…
AnAnonymous@lemm.ee 6 months ago
China should force Apple to sell to stop them of collecting Chinese people information and selling It to the US govt.
IvanOverdrive@lemm.ee 6 months ago
This just confirms the worst case scenario for me. This might be posturing, but it’s far more likely ByteDance can’t reveal how much command the CCP has over the data.
AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Well, as someone I watch online pretty much said, this could lead to other countries banning it if they don’t sell (as to whether that actually happens, I can’t say since I’m nowhere near qualified enough to make that call). I have my own reasons for hoping for a ban outside of wanting most short form content being banned because of attention span draining brain rot, but this is definitely shaping up to be an interesting development.
HauntedBucket@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Oh hey, me too
Womble@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Isnt that pretty damn suspicious? We’d rather just shut down than sell it as a going concern?
Max_P@lemmy.max-p.me 6 months ago
It’s obviously pretty valuable. How would we feel if say, China decided Microsoft/Google/AWS/Oracle had to sell to a Chinese company on the grounds of national security? They’d rather pull out too, despite China being a very large market too. Or what happens if other countries starts demanding the same?
Pretty sure ByteDance would rather keep their IP.
And if they sell, do they keep the rights for the other countries or it belongs to the US now?
Truth_Hurts@lemmus.org 6 months ago
They don’t let our stuff operate there. It’s only fair we treat them the same.
Yaztromo@lemmy.world 6 months ago
AWS already had to effectively do this. AWS only exists in two regions in China because they licensed much of the AWS software to be run by a pair of Chinese-government affiliated ISPs inside China (that is, Amazon doesn’t run AWS in either of its China zones — it’s run by a pair of Chinese companies who license AWS’s software).
This is why the China AWS regions are often quite far behind in terms of functionality from every other region (they either haven’t licensed all the functionality, they don’t keep up-to-date at the same cadence as Amazon, or Amazon is holding certain functions back), and why you can’t really access them from the standard AWS console.
So in effect, Amazon did have to give their software to Chinese-government affiliated companies in order to continue operating in China.
vinniep@lemmy.world 6 months ago
But no one is saying that ByteDance has to sell TikTok to a US company. Just divest it to an owner that is not beholden to the Chinese government and obligated to share any and all data upon request. Compared to the legal requirements that China puts on US companies operating in China, this is a pretty tame ask.
assembly@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Except that is what China already does. Cloud providers with regions in China have to utilize a local partner company which gives access to the whole tech stack. It’s a reason that AWS China regions were always so far behind in service offerings to the rest of the AWS regions.
Womble@lemmy.world 6 months ago
They wouldnt have to sell their IP even just the userbase and videos would be valuable enough to let someone else plug in an algorithm. Then again, i suppose this could all just be bluster.
exanime@lemmy.today 6 months ago
I think it’s a gamble… Too many people love tiktok (don’t ask me why) that they know the pressure on the gov would be terrible
I think they are calling their bluff
And before anyone comes at me with some stupid fallacy, no I don’t love the Chinese government or I’m trying to imply tiktok has nothing to hide and it’s the source of rainbows and warm sweet buns
huginn@feddit.it 6 months ago
They love tiktok because the algorithm works extremely well.
No other social media actually targets you as well as tiktok does. Instagram is constantly trying to shove you in the direction of whatever makes them the most money even if it’s entirely unrelated to your interests. YouTube is clueless to what you like with shorts. Tiktok surfaces new content that is basically unseen anywhere else (thousands of views not millions) that perfectly fits your interests.
Could other platforms do the same thing? Probably: but they’re too short sighted to do so.
TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world 6 months ago
No?
The way you are speaking it’s as if they mean to close down the whole thing. There is a whole rest of the world for them to operate in. Sure losing the US market be a huge detriment, but the owners still might rather have it everywhere else, than keep it running in the US in someone else’s hands.
Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world 6 months ago
They aren’t being forced to sell their operations in the entire world, just the US. So, doesn’t it make better financial sense, if all legal options to keep control fail, that they sell their US operation to another company, and at least get billions of dollars before exit, than to just lose the market and get not billions?
Sl00k@programming.dev 6 months ago
The article talks about why they’d prefer to shut down if you take their word it. Essentially the US is such a tiny portion of ByteDances it would be more optimal to shut down then to risk the sale of their algorithm, which is their primary revenue driver, as a whole. Assuming they’re using relatively similar algorithms on Douyin, and they don’t want this to turn around and be sold to their Chinese competition, which is where the real money is being made for ByteDance.
DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 6 months ago
Bullshit. Average revenue per user is a pretty common industry benchmark, and the US absolutely slaughters the rest of the world. We’re the fat, dumb, brainwashed cows the advertisers can’t get enough of.
Is that really justified, or an example of selection bias?
Does it matter?
Davidchan@lemmynsfw.com 6 months ago
Makes the children screaming we are taking their toy away seem even more oblivious when the billion dollar corporation gives absolutely zero shits about losing the business.
steve_floof@lemm.ee 6 months ago
We? Are you in congress being lobbied by Alphabet and Meta?
CriticalMiss@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It’s a scare tactic. You as a customer won’t care if the business gets a new owner but if they threaten to shut down all the kids they have will start kicking and screaming to make the government dial back the decision.