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The work "ban" is in scare quotes for a reason. The law doesn't ban TikTok. Rather, it bans TikTok from having Chinese owners. If the law stands, the end result

The work "ban" is in scare quotes for a reason. The law doesn't ban TikTok. Rather, it bans TikTok from having Chinese owners. If the law stands, the end result will likely be that TikTok will be sold to US owners, rather than TikTok going away. It's surprising to me that this this pretty significant distinction has been glossed over both in media reporting and in general comments here on HN. To be clear, I'm not supporting the law with this comment, just clarifying what the actual content of the law is.

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dpflan 2y ago
It's glossed over because it creates a more emotional response framing it like that rather than giving the technical details that reveal the actual situation is perhaps less sensational?
- nickthegreek 2y ago
  If by glossed over you mean put in quotes in the title and made clear in the first sentence of the article.
  - dpflan 2y ago
    Sure, raise that to the original commenter.
LordShredda 2y ago
This is pretty much a ban. Why would the company convert their main product into a competitor? Majority of congress isn't stupid and knows what they want to happen.
- importantbrian 2y ago
  Because the shareholders would most likely rather have X billion dollars from selling the company than 0 dollars from refusing to sell and getting banned.
  - apendleton 2y ago
    It wouldn't be 0 dollars, though; the majority of their users are apparently outside the US. So the question is: how does the amount you could get by selling a US-inclusive Tiktok compare the potential future earnings of a US-free Tiktok? If the market prices it accurately, you'd sort of expect the former to be higher (a US-inclusive version seems obviously more valuable), but maybe they think the market undervalues them, or maybe prospective buyers would smell blood in the water because of the deadline and try to low-ball, etc.
- kube-system 2y ago
  We didn't call the baby-bells an AT&T ban.
  - LudwigNagasena 2y ago
    Because it was more than a mere ban, AT&T was dissolved.
    - kube-system 2y ago
      AT&T corp was not dissolved in the '84 breakup. It continued to exist, providing long-distance service, but didn't operate any local exchanges.
- stale2002 2y ago
  > Why would the company convert their main product into a competitor? Thats easy to answer. The reason why is because they'd get paid 10s of billions of billions of dollars for it, and otherwise their investment would massively lose a large amount of value otherwise. Also, bytedance wouldn't be competing with tiktok anymore in those markets as they'd have sold it off. So the choice is either to make a bunch of money, or to instead have their investment become worthless.
  - ralfd 2y ago
    But would a new US-Tiktok not try to expand globally? Original-China-TikTok would then compete with US-Tiktok in Europe and elsewhere.
    - stale2002 2y ago
      No, because "original tiktok" has a different name in China and doesn't compete significantly outside of China. The tiktok that you know about is the international app that already doesnt compete with the rest of bytedance.
nickthegreek 2y ago
While I get the point... if the EU said Facebook could not be available in the Country unless the company divested from US interest, would we not call it a ban?
- fauigerzigerk 2y ago
  I think it matters whether it really is a ban or just called a ban, because the whole First Amendment argument hinges on this question. If TikTok was banned in the sense that it had to shut down then the First Amendment argument could work. But if it's just a forced sale then it has no bearing on the freedom of speech of TokTok users.
  - RIMR 2y ago
    "Forced sale" is interesting, because it assumes that a Chinese company would allow itself to be forced to sell. If TikTok refuses, the government either has to admit that they have no power to force a sale or actually ban access to the service, or they have to start demanding that app stores remove the app, and DNS providers stop resolving the website, and that ISPs start blocking the IPs. This would become a complete shitshow pretty much instantly.
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wavemode 2y ago
I'm fairly certain the title of this article already makes that perfectly clear: "starting clock for ByteDance to divest it". If anyone is unclear on what is meant, that is purely a failure of reading, not a failure of media reporting.
THENATHE 2y ago
The reason it is kind of wild is because a company being forced to sell basically the only thing it has in order to stay relevant in the second most major region of the world is kind of big news, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they just took the ban and then only started working in Europe and China. Is bytedance even known for anything other than tiktok? What do they do other than provide the service for tiktok?
- deleted 2y ago
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- SnorkelTan 2y ago
  It originally started in china as short video sharing and is quite successful there. TikTok came after their home market success. I’m spacing on the name.
  - walthamstow 2y ago
    I believe it's Douyin
- alisonatwork 2y ago
  ByteDance did a ton of stuff in China before getting into short videos, which was a hype cycle with a whole bunch of players until eventually they consolidated to one or two. The amusing thing looking at this from China perspective is that ByteDance has been hit by the government over and over again for appealing to the mainstream. The first big success they had was a social media platform centered around memes/jokes, and because the CCP doesn't have a sense of humor they crushed this platform when it started getting too popular. Their second big success was a news aggregator that focused on surfacing news people actually wanted to read instead of the news the CCP wanted people to read. Which is to say mostly lowbrow gossip and sensationalist storytelling instead of long and tedious treatises about how great the party is. The Xi administration crushed that too, mandating changes in the platform that made it just as sanitized as all the other Chinese "news" outlets. TikTok getting popular overseas seems like the result of a very well-timed purchase of musical.ly. The small number of western Gen Z youth I'm in contact with say they came to TikTok through musical.ly. Either way, we all see how successful that has been. Once again, ByteDance figured out a product that gave the "low end population" exactly what they wanted, and once again the government is punishing them for it. At this point you wonder if these guys should just throw their hands in the air and pivot into oil or pharmaceuticals or some other addiction industry that's totally in the government's pocket. I guess the suspicion of some in the US government is that that's already happened and that's why this fun app that everyone loves is actually a tool of the CCP.
brfox 2y ago
I've seen articles saying that it would be hard to find any large enough investors to buy it who also don't cause a monopoly. Can ByteDance spin off TikTok to a separate company which would have an IPO and go public and in the process no longer have Chinese owners?
- intrasight 2y ago
  IPOs usually involve selling only a small fraction of outstanding shares. Aramco sold less that 2% of it's shares.
grumple 2y ago
China has signaled that they would block a sale.
- blodstone 2y ago
  Which makes the case of china interference seems more plausible now.
  - danieltanfh95 2y ago
    It is already well known that tiktok ai models and algorithms trained on Chinese citizen data is non-exportable, so tiktok will never be able to sell to a non-chinese entity.
    - intrasight 2y ago
      The AI model doesn't much matter. The algorithms do matter. CCP will ban the sale. It doesn't really matter if they are banning the data or algorithm.
  - Spivak 2y ago
    No it doesn't, were the roles reversed with say Facebook the US wouldn't think twice before blocking the sale.
    - ericmay 2y ago
      In the case of a role-reversal here Facebook was just banned in China from the start. There was never a sale opportunity in the first place.
      - joshuaissac 2y ago
        > Facebook was just banned in China from the start. It was not. It was only banned in 2009 after it was allegedly used to organise protests that escalated into deadly race riots in Xinjiang.
danieltanfh95 2y ago
Just because it doesn’t say “ban” doesn’t mean its not one. It is well known that China lists algorithms and AI models trained on citizen data as a non-export so tiktok will never be able to sell to anyone other than a Chinese company unless they retrain the model etc. The CEO has mentioned that they will simply pull out of the US market.
- deleted 2y ago
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- wmf 2y ago
  So not only does TikTok have to be sold but they also have to remove the addiction algorithm? This deal just gets better and better!
  - beezlebroxxxxxx 2y ago
    > they also have to remove the addiction algorithm Whoever they sell it to, if they end up doing that, is going to be more than willing to put in place their own addiction algorithm, in just the same way that American social media and other adjacent tech companies have implemented them. I'm in no way a fan or user of TikTok, but thinking this will improve the app seems naive.
    - shrimp_emoji 2y ago
      Not really. A Facebook or Twitter-esque addiction algorithm is WAY better than a CCP addiction algorithm since the latter tries to socially engineer unrest and disillusion, on purpose, as a targeted act of Nakatomi-esque cyberwarfare against a totalitarian regime's rivals. The former kind maybe does so as an inadvertent externality, and with every reason to wager to a far lesser degree. Meta won't turn up the heat on antisemitism and down on something the CCP doesn't like. It might turn up the heat on, I don't know, trans rights, and down on neo Nazis, but it's much more benign dystopic info filtering than an actual "what will destabilize the US and fuel stochastic terrorism and civil war?" agenda (which is against Meta's best interest).
Aloisius 2y ago
The law doesn't ban them from having Chinese owners. It bans American companies from providing services that distribute, maintain or update any sufficiently popular apps substantially owned or controlled by foreign adversaries. TikTok could host APKs from CCP headquarters if they want to.
- temporarely 2y ago
  Is this just a distribution ban or will US actually block the app at net/protocol? I have never used the thingie but this ban business motivated me to download it the other day.
  - groggo 2y ago
    Give it a try. It's weird, fun, educational, stupid. It's whatever you make of it. Is it also whatever China wants you to make of it? Maybe. But they could do the same thing with news, TV, or movies.
  - LordDragonfang 2y ago
    The most essential advice I can give to any new user of TikTok is to be EXTREMELY liberal with the "long press > not interested" feature. The default FYP ("For you page", the algorithmic feed) is initially tuned towards the average teen, with lots of garbage (pranks, half-dressed women, and assorted other trashy content). The algo is pretty good at picking up what keeps your attention, so be careful what you give your attention to. If you tune it right, there's a lot of good content on there, though.
    - roncesvalles 2y ago
      The crux of TikTok's success is that you don't have to "game the algorithm" like in other apps, and it's quite resilient even if you try. It seems to know what's an organic signal and what's an artificial signal. Most other short-form content recommendation algorithms overfit like crazy (ahem Instagram ahem), and many users trying to bend it a certain way mess it up.
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nemothekid 2y ago
>the end result will likely be that TikTok will be sold to US owners Why does everyone assume this is likely? The CCP has already said they would block a sale of TikTok. This happened a while ago - so the US saying TikTok must be sold is an effective ban. The misdirection of the wording of the ban is just dishonest.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > misdirection of the wording of the ban is just dishonest Ban usually means you can't use it anymore. Take, for example, Google in mainland China. Banned without unusual circumvention. If TikTok refuses to sell to a non-Chinese owner, on the other hand, they get removed from app stores. Their website still works without any circumvention. Not banned. Even in the worst case.
  - nemothekid 2y ago
    1. You are moving the goalposts. Now it's not "they will be forced to sell", but "the website will still be available". 2. I am looking forward to seeing the justifications that will be trotted around once the USG torpedoes net neutrality and bans the website
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > you are moving the goalposts. Now it's not "they will be forced to sell", but "the website will still be available" Where did I set a goal post? What does the goal even represent in this metaphor? What counts as a ban? The United States is capable of banning stuff. When we take down pirate websites, we're enacting a ban: domain seizures, asset freezes, criminal penalties and possibly sanctions. We can even go lightweight: say it's illegal to provide services to Americans (or more draconian, which I must add lines up with China's approach, make it illegal to access them) and then leave enforcemnt to the executive. What we're doing here is milquetoast: sell enough to non-Chinese owners so they no longer have a controlling stake or distribute this from non-American servers and via the internet and sideloaded apps. Calling this a ban is like saying someone was banned from a restaurant because they arrived after it closed.
Dalewyn 2y ago
>It's surprising to me that this this pretty significant distinction has been glossed over both in media reporting and in general comments here on HN. That's because: * Saying it'll get banned makes for a more sensational headline. * Saying it'll get banned is accurate enough for most practical purposes. * Saying it'll get banned is simpler than explaining the details of divestiture. Most Americans probably don't even know what "divest" means without pulling out a dictionary.
- spxneo 2y ago
  Another reason could be: many are not sympathetic to the America's claims that these foreign platforms are at the whims of a country it is at odds with and which have repeatedly demonstrated covert abilities to change American's perception. Speaking with some younger American co-workers in the past, their suspicion/hatred of their own country is astounding to see and it seems to have coincidentally begun after TikTok entered US market a few months before US elections. So the worry seems to be that young American voters exposed to a foreign social platform will influence upcoming elections. I do not think this is far fetched as multiple countries have come out to expose various tactics by certain countries to influence perception.
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    >their suspicion/hatred of their own country is astounding to see Speaking as an American, our country was founded on the principles of being apprehensive of governments including our own. Being suspicious of our own government is a very American thing and should not be understood as surprising. See our Declaration of Independence for further reading and context.
  - mike50 2y ago
    And old people losing their connection with objective reality is connected to fox news. Next argument. It's being banned because old technically illiterate people (most of congress) latched onto a simplistic solution to the wrong problem,
remarkEon 2y ago
The US has already done this with a different company, without passing a law[1]. I don't know what else to say, other than the TikTok algorithm must be some secret sauce and actually is being manipulated by Beijing and that's why they're making such a big deal about a forced sale in this case. Otherwise, this would just be a giant liquidity event for these senior business executives and that would be that. Instead, the TikTok CEO is invoking the First Amendment and "freedom" to emotionally manipulate people into thinking Congress did something wrong here. [1] https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-03-06/grindr-sold-by-chinese-owner-after-us-national-security-concerns https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-03-06...
- intrasight 2y ago
  What's different is that it's owned by a communist country. Otherwise, it would just be a giant liquidity event.
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rfoo 2y ago
Or maybe TikTok decides to exit US in protest because they don't want to comply with the law. We've been seen this 15 years ago.
- meowtimemania 2y ago
  what happened 15 years ago?
  - YoumuChan 2y ago
    I guess Google's exit from China.
    - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      That was more 2013.
      - rfoo 2y ago
        That was Jan 2010.
hot_gril 2y ago
Also wonder whether the law names TikTok in particular or just some criteria that matches it. If it's the latter, are other companies also on the clock?
- autoexec 2y ago
  It's not just tiktok https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protecting_Americans_from_Foreign_Adversary_Controlled_Applications_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protecting_Americans_from_Fore... Does yandex have an app or use cloudflare?
  - hot_gril 2y ago
    Hmm, but it gives the US President the ability to decide who is targeted, so one way or another it seems like TikTok is treated specially.
  - throw-the-towel 2y ago
    According to that Wiki link, the law does actually mention TikTok by name.
    - autoexec 2y ago
      It does, but it's not exclusive to it. You can read it here: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/815/text?itid=lk_inline_enhanced-template#H1DAB5129BC0949429666E66593E18128 https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/815/...
jtriangle 2y ago
It bans American companies from providing services that distribute, maintain or update any sufficiently popular apps where a company is headquartered in, or has more than a 20% ownership share of the company held, in a country that has been determined to be a foreign adversary. It is much, much broader than a 'tiktok ban', it applies to any company that fits that criteria. So to put it bluntly, if the CCP bought 20% of reddit, reddit can't be distributed, maintained or updated by any US company. It's not just a ban, it simply won't exist on the internet for US users. There are probably a bunch of companies that will be subject to this if it's upheld in court, and the law very likely could be weaponized by the CCP to get things banned that they don't even own yet. It'll also likely result in Chinese interests devesting down to >20% from US companies that they do not want banned, for much the same reasons. Basically, this is the result of a bunch of tech-illiterate politicians who have no idea how any of this works, passing a law that looks good in news headlines without regard to the potential consequences. So business as usual on the hill.
- calgarymicro 2y ago
  > So to put it bluntly, if the CCP bought 20% of reddit, reddit can't be distributed, maintained or updated by any US company. Provided they have more than 1 million MAU (which they do, obviously). The president would also have to affirmatively ban it and report to Congress about the specific threat that company poses, and what assets need to be divested. TikTok is the only company written into the bill by Congress that doesn't require affirmative action by the president, or the report. > the law very likely could be weaponized by the CCP to get things banned that they don't even own yet Only if the president believes they should be banned.
  - jquery 2y ago
    1 million MAU is nothing. Throw up AdSense on something that gets 1m MAU and that pays for a single developer. Also, I don't like the President getting this kind of power over businesses. It's bad enough when they can make angry Twitter threats... now they can give them a corporate death penalty.
    - 2y ago
mullingitover 2y ago
> The law doesn't ban TikTok. Rather, it bans TikTok from having Chinese owners. My prediction: China would absolutely throw away a few billion to enjoy the chaos that results from the country that preaches free speech painting itself into a corner and banning it. Enacting a ban on the most popular app among Gen Z would cause a huge uproar. It would be like taking away terrestrial radio from boomers. It's that popular.
- jquery 2y ago
  Yeah. This is really a generational thing. That's why the ban was bipartisan... nobody in Congress is of the age that uses TikTok. However, the youth in this country are going to be enraged, far more than I think a lot of people expect. I don't use TikTok but the people I know who use it are extremely passionate about the app.
  - groggo 2y ago
    I'm not genz but I use tiktok. You need to give it a try. All of the comments on here from people who don't use it are bizarre. We can be skeptical, but not afraid of foreign owned media.
    - mistermann 2y ago
      > All of the comments on here from people who don't use it are bizarre. 100% agree. I would say this offers some insight into the real reason they want to ban TikTok.
    - Marsymars 2y ago
      I mean, I’m happy to see tiktok removed from app stores for the same reasons as I’d be happy to see any social media apps be removed from app stores, so from that perspective, I don’t think it matters that I haven’t used tiktok unless it’s somehow exempt from the problems that are endemic to social media apps.
      - groggo 2y ago
christkv 2y ago
There is another possibility. TikTok exits the us market.
- intrasight 2y ago
  That's been widely discussed. But it's basically the same end result - for users.
mhardcastle 2y ago
For what it's worth, "play money" betting site Manifold is currently at a 69% chance of sale versus 31% of shutting down. https://manifold.markets/mint/conditional-on-the-tiktok-ban-passi https://manifold.markets/mint/conditional-on-the-tiktok-ban-...
- ok123456 2y ago
  What about no sale yet they continue to operate because the ban is not enforceable either legally or technically?
  - schoen 2y ago
    For example, if they (or some party that's directly targeted like Apple or Cloudflare) gets a U.S. court to enjoin enforcement of some of the provisions.
  - intrasight 2y ago
    Plug pulling is easy technically. I think plug pulling legally is also easy. Bytedance just doesn't have a strong defense.
    - ok123456 2y ago
      The defense is the bill of rights.
- arduanika 2y ago
  Buzzkill! Everybody else on here was having fun opining that it's 100% certain that China pulls the plug, or conversely that a sale will happen, and you just had to point out that it's an empirical question where nobody can read the CCP's mind. Boo.
- dnissley 2y ago
  There's another market with more options where "ban will be rendered unenforceable by courts" is leading: https://manifold.markets/MichaelBlume/tiktok-endgame-which-will-happen-fi?r=RHlsYW5OaXNzbGV5 https://manifold.markets/MichaelBlume/tiktok-endgame-which-w...
partiallypro 2y ago
If I forced you to sell your home and said you couldn't live there anymore, and if you refused to move, we would tear your house down. Would you then say that I am banning you from living in your home? Kinda feels like a ban, even though it's just a forced sell.
- zappb 2y ago
  That’s similar to eminent domain, a right granted to the government in the constitution.
  - partiallypro 2y ago
    Eminent domain requires a fair price and it's for public infrastructure. This isn't, this is just an app.
drooby 2y ago
China has made very clear they do not want ByteDance to sell. And that ByteDance should follow Chinese law. Hmm I wonder why.. I think it's unlikely they will sell and it will instead be removed from US markets. China would prefer that we don't have another successful social networking platform, and they would like to keep their spyware for use in other countries.
hankchinaski 2y ago
The chance that TikTok sells to US owner is zero, so the “ban” implies that assumption
- breadwinner 2y ago
  They only need to sell the US portion of the business. They can continue to operate everywhere else, right? Why would they throw away tens of billions of dollars (value of the US portion)?
  - 0xB31B1B 2y ago
    The CCP does not care about the marketcap of bytedance, they care about the soft power that tiktok allows them to wield. The CEO of bytedance may want to sell, but the CCP won't let them.
    - cylemons 2y ago
      They're losing the soft power anyway. But if they sell they can atleast earn money.
      - 0xFEE1DEAD 2y ago
        They would lose soft power in the US but what if the CCP accepts this and shifts their tactics to slowly but surely flood the rest of the world with anti-US propaganda? Unfortunately, it really doesn't look like the US could win here.
    - coin 2y ago
      So this will be the trust test. If they sell then it's a legit product. If not then it's clearly CCP spyware.
    - wraptile 2y ago
      In US those are essentially equivellent as money buys soft power very easily. This whole thing is US not wanting to expand user rights but protect it's soft power and it shows. I think either way this whole thing is a big W for CCP and L to US democracy that doesn't have the balls to actually expand regulation when it's clearly wanted and needed.
georgeecollins 2y ago
A US company would never be allowed to own any kind of social media company in China. You can't own a broadcast station in the US as a non-US citizen. Rupert Murdoch had to become a US citizen to buy Fox. I don't know if I agree with this but you can't say there is no precedent for it in the US or in China.
- codedokode 2y ago
  > You can't own a broadcast station in the US as a non-US citizen Because freedom of speech doesn't work in practice?
  - gpt5 2y ago
    Because freedom of speech is less protected (in practice) for foreign entities.
  - didjxhxhsvc 2y ago
    Maybe you can expand on what you’re trying to say because freedom of speech is protected afaik.
  - sillypuddy 2y ago
    If the ban was based on the context of the speech it would violate the constitution, but ownership of corporations is fair game to regulate. It's not uncommon for countries to have foreign ownership restrictions on other industries like banking, utilities, railroads, etc.
    - chrischen 2y ago
      The other problem is the teapot calling the kettle black. If the US has precedent, and this action follows that precedent, then our bitching and whining about Google and Facebook in China previously makes us look really contradictory. We’ll end up validating Chinese policies all these years if we claim this action has precedent. If it doesn’t have precedent, then it’s even worse. It becomes a case of “if you can’t beat them, join them (or their practices).”
hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
It's somewhat of a sinophobic/red scare dogwhistle and provincial protectionism insecurity gasp of declining global influence because it doesn't necessarily matter who owns it when day-to-day operations are led by the same people with the same interests and allegiances as before. Domestic politicians compete to look tough by seeming to attack convenient, distant foreign adversaries in symbolic ways. US news media is able to spin headlines to maximize drama and outrage for the chumbox sales while misinforming readers. The reason is Americans, in aggregate, are under-educated compared to the rest of the world and so US mainstream news media doesn't have to seek excellence in evidence, integrity, accuracy, or precision.
- faeriechangling 2y ago
  If this is Sinophobic, China must be pissing its pants terrified of the United States. It's a shame for the two of them I guess. >The reason is Americans, in aggregate, are under-educated compared to the rest of the world Objectively wrong. It's one of the most educated countries in the world, just mediocre compared to the rest of the OECD. They're more educated than China, no matter how well a small number of urban Chinese students do on international standardised tests.
  - hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
    Comparing wintermelon and oranges. Live a few more decades and then your definition of "objective" may face reality. The higher education system of the US is selectively excellent, but 0.5-0.75% of Americans have top tier university degrees. Only 39% of Americans have any college degree at all, but this includes online and colleges that accept anyone. Fewer and fewer Americans read books of substance, or any books at all. America is deeply anti-intellectual from its founding arising from the culture of English settler merchants, with a tiny core of intelligentsia that grew around exiled religious movements. a. Quantitatively - Reading: Canada is 3rd, America is 24th - Science: Canada is 7th, America is also 24th - Math: Canada is 9th, America is 39th ^ There should be negligible differences between them given vast similarities. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/02/15/u-s-students-internationally-math-science/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/02/15/u-s-stude... b. Qualitatively - Meet and talk to enough people from Asia (Japan, China, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, China) and Europe (Iberian and Eastern) & UK. And then talk to many Americans from anywhere other than from the coasts. Conspiracy theories, misinformation, MAGA, and QAnon are the mainstream norm rather than the exception. The difference is: they don't have government censorship, a totalitarian regime, or social credit habits as an excuse for their ignorance. There are billboards with borderline racist MAGA slogans in the South US.
rzz3 2y ago
It’s alarming to me that you think the owners of arguably the most successful social media company in the world would sell it only to appease a single country. It comes off as a typical American perspective of thinking they’re the center of the world. At TikTok’s current global growth rate, they could exceed the entire user base of the USA in just a few months. I’m not sure how that user share corresponds to revenue as I’d assume the US is a lucrative market,but I just don’t see it. And TikTok has directly said they won’t be divesting.
- xvector 2y ago
  The US is typically more profitable than all the other countries combined, as people here have far more disposable income after all expenses, and are more inclined to spend it.
- peanuty1 2y ago
  How much of their revenue comes from Europe and Asia though? American users are much more valuable than Greek or Spanish users for instance.
  - psychoslave 2y ago
    A propaganda tool doesn’t need to be immediately financially profitable though, that’s not their expected main outcome (though I guess that can be a nice bonus).
    - kranke155 2y ago
      You being downvoted seems to be a reflex of HN hive thinking that a Chinese company could be “just a company”
- j0hnyl 2y ago
  The advertising market in the US pretty much eclipses the whole rest of the world, so yes the owners are very likely to sell it to appease a single country.
throwaway4good 2y ago
I don't think it is possible or economically viable for ByteDance to sell TikTok under the terms set out, even if they wanted. Because of the shared code base with Douyin and the bill's requirements on severing ties between the two. The likely outcome is that TikTok will stop operating in the US and continue in Europe and other places plus Douyin will continue in China.
HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
Today's news is that ByteDance says they'd prefer just to shut down TikTok rather than sell because: 1) Their algorithms (presumably video recommendations) are proprietary and used by their other Chinese apps 2) TikTok revenue isn't that significant for them Maybe these reasons are bogus, but I'd not be surprised if they do refuse to sell.
throawayonthe 2y ago
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barfingclouds 2y ago
Nope it doesn’t ban TikTok from having Chinese owners. TikTok could very well continue to have Chinese owners, and if so the US will ban the product domestically

deleted 2y ago

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dpflan 2y ago

It's glossed over because it creates a more emotional response framing it like that rather than giving the technical details that reveal the actual situation is perhaps less sensational?

nickthegreek 2y ago
If by glossed over you mean put in quotes in the title and made clear in the first sentence of the article.
- dpflan 2y ago
  Sure, raise that to the original commenter.

LordShredda 2y ago

This is pretty much a ban. Why would the company convert their main product into a competitor? Majority of congress isn't stupid and knows what they want to happen.

importantbrian 2y ago
Because the shareholders would most likely rather have X billion dollars from selling the company than 0 dollars from refusing to sell and getting banned.
- apendleton 2y ago
  It wouldn't be 0 dollars, though; the majority of their users are apparently outside the US. So the question is: how does the amount you could get by selling a US-inclusive Tiktok compare the potential future earnings of a US-free Tiktok? If the market prices it accurately, you'd sort of expect the former to be higher (a US-inclusive version seems obviously more valuable), but maybe they think the market undervalues them, or maybe prospective buyers would smell blood in the water because of the deadline and try to low-ball, etc.
kube-system 2y ago
We didn't call the baby-bells an AT&T ban.
- LudwigNagasena 2y ago
  Because it was more than a mere ban, AT&T was dissolved.
  - kube-system 2y ago
    AT&T corp was not dissolved in the '84 breakup. It continued to exist, providing long-distance service, but didn't operate any local exchanges.
stale2002 2y ago
> Why would the company convert their main product into a competitor? Thats easy to answer. The reason why is because they'd get paid 10s of billions of billions of dollars for it, and otherwise their investment would massively lose a large amount of value otherwise. Also, bytedance wouldn't be competing with tiktok anymore in those markets as they'd have sold it off. So the choice is either to make a bunch of money, or to instead have their investment become worthless.
- ralfd 2y ago
  But would a new US-Tiktok not try to expand globally? Original-China-TikTok would then compete with US-Tiktok in Europe and elsewhere.
  - stale2002 2y ago
    No, because "original tiktok" has a different name in China and doesn't compete significantly outside of China. The tiktok that you know about is the international app that already doesnt compete with the rest of bytedance.

nickthegreek 2y ago

While I get the point... if the EU said Facebook could not be available in the Country unless the company divested from US interest, would we not call it a ban?

fauigerzigerk 2y ago
I think it matters whether it really is a ban or just called a ban, because the whole First Amendment argument hinges on this question. If TikTok was banned in the sense that it had to shut down then the First Amendment argument could work. But if it's just a forced sale then it has no bearing on the freedom of speech of TokTok users.
- RIMR 2y ago
  "Forced sale" is interesting, because it assumes that a Chinese company would allow itself to be forced to sell. If TikTok refuses, the government either has to admit that they have no power to force a sale or actually ban access to the service, or they have to start demanding that app stores remove the app, and DNS providers stop resolving the website, and that ISPs start blocking the IPs. This would become a complete shitshow pretty much instantly.
  - deleted 2y ago
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wavemode 2y ago

I'm fairly certain the title of this article already makes that perfectly clear: "starting clock for ByteDance to divest it". If anyone is unclear on what is meant, that is purely a failure of reading, not a failure of media reporting.

THENATHE 2y ago

The reason it is kind of wild is because a company being forced to sell basically the only thing it has in order to stay relevant in the second most major region of the world is kind of big news, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they just took the ban and then only started working in Europe and China. Is bytedance even known for anything other than tiktok? What do they do other than provide the service for tiktok?

deleted 2y ago
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SnorkelTan 2y ago
It originally started in china as short video sharing and is quite successful there. TikTok came after their home market success. I’m spacing on the name.
- walthamstow 2y ago
  I believe it's Douyin
alisonatwork 2y ago
ByteDance did a ton of stuff in China before getting into short videos, which was a hype cycle with a whole bunch of players until eventually they consolidated to one or two. The amusing thing looking at this from China perspective is that ByteDance has been hit by the government over and over again for appealing to the mainstream. The first big success they had was a social media platform centered around memes/jokes, and because the CCP doesn't have a sense of humor they crushed this platform when it started getting too popular. Their second big success was a news aggregator that focused on surfacing news people actually wanted to read instead of the news the CCP wanted people to read. Which is to say mostly lowbrow gossip and sensationalist storytelling instead of long and tedious treatises about how great the party is. The Xi administration crushed that too, mandating changes in the platform that made it just as sanitized as all the other Chinese "news" outlets. TikTok getting popular overseas seems like the result of a very well-timed purchase of musical.ly. The small number of western Gen Z youth I'm in contact with say they came to TikTok through musical.ly. Either way, we all see how successful that has been. Once again, ByteDance figured out a product that gave the "low end population" exactly what they wanted, and once again the government is punishing them for it. At this point you wonder if these guys should just throw their hands in the air and pivot into oil or pharmaceuticals or some other addiction industry that's totally in the government's pocket. I guess the suspicion of some in the US government is that that's already happened and that's why this fun app that everyone loves is actually a tool of the CCP.

brfox 2y ago

I've seen articles saying that it would be hard to find any large enough investors to buy it who also don't cause a monopoly. Can ByteDance spin off TikTok to a separate company which would have an IPO and go public and in the process no longer have Chinese owners?

intrasight 2y ago
IPOs usually involve selling only a small fraction of outstanding shares. Aramco sold less that 2% of it's shares.

grumple 2y ago

China has signaled that they would block a sale.

blodstone 2y ago
Which makes the case of china interference seems more plausible now.
- danieltanfh95 2y ago
  It is already well known that tiktok ai models and algorithms trained on Chinese citizen data is non-exportable, so tiktok will never be able to sell to a non-chinese entity.
  - intrasight 2y ago
    The AI model doesn't much matter. The algorithms do matter. CCP will ban the sale. It doesn't really matter if they are banning the data or algorithm.
- Spivak 2y ago
  No it doesn't, were the roles reversed with say Facebook the US wouldn't think twice before blocking the sale.
  - ericmay 2y ago
    In the case of a role-reversal here Facebook was just banned in China from the start. There was never a sale opportunity in the first place.
    - joshuaissac 2y ago
      > Facebook was just banned in China from the start. It was not. It was only banned in 2009 after it was allegedly used to organise protests that escalated into deadly race riots in Xinjiang.

danieltanfh95 2y ago

Just because it doesn’t say “ban” doesn’t mean its not one. It is well known that China lists algorithms and AI models trained on citizen data as a non-export so tiktok will never be able to sell to anyone other than a Chinese company unless they retrain the model etc. The CEO has mentioned that they will simply pull out of the US market.

deleted 2y ago
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wmf 2y ago
So not only does TikTok have to be sold but they also have to remove the addiction algorithm? This deal just gets better and better!
- beezlebroxxxxxx 2y ago
  > they also have to remove the addiction algorithm Whoever they sell it to, if they end up doing that, is going to be more than willing to put in place their own addiction algorithm, in just the same way that American social media and other adjacent tech companies have implemented them. I'm in no way a fan or user of TikTok, but thinking this will improve the app seems naive.
  - shrimp_emoji 2y ago
    Not really. A Facebook or Twitter-esque addiction algorithm is WAY better than a CCP addiction algorithm since the latter tries to socially engineer unrest and disillusion, on purpose, as a targeted act of Nakatomi-esque cyberwarfare against a totalitarian regime's rivals. The former kind maybe does so as an inadvertent externality, and with every reason to wager to a far lesser degree. Meta won't turn up the heat on antisemitism and down on something the CCP doesn't like. It might turn up the heat on, I don't know, trans rights, and down on neo Nazis, but it's much more benign dystopic info filtering than an actual "what will destabilize the US and fuel stochastic terrorism and civil war?" agenda (which is against Meta's best interest).

Aloisius 2y ago

The law doesn't ban them from having Chinese owners. It bans American companies from providing services that distribute, maintain or update any sufficiently popular apps substantially owned or controlled by foreign adversaries. TikTok could host APKs from CCP headquarters if they want to.

temporarely 2y ago
Is this just a distribution ban or will US actually block the app at net/protocol? I have never used the thingie but this ban business motivated me to download it the other day.
- groggo 2y ago
  Give it a try. It's weird, fun, educational, stupid. It's whatever you make of it. Is it also whatever China wants you to make of it? Maybe. But they could do the same thing with news, TV, or movies.
- LordDragonfang 2y ago
  The most essential advice I can give to any new user of TikTok is to be EXTREMELY liberal with the "long press > not interested" feature. The default FYP ("For you page", the algorithmic feed) is initially tuned towards the average teen, with lots of garbage (pranks, half-dressed women, and assorted other trashy content). The algo is pretty good at picking up what keeps your attention, so be careful what you give your attention to. If you tune it right, there's a lot of good content on there, though.
  - roncesvalles 2y ago
    The crux of TikTok's success is that you don't have to "game the algorithm" like in other apps, and it's quite resilient even if you try. It seems to know what's an organic signal and what's an artificial signal. Most other short-form content recommendation algorithms overfit like crazy (ahem Instagram ahem), and many users trying to bend it a certain way mess it up.
- 2y ago

nemothekid 2y ago

>the end result will likely be that TikTok will be sold to US owners Why does everyone assume this is likely? The CCP has already said they would block a sale of TikTok. This happened a while ago - so the US saying TikTok must be sold is an effective ban. The misdirection of the wording of the ban is just dishonest.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> misdirection of the wording of the ban is just dishonest Ban usually means you can't use it anymore. Take, for example, Google in mainland China. Banned without unusual circumvention. If TikTok refuses to sell to a non-Chinese owner, on the other hand, they get removed from app stores. Their website still works without any circumvention. Not banned. Even in the worst case.
- nemothekid 2y ago
  1. You are moving the goalposts. Now it's not "they will be forced to sell", but "the website will still be available". 2. I am looking forward to seeing the justifications that will be trotted around once the USG torpedoes net neutrality and bans the website
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > you are moving the goalposts. Now it's not "they will be forced to sell", but "the website will still be available" Where did I set a goal post? What does the goal even represent in this metaphor? What counts as a ban? The United States is capable of banning stuff. When we take down pirate websites, we're enacting a ban: domain seizures, asset freezes, criminal penalties and possibly sanctions. We can even go lightweight: say it's illegal to provide services to Americans (or more draconian, which I must add lines up with China's approach, make it illegal to access them) and then leave enforcemnt to the executive. What we're doing here is milquetoast: sell enough to non-Chinese owners so they no longer have a controlling stake or distribute this from non-American servers and via the internet and sideloaded apps. Calling this a ban is like saying someone was banned from a restaurant because they arrived after it closed.

Dalewyn 2y ago

>It's surprising to me that this this pretty significant distinction has been glossed over both in media reporting and in general comments here on HN. That's because: * Saying it'll get banned makes for a more sensational headline. * Saying it'll get banned is accurate enough for most practical purposes. * Saying it'll get banned is simpler than explaining the details of divestiture. Most Americans probably don't even know what "divest" means without pulling out a dictionary.

spxneo 2y ago
Another reason could be: many are not sympathetic to the America's claims that these foreign platforms are at the whims of a country it is at odds with and which have repeatedly demonstrated covert abilities to change American's perception. Speaking with some younger American co-workers in the past, their suspicion/hatred of their own country is astounding to see and it seems to have coincidentally begun after TikTok entered US market a few months before US elections. So the worry seems to be that young American voters exposed to a foreign social platform will influence upcoming elections. I do not think this is far fetched as multiple countries have come out to expose various tactics by certain countries to influence perception.
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  >their suspicion/hatred of their own country is astounding to see Speaking as an American, our country was founded on the principles of being apprehensive of governments including our own. Being suspicious of our own government is a very American thing and should not be understood as surprising. See our Declaration of Independence for further reading and context.
- mike50 2y ago
  And old people losing their connection with objective reality is connected to fox news. Next argument. It's being banned because old technically illiterate people (most of congress) latched onto a simplistic solution to the wrong problem,

remarkEon 2y ago

The US has already done this with a different company, without passing a law[1]. I don't know what else to say, other than the TikTok algorithm must be some secret sauce and actually is being manipulated by Beijing and that's why they're making such a big deal about a forced sale in this case. Otherwise, this would just be a giant liquidity event for these senior business executives and that would be that. Instead, the TikTok CEO is invoking the First Amendment and "freedom" to emotionally manipulate people into thinking Congress did something wrong here. [1] https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-03-06/grindr-sold-by-chinese-owner-after-us-national-security-concerns https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-03-06...

intrasight 2y ago
What's different is that it's owned by a communist country. Otherwise, it would just be a giant liquidity event.

deleted 2y ago

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rfoo 2y ago

Or maybe TikTok decides to exit US in protest because they don't want to comply with the law. We've been seen this 15 years ago.

meowtimemania 2y ago
what happened 15 years ago?
- YoumuChan 2y ago
  I guess Google's exit from China.
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    That was more 2013.
    - rfoo 2y ago
      That was Jan 2010.

hot_gril 2y ago

Also wonder whether the law names TikTok in particular or just some criteria that matches it. If it's the latter, are other companies also on the clock?

autoexec 2y ago
It's not just tiktok https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protecting_Americans_from_Foreign_Adversary_Controlled_Applications_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protecting_Americans_from_Fore... Does yandex have an app or use cloudflare?
- hot_gril 2y ago
  Hmm, but it gives the US President the ability to decide who is targeted, so one way or another it seems like TikTok is treated specially.
- throw-the-towel 2y ago
  According to that Wiki link, the law does actually mention TikTok by name.
  - autoexec 2y ago
    It does, but it's not exclusive to it. You can read it here: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/815/text?itid=lk_inline_enhanced-template#H1DAB5129BC0949429666E66593E18128 https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/815/...

jtriangle 2y ago

It bans American companies from providing services that distribute, maintain or update any sufficiently popular apps where a company is headquartered in, or has more than a 20% ownership share of the company held, in a country that has been determined to be a foreign adversary. It is much, much broader than a 'tiktok ban', it applies to any company that fits that criteria. So to put it bluntly, if the CCP bought 20% of reddit, reddit can't be distributed, maintained or updated by any US company. It's not just a ban, it simply won't exist on the internet for US users. There are probably a bunch of companies that will be subject to this if it's upheld in court, and the law very likely could be weaponized by the CCP to get things banned that they don't even own yet. It'll also likely result in Chinese interests devesting down to >20% from US companies that they do not want banned, for much the same reasons. Basically, this is the result of a bunch of tech-illiterate politicians who have no idea how any of this works, passing a law that looks good in news headlines without regard to the potential consequences. So business as usual on the hill.

calgarymicro 2y ago
> So to put it bluntly, if the CCP bought 20% of reddit, reddit can't be distributed, maintained or updated by any US company. Provided they have more than 1 million MAU (which they do, obviously). The president would also have to affirmatively ban it and report to Congress about the specific threat that company poses, and what assets need to be divested. TikTok is the only company written into the bill by Congress that doesn't require affirmative action by the president, or the report. > the law very likely could be weaponized by the CCP to get things banned that they don't even own yet Only if the president believes they should be banned.
- jquery 2y ago
  1 million MAU is nothing. Throw up AdSense on something that gets 1m MAU and that pays for a single developer. Also, I don't like the President getting this kind of power over businesses. It's bad enough when they can make angry Twitter threats... now they can give them a corporate death penalty.
  - 2y ago

mullingitover 2y ago

> The law doesn't ban TikTok. Rather, it bans TikTok from having Chinese owners. My prediction: China would absolutely throw away a few billion to enjoy the chaos that results from the country that preaches free speech painting itself into a corner and banning it. Enacting a ban on the most popular app among Gen Z would cause a huge uproar. It would be like taking away terrestrial radio from boomers. It's that popular.

jquery 2y ago
Yeah. This is really a generational thing. That's why the ban was bipartisan... nobody in Congress is of the age that uses TikTok. However, the youth in this country are going to be enraged, far more than I think a lot of people expect. I don't use TikTok but the people I know who use it are extremely passionate about the app.
- groggo 2y ago
  I'm not genz but I use tiktok. You need to give it a try. All of the comments on here from people who don't use it are bizarre. We can be skeptical, but not afraid of foreign owned media.
  - mistermann 2y ago
    > All of the comments on here from people who don't use it are bizarre. 100% agree. I would say this offers some insight into the real reason they want to ban TikTok.
  - Marsymars 2y ago
    I mean, I’m happy to see tiktok removed from app stores for the same reasons as I’d be happy to see any social media apps be removed from app stores, so from that perspective, I don’t think it matters that I haven’t used tiktok unless it’s somehow exempt from the problems that are endemic to social media apps.
    - groggo 2y ago

christkv 2y ago

There is another possibility. TikTok exits the us market.

intrasight 2y ago
That's been widely discussed. But it's basically the same end result - for users.

mhardcastle 2y ago

For what it's worth, "play money" betting site Manifold is currently at a 69% chance of sale versus 31% of shutting down. https://manifold.markets/mint/conditional-on-the-tiktok-ban-passi https://manifold.markets/mint/conditional-on-the-tiktok-ban-...

ok123456 2y ago
What about no sale yet they continue to operate because the ban is not enforceable either legally or technically?
- schoen 2y ago
  For example, if they (or some party that's directly targeted like Apple or Cloudflare) gets a U.S. court to enjoin enforcement of some of the provisions.
- intrasight 2y ago
  Plug pulling is easy technically. I think plug pulling legally is also easy. Bytedance just doesn't have a strong defense.
  - ok123456 2y ago
    The defense is the bill of rights.
arduanika 2y ago
Buzzkill! Everybody else on here was having fun opining that it's 100% certain that China pulls the plug, or conversely that a sale will happen, and you just had to point out that it's an empirical question where nobody can read the CCP's mind. Boo.
dnissley 2y ago
There's another market with more options where "ban will be rendered unenforceable by courts" is leading: https://manifold.markets/MichaelBlume/tiktok-endgame-which-will-happen-fi?r=RHlsYW5OaXNzbGV5 https://manifold.markets/MichaelBlume/tiktok-endgame-which-w...

partiallypro 2y ago

If I forced you to sell your home and said you couldn't live there anymore, and if you refused to move, we would tear your house down. Would you then say that I am banning you from living in your home? Kinda feels like a ban, even though it's just a forced sell.

zappb 2y ago
That’s similar to eminent domain, a right granted to the government in the constitution.
- partiallypro 2y ago
  Eminent domain requires a fair price and it's for public infrastructure. This isn't, this is just an app.

drooby 2y ago

China has made very clear they do not want ByteDance to sell. And that ByteDance should follow Chinese law. Hmm I wonder why.. I think it's unlikely they will sell and it will instead be removed from US markets. China would prefer that we don't have another successful social networking platform, and they would like to keep their spyware for use in other countries.

hankchinaski 2y ago

The chance that TikTok sells to US owner is zero, so the “ban” implies that assumption

breadwinner 2y ago
They only need to sell the US portion of the business. They can continue to operate everywhere else, right? Why would they throw away tens of billions of dollars (value of the US portion)?
- 0xB31B1B 2y ago
  The CCP does not care about the marketcap of bytedance, they care about the soft power that tiktok allows them to wield. The CEO of bytedance may want to sell, but the CCP won't let them.
  - cylemons 2y ago
    They're losing the soft power anyway. But if they sell they can atleast earn money.
    - 0xFEE1DEAD 2y ago
      They would lose soft power in the US but what if the CCP accepts this and shifts their tactics to slowly but surely flood the rest of the world with anti-US propaganda? Unfortunately, it really doesn't look like the US could win here.
  - coin 2y ago
    So this will be the trust test. If they sell then it's a legit product. If not then it's clearly CCP spyware.
  - wraptile 2y ago
    In US those are essentially equivellent as money buys soft power very easily. This whole thing is US not wanting to expand user rights but protect it's soft power and it shows. I think either way this whole thing is a big W for CCP and L to US democracy that doesn't have the balls to actually expand regulation when it's clearly wanted and needed.

georgeecollins 2y ago

A US company would never be allowed to own any kind of social media company in China. You can't own a broadcast station in the US as a non-US citizen. Rupert Murdoch had to become a US citizen to buy Fox. I don't know if I agree with this but you can't say there is no precedent for it in the US or in China.

codedokode 2y ago
> You can't own a broadcast station in the US as a non-US citizen Because freedom of speech doesn't work in practice?
- gpt5 2y ago
  Because freedom of speech is less protected (in practice) for foreign entities.
- didjxhxhsvc 2y ago
  Maybe you can expand on what you’re trying to say because freedom of speech is protected afaik.
- sillypuddy 2y ago
  If the ban was based on the context of the speech it would violate the constitution, but ownership of corporations is fair game to regulate. It's not uncommon for countries to have foreign ownership restrictions on other industries like banking, utilities, railroads, etc.
  - chrischen 2y ago
    The other problem is the teapot calling the kettle black. If the US has precedent, and this action follows that precedent, then our bitching and whining about Google and Facebook in China previously makes us look really contradictory. We’ll end up validating Chinese policies all these years if we claim this action has precedent. If it doesn’t have precedent, then it’s even worse. It becomes a case of “if you can’t beat them, join them (or their practices).”

hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago

It's somewhat of a sinophobic/red scare dogwhistle and provincial protectionism insecurity gasp of declining global influence because it doesn't necessarily matter who owns it when day-to-day operations are led by the same people with the same interests and allegiances as before. Domestic politicians compete to look tough by seeming to attack convenient, distant foreign adversaries in symbolic ways. US news media is able to spin headlines to maximize drama and outrage for the chumbox sales while misinforming readers. The reason is Americans, in aggregate, are under-educated compared to the rest of the world and so US mainstream news media doesn't have to seek excellence in evidence, integrity, accuracy, or precision.

faeriechangling 2y ago
If this is Sinophobic, China must be pissing its pants terrified of the United States. It's a shame for the two of them I guess. >The reason is Americans, in aggregate, are under-educated compared to the rest of the world Objectively wrong. It's one of the most educated countries in the world, just mediocre compared to the rest of the OECD. They're more educated than China, no matter how well a small number of urban Chinese students do on international standardised tests.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
  Comparing wintermelon and oranges. Live a few more decades and then your definition of "objective" may face reality. The higher education system of the US is selectively excellent, but 0.5-0.75% of Americans have top tier university degrees. Only 39% of Americans have any college degree at all, but this includes online and colleges that accept anyone. Fewer and fewer Americans read books of substance, or any books at all. America is deeply anti-intellectual from its founding arising from the culture of English settler merchants, with a tiny core of intelligentsia that grew around exiled religious movements. a. Quantitatively - Reading: Canada is 3rd, America is 24th - Science: Canada is 7th, America is also 24th - Math: Canada is 9th, America is 39th ^ There should be negligible differences between them given vast similarities. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/02/15/u-s-students-internationally-math-science/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/02/15/u-s-stude... b. Qualitatively - Meet and talk to enough people from Asia (Japan, China, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, China) and Europe (Iberian and Eastern) & UK. And then talk to many Americans from anywhere other than from the coasts. Conspiracy theories, misinformation, MAGA, and QAnon are the mainstream norm rather than the exception. The difference is: they don't have government censorship, a totalitarian regime, or social credit habits as an excuse for their ignorance. There are billboards with borderline racist MAGA slogans in the South US.

rzz3 2y ago

It’s alarming to me that you think the owners of arguably the most successful social media company in the world would sell it only to appease a single country. It comes off as a typical American perspective of thinking they’re the center of the world. At TikTok’s current global growth rate, they could exceed the entire user base of the USA in just a few months. I’m not sure how that user share corresponds to revenue as I’d assume the US is a lucrative market,but I just don’t see it. And TikTok has directly said they won’t be divesting.

xvector 2y ago
The US is typically more profitable than all the other countries combined, as people here have far more disposable income after all expenses, and are more inclined to spend it.
peanuty1 2y ago
How much of their revenue comes from Europe and Asia though? American users are much more valuable than Greek or Spanish users for instance.
- psychoslave 2y ago
  A propaganda tool doesn’t need to be immediately financially profitable though, that’s not their expected main outcome (though I guess that can be a nice bonus).
  - kranke155 2y ago
    You being downvoted seems to be a reflex of HN hive thinking that a Chinese company could be “just a company”
j0hnyl 2y ago
The advertising market in the US pretty much eclipses the whole rest of the world, so yes the owners are very likely to sell it to appease a single country.

throwaway4good 2y ago

I don't think it is possible or economically viable for ByteDance to sell TikTok under the terms set out, even if they wanted. Because of the shared code base with Douyin and the bill's requirements on severing ties between the two. The likely outcome is that TikTok will stop operating in the US and continue in Europe and other places plus Douyin will continue in China.

HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago

Today's news is that ByteDance says they'd prefer just to shut down TikTok rather than sell because: 1) Their algorithms (presumably video recommendations) are proprietary and used by their other Chinese apps 2) TikTok revenue isn't that significant for them Maybe these reasons are bogus, but I'd not be surprised if they do refuse to sell.

throawayonthe 2y ago

[dead]

barfingclouds 2y ago

Nope it doesn’t ban TikTok from having Chinese owners. TikTok could very well continue to have Chinese owners, and if so the US will ban the product domestically