Miscellaneous News

iewgnem

Captain
Registered Member
ByteDance didn't have to shutdown TT for 12 hours, they did just to make the point that they really don't care about US market and US will never be able to buy it.
ByteDance could have also waited 24 hours until Trump entered office to turn it back on, they didn't wait just to make the point that they're the one who calls the shots, not US Congress, Supreme Court or even Trump.

Chinese strategy has fundamentally shifted from defensive to offensive, a lot of people hasn't got used to this yet, including on SDF
With both outgoing and incoming POTUS capitulating and American users going to XHS, the writing is on the wall as to how things will go from now on.
 

9dashline

Captain
Registered Member
ByteDance didn't have to shutdown TT for 12 hours, they did just to make the point that they really don't care about US market and US will never be able to buy it.
ByteDance could have also waited 24 hours until Trump entered office to turn it back on, they didn't wait just to make the point that they're the one who calls the shots, not US Congress, Supreme Court or even Trump.

Chinese strategy has fundamentally shifted from defensive to offensive, a lot of people hasn't got used to this yet, including on SDF
With both outgoing and incoming POTUS capitulating and American users going to XHS, the writing is on the wall as to how things will go from now on.
yes, i noticed that DJI thing was definitely sending a message...
because otherwise why only remove noflyzone for US but nowhere else? etc and plus add on the timing of it all, right after it was announced TikTok was finally getting banned... DJI was sending a message for sure.
 

Eventine

Senior Member
Registered Member
Tom Cotton is what I'd call a true American nationalist.

He's not an oligarch in the sense that Trump is. He grew up in rural Arkansas. His parents were bureaucrats / teachers. He has a law degree and served in the military, and he actually volunteered for combat despite not having to. His face screams Anglo-Saxon heritage and descent from an old cow boy / plantation family. He likely, truly believes in "old American values" as they were during the settler days, and doesn't come off as a snake the way that, say, Zuckerberg does.

In short, I believe him when he says he thinks China and Tik Tok are the enemy; and contrary to many of his fellow Republicans, he didn't hold back just because Trump said so. He's a fundamentalist - the sort that views the world in black and white terms, and however misguided that might be, it separates him from the typical American politician whose platform is up for bid.
 

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
Like I've said before, I quite enjoy this moment where everyone that's angry and upset at what's happening with the TikTok drama going on is everyone that deserves it. What happened for China without much effort, Indians couldn't do trying with all their might. And this is on top of that random Twitter making a poll that made Indian national news of who Americans rather have... illegal Mexicans or legal Indians in the US? Then you have all those flirtatious young Caucasian women going on Red Note. You think anyone cares about antisemitism after what happened in Gaza? It's the Jews that have to change course and suck up to China. What are they going to do for the Chinese? Something that was never asked before and since they somehow think China owes that to them. It's not antisemitic to feel not guilty when in history you've done nothing against them.

If things go well with Trump in office, maybe China should gift Trump with a Macau Casino license, something he's always wanted. Elon just had to give a hundred million to Trump's campaign and now he's worth double his value after doing that. The US already let Trump do things that are against the law so China doesn't have to worry about bribery accusations ;). The US doesn't deserve any news and social media access to China because they will do everything they accuse China of doing. You think Trump cares about that? You just have to show him the money. Western influence and values in China are no longer negotiable especially since they were hypocritically okay with genocide in Gaza.
 

Eventine

Senior Member
Registered Member
Guys, many people on reddit are speculating that Tiktok is gonna be allowed to get sold to a US owner (likely META), or at least be a 50-50 joint venture with a US company under the Trump administration. Is this true???

God pls dont let this fucking happen. This defeats the whole purpose of the defiance this whole time and trying so hard to protect the valuable proprietary technology!!!!!!
What was valuable about Tik Tok was never the algorithm. It was the content and the culture the Tik Tok marketing & product team created around the experience.

I remember when Tik Tok was first rising in the US - it wasn't due to it being first. Vine was first. But Vine failed to capitalize on its first move advantage and settled for extremely low quality content from its user base. People got tired of it quickly because Vine leadership thought that 6 seconds looping videos were all anyone wanted from the platform, and had no monetization strategy so they basically lost all the quality content creators.

The same problem exists on Instagram Reels. Instagram Reels launched as competition to Vine but its product leadership was similarly short sighted. Again, they treated short film videos as a technology gimmick with a 15-seconds limit. Never took it seriously because "serious videos would be uploaded to Youtube." So again the platform was flooded with low quality, low effort videos in line with Instagram's thirst trap garbage.

Byte Dance revolutionized the scene, not through technology, but through product and marketing. They recognized the potential to create a higher quality, higher brow experience through short film videos, and brought in content creators to do so from the start. Their early marketing campaigns, driven by quirky challenges that went viral more often than not, were master pieces of social engineering. During their rise, they deliberately shaped their community in the direction they wanted through their marketing, moderation, content creator management, and the end result was an unique social experience that could not be replicated on any American platform.

That is Byte Dance's actual "secret sauce" - an expertise in social engineering that they gained from years managing the platform in China. You can ban the platform and move everyone to Instagram Reels, but you won't be able to recreate the experience without Byte Dance's content management team.
 
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