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iewgnem

Junior Member
Registered Member
zyklon said:
On the other hand, how do you feel about the US government enforcing American laws upon Chinese citizens (e.g. Huawei's Meng Wanzhou)?



Having just skimmed the
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, which is the legislation mandating TikTok's sale-or-ban, I'm of the impression that a region specific divesture of TikTok is the theoretically feasible, at least per the bill's verbiage.

Granted, any sort of divestment on the part of ByteDance will inevitably be complex and difficult to negotiate and consummate not only due to the value and popularity of TikTok as a platform, but given the political intricacies in play.

To be more specific, what the crux of the matter might be here is
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on whether divesture by ByteDance materially occured.

However, as you can imagine, such presidential determinations are subject to a great deal of executive discretion. So really whether a sale can go through or not will largely depend on the whims and preferences of the sitting US president.
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ByteDance is a Chinese company and Meng is a Chinese citizen, only Chinese laws apply to Chinese companies and citizens inside China and American laws are irrevelant to non-Americans not in America. Chinese laws prohibt ByteDance from any sale and as a Chinese company that law is final and supeseed all other laws. If US law does not allow them to operate in the US ByteDance will leave the US, that's the limit of US authority. Note it does not mean ByteDance have to prevent Americans from accessing TikTok after they leave America.

If that's too complicated for you, let me simplify it more: what Americans want is irrevelant, only what China wants matter and China already gave the final ruling.
 
proelite

proelite

Junior Member
iewgnem said:
ByteDance is a Chinese company and Meng is a Chinese citizen, only Chinese laws apply to Chinese companies and citizens inside China and American laws are irrevelant to non-Americans not in America. Chinese laws prohibt ByteDance from any sale and as a Chinese company that law is final and supeseed all other laws. If US law does not allow them to operate in the US ByteDance will leave the US, that's the limit of US authority. Note it does not mean ByteDance have to prevent Americans from accessing TikTok after they leave America.

If that's too complicated for you, let me simplify it more: what Americans want is irrevelant, only what China wants matter and China already gave the final ruling.
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Final ruling is that ByteDance can't divest the algo.

It won't be in the interest of Beijing to tell Chinese companies what to do with their US operations.
 
I

iewgnem

Junior Member
Registered Member
Biscuits said:
It makes sense since somehow US is quite scared of doing it. I guess it's too on the nose and basically invalidates the argument that China is more censor happy than US.

That sentiment change could have massive unintended consequences. Which I would believe is what scares them.

Without the algorithim or IP it's just the brand name. I don't think the idea of making US only tiktok is necessarily bad, as long as they sell it for a lot. Then again US doesn't really have much valuables to pay with currently.
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The problem comes down to Trump is fully aware how much influence TikTok has from his own campaign, banning it only mean TikTok can no longer do business in the US but does not prevent Americans from accessing TikTok global unless they put up an ISP block as India did, and censoring a platform that's accessible in Canada, Mexico, Europe and everywhere else is a whole different legal issue.

Without firewall US will still be fully subject to TikTok influence but will be stripped of all ability to influence others on it, including by Trump himself. To fully implement the ban he will have to defend censoring TikTok at ISP level and that fight is lot harder than commercial ban. Of course there's also hudnreds of billion in business tied to TikTok so that's a lot of angry people too.

Finally even if they do enforce an ISP block, because TikTok is already so ingrained in the US population, its just statistics that a signficiant number of people will start looking for ways around it, that gives China something even better than an algorithm that control US news feed, it gives China a flag to rally American dissidents around.
 
Z

zyklon

New Member
Registered Member
proelite said:
Byte is not allowed to sell the algo.
That doesn't preclude an arrangement where the US operations are divested and the TikTok US pays to use the same algo ( using the same IP) or another algo.
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The US bill forcing the TikTok sale or ban explicitly stated:

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Therefore, an IP licensing deal is plausible, but it can't entail ByteDance controlling or updating the algorithm for TikTok on an active basis. Basically no persistent or ongoing cooperation.

iewgnem said:
Chinese laws prohibt ByteDance from any sale and as a Chinese company that law is final and supeseed all other laws. If US law does not allow them to operate in the US ByteDance will leave the US, that's the limit of US authority. Note it does not mean ByteDance have to prevent Americans from accessing TikTok after they leave America.
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That's completely reasonable, and we're in 100% agreement there.

iewgnem said:
ByteDance is a Chinese company and Meng is a Chinese citizen, only Chinese laws apply to Chinese companies and citizens inside China and American laws are irrevelant to non-Americans not in America.
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Does or should the United States government have any jurisdiction over foreign citizens transacting United States Dollars or killing American citizens on non-American soil?
 
I

iewgnem

Junior Member
Registered Member
zyklon said:
Does or should the United States government have any jurisdiction over foreign citizens transacting United States Dollars or killing American citizens on non-American soil?
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US does not
If you think they should then China should also have jurisdiction over American citizens, which in this case would mean American citizens must comply with Chinese laws when it comes to ByteDance.
 
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zyklon

New Member
Registered Member
iewgnem said:
The problem comes down to Trump is fully aware how much influence TikTok has from his own campaign, banning it only mean TikTok can no longer do business in the US but does not prevent Americans from accessing TikTok global unless they put up an ISP block as India did, and censoring a platform that's accessible in Canada, Mexico, Europe and everywhere else is a whole different legal issue.

Without firewall US will still be fully subject to TikTok influence but will be stripped of all ability to influence others on it, including by Trump himself. To fully implement the ban he will have to defend censoring TikTok at ISP level and that fight is lot harder than commercial ban. Of course there's also hudnreds of billion in business tied to TikTok so that's a lot of angry people too.

Finally even if they do enforce an ISP block, because TikTok is already so ingrained in the US population, its just statistics that a signficiant number of people will start looking for ways around it, that gives China something even better than an algorithm that control US news feed, it gives China a flag to rally American dissidents around.
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Can't Uncle Sam just make Apple and Google drop TikTok from their respective app stores in the US in an instant, or even globally if they wanted to apply pressure?

That will immediately prevent US TikTok users from updating TikTok, and without the capacity for updates, will the user experience remain sustainable?

I imagine users could in theory download TikTok's setup file directly from TikTok's website, and install it manually.

However, what percentage of users will go to the trouble of doing so?
 
I

iewgnem

Junior Member
Registered Member
zyklon said:
Can't Uncle Sam just make Apple and Google drop TikTok from their respective app stores in the US in an instant, or even globally if they wanted to apply pressure?

That will immediately prevent US TikTok users from updating TikTok, and without the capacity for updates, will the user experience remain sustainable?

I imagine users could in theory download TikTok's setup file directly from TikTok's website, and install it manually.

However, what percentage of users will go to the trouble of doing so?
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More than half of Americans are on TikTok and are on it for hours each day, do you think they'll stop doing that just because they have to visit a website to update their app? Apple is additionally subject to retaliation from China for doing anything outside US.

But even that point is moot, you don't need the app to view TikTok, they can and probably will just ban all American users from posting for their own safety. US government gave China an excuse to ban all American influencers, might as well use it.
 
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