
Microsoft and Bytedance Put TikTok Talks on Hold After Trump Signals Opposition - bigpumpkin
https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-and-bytedance-put-tiktok-talks-on-hold-after-trump-signals-opposition-11596312611
======
zmmmmm
The idea that corporations are kowtowing to a polticians individual personal
wishes - rather than operating under a framework of laws and regulations based
on principles and administered fairly to all - should be offensive to every
single American, regardless of who the players are or their country of origin.

~~~
scarface74
Well, This is what HN posters want. As evidence by the numerous downvotes I
get about not wanting the government involvement in tech. Even after the dog
and pony show with the CEO’s last week where one representative grilled
Zuckerberg about _Twitter’s_ treatment of Don Jr.

~~~
kanox
The worst political development over the last decade is the very wide
embracing of corporate censorship. It is now widely accepted that media
platforms have an explicit duty to control public opinion.

In this context any large foreign media outlet becomes a threat.

~~~
JeremyNT
Social media platforms are tools of information warfare and propaganda. This
is what advertising is to begin with, and outside of that obvious function
most of these platforms are further optimized to drive engagement by
presenting misinformation.

The idea of politicians discriminating against the ones they don't like is
repugnant, but these platforms already are already used to control public
opinion in ways that are against the public interest, and it's certainly
reasonable to suspect that a platform such as TikTok (which is controlled by a
competing empire) might be used to that empire's advantage.

~~~
indymike
All of which is either press or speech.

------
ChefboyOG
Non-walled link to TechCrunch coverage:
[https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/01/bytedance-and-microsoft-
of...](https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/01/bytedance-and-microsoft-offer-a-deal-
to-allow-tiktok-to-remain-in-the-u-s-per-report/)

------
lykr0n
I'm applying to work at ByteDance, and this whole thing is quite interesting.

I'd most likely, if I get an offer, ask if they would wait to see how this
plays out. Last thing I would want to do is join a company that's having these
kind of issues.

~~~
bilbo0s
It's not likely they would give you an offer to be perfectly frank. In a very
real way, they can't even know if they will have their own jobs in a month.

~~~
sillysaurusx
Not sure about that. Companies tend to offer jobs right up until a hiring
freeze comes down from above. Happened to me with nVidia, and seemed to happen
to a bunch of people at Magic Leap.

It might be best to accept the job offer pronto. What's the worst that
happens? You have to look for another job, which is the situation you're
already in.

------
KKKKkkkk1
How is it ok for the US president to ban a media company? How is it ok for the
US president to put pressure on the owners of a company to sell to another
company? This must violate > 1 article of the constitution.

~~~
bgorman
Why would a media company be special. This type of thing happens all the time,
for example the US government banned a Chinese company from purchasing Lattice
Semiconductor, the third biggest FPGA company (and really a much smaller
player than the big two).

~~~
javagram
If the president is taking this actions in retaliation for the expression of
free speech on the platform (TikTok audience skews young, which is a very
anti-trump demographic) that may violate the First Amendment if proven.

Viewpoint discrimination is against the first amendment. We know Trump wasn’t
offended by the idea that foreign countries might be trying to help him get
elected, and has repeatedly called it a “Russia hoax”, but now that a social
media app has anti-Trump users it’s suddenly a national security threat
without any evidence provided?

~~~
splintercell
Tiktok is the only platform where Trump supporters aren't banned. Not to
mention, (white) zoomers lean very much to the right.

~~~
Jordrok
> Not to mention, (white) zoomers lean very much to the right.

Huh? Where on Earth did you get that idea? From what I've read and observed,
it seems like while they may not be self-identifying as "liberal" or
Democratic on quite the same level as Millennials, they still seem to hold
views which are far from what you'd traditionally call "very much to the
right".

[https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/essay/on-the-cusp-of-
adultho...](https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/essay/on-the-cusp-of-adulthood-
and-facing-an-uncertain-future-what-we-know-about-gen-z-so-far/)

[https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-changes-political-
divi...](https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-changes-political-
divides-2019-7)

------
muststopmyths
I wonder if the "deal" was going to be just "we'll run your US infrastructure
(and keep data) in the US, on Azure, and we split the money" rather than a
buyout ? That would make more sense to me.

So more like "Microsoft will invest X billion for a Y% of TikTok and run its
US operations".

You could satisfy the US government that Microsoft was guaranteeing the data
would not be shipped to China.

~~~
bigpumpkin
I thought Trump already said no to that plan.

~~~
muststopmyths
Yeah and the article also says that it was an actual buyout of Bytedance's
share. oh well. interesting times.

------
kanox
I can't believe business deals with such explicit political motivations are
being considered.

~~~
shiado
Every single piece of law granting the US government authority on national
security grounds has enjoyed bipartisan support for a very long time. I'm only
surprised it hasn't been used like this earlier.

~~~
kanox
Treating foreign media as a "national security issue" is extremely scary. This
is not something that free societies do.

~~~
dvt
> Treating foreign media as a "national security issue" is extremely scary.

Not really. RT and Al Jazeera has (rightfully) suffered much of the same
scrutiny. There's a fundamental difference between something extremely
partisan (think Breitbart or HuffPo) and something _state-sponsored_. Let's
not bury our heads in the sand here.

~~~
bigpumpkin
RT and Al Jazeera may suffer scrutiny, but the US government cannot ban
Americans from reading them.

------
ardit33
If Tiktok was European/Japanese/Korean/Canadian this would not happen, as
those countries are free democracies and work with a similar/common rule of
law

1\. China doesn’t play with the same rules, and it has been proven to be a
malicious player

2\. They don’t allow western companies to operate freely in their country, why
should we let them to?

3\. The US and to a lesser degree Europe, are in a de-facto new Cold War, and
informational warefare is big part of it

You can view either on the reciprocity Point of view, or data-safety point Of
view, the US would be foolish/dumb to allow TikTok to flourish in the US.,
while American companies just can’t in China.

Now, if the US was banning an app from another western country, that would be
a true scandal.

In this case they are doing the right thinks

~~~
jackson1442
If the government wants to restrict the ability of Chinese business to grow in
the US, that's fine, but it should be under the existing framework of law that
we follow. This should be passed through Congress and the SC as a _law_ , not
an executive order.

We have Checks & Balances for a reason.

~~~
marcinzm
Executive orders aren't magic, there's some law they will reference as giving
the president the power to issue such an order.

~~~
Slartie
Except for there being this joker called "national security" which magically
allows practically anything to be ordered by the executive, because you can
obviously reframe anything into a matter of national security, even short
video clips of dancing teenagers.

~~~
threeseed
Let's be clear apps like TikTok are a threat to national security.

Widely deployed apps that capture location data can and have been used to
determine the location of military bases and assets.

~~~
alfiedotwtf
If an app is a national security threat, maybe people shouldn’t be carrying
them around military bases :shrug:

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Many of those bases will have baby + home security cameras which are far more
obviously a security risk, because they (potentially) send WiFi passwords
home.

Trump's move is pure theatre. He has no clue about real security and he's
throwing his weight around like an attention-seeking child, because that's
what he does.

This is an entirely orthogonal issue to something that's been missing in the
West for decades - a coherent program of IT security and IoT and app standards
which define exactly what products and apps can and can't do, and which
enforces a testing and certification process to make sure products and
services stay within the lines.

And also... mandated protections for user data - something the EU is moving
towards, but which the US still seems to be having issues with.

Between IoT, IT infrastructure, poor corporate security, and unregulated data
capture, there are _much_ more serious security threats than the TikTok app.

~~~
Hydraulix989
I fail to see how domestic US regulations will help in this case, if users are
willingly installing this spyware app on their phone in the first place and
giving it the requisite permissions to access everything on the devices. Do
you think China will comply with US protections?

------
morpheuskafka
Why doesn't TikTok just move out of the US completely? As far as I know, Trump
does not have the authority to block foreign websites that he doesn't agree
with (for example, the webpages of foreign terrorist groups or criminal
organizations are easily accessible). The whole authority for Trump to block
this is that ByteDance (a Chinese firm) is investing in TikTok (a US company).
If TikTok was run abroad, and had no presence in the US there is nothing Trump
can do, and US customers could still use the site.

~~~
jkulubya
That was my initial line of thinking as well, until someone reminded me of
some government list that TikTok could be added to which would require that
they’re pulled from the app stores.

------
tibbydudeza
Well TikTok is still working in India while it has been "banned" ... kids
being kids will just sideload the app unless they are running Apple devices.

------
whoisthemachine
This is just wild. What will happen when or if a president of a different
party is elected?

~~~
bilbo0s
I understand your question, but I'm sorry, that just sounds bush league to me.
So you have to change your business to suit every political party that comes
to power? That's a lot of unpredictability. How can you run a business like
that?

Plus, what if elections are "postponed until a more appropriate time"? I mean,
the environment would just be riddled with so much uncertainty that I'm not
sure how an honest business would be able to engage in cogent decision making?

~~~
scarface74
I’m so confused. Didn’t I just read several submissions where almost every
person was cheering the government threatening to become involved in Big Tech?

~~~
whoisthemachine
It's a very different matter when a government acts within the bounds of its
authority. In the case of the congressional hearings, that is well within
their bounds, and antitrust law is established law. This is a president
asserting executive authority in a way without precedent as far as I know.

~~~
scarface74
Yes it is. Anti trust law has never been

A) used against a company that has at most 50% market share (Apple)

B) In the US always been focused on consumer harm and based on does a
“monopoly” cause consumer prices to go up. Facebook/Google costs consumers
nothing and no one can honestly claim that Amazon/Apple prices have increased
because of anything they have done. (Disclaimer: I work for AWS)

C) The republicans were more worried about Facebook/Google’s “bias against
conservatism” and in the case of Facebook, one Republican representative
grilled Zuckerberg about _Twitter’s_ policy that affected Don Jr. and the
administration has repeatedly gone against Amazon because Bezos owns the
Washington Post.

------
m3kw9
He may not want the chinese benefiting from American money through such moves.
This deal could set an example on new apps to come from China.

------
seventytwo
Because it was never about protecting American national security, it was about
protecting Trumps ego from TikTok ridicule.

------
spanktheuser
\- TikTok would seem to be an existential threat to Facebook.

\- Acquisition by Facebook is problematic given current scrutiny of their
market position.

\- Facebook has been Trump’s media ally since 2016.

\- Trump is intervening clumsily to kill a rare Facebook competitor.

Circumstantial to be sure. But the pattern match is bonkers.

