
Trump gives Microsoft 45 days to clinch TikTok deal - kumaranvpl
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tiktok-trump-exclusive-idUSKBN24Y0UD
======
yurlungur
It's so ironic that mainstream opinions in the US are nowadays so
ideologically charged that TikTok is assumed, without proof, to be 100%
controlled by the Chinese government and therefore this forced takeover is
justified one way or another.

You see arguments all the time that start with "CCP is evil, X is Chinese,
therefore...", which would basically justify any and every action against all
Chinese entities.

Meanwhile, if you have even close to a clue about what's going on in China
you'd know that ByteDance is bending over backwards trying to position itself
as a multinational corporation with independence from the Chinese government,
all in utter futility of course. That action actually drew the ire from the
mouthpieces of the party.

Some rumors say that the reason TikTok announced the potential deal so fast is
to make it so that the Chinese government won't intervene and turn it into
another Huawei situation. Well, that kind of reasoning seems to be based on a
purely fictional assumption that the US government is still operating on
principal or in good faith.

~~~
Thorentis
There is no way to prove beyond doubt that ByteDance isn't having their data
watched by the CCP, or that the CCP won't forcibly take their data in the
future. That's just part of dealing with a company based in a country like
China. You don't need proof that ByteDance is controlled by the CCP. You just
need to see the way CCP deals with companies in its country, and the powers
they have over companies within their borders.

Note: Yes, the US gov can do the same thing to US companies to some extent.
But this about ByteDance and the CCP. And I think the assumption that you
can't trust a Chinese based comapny (because of the CCP) is justified.

~~~
est
> You don't need proof that ByteDance is controlled by the CCP

Well, there is a counter proof. One of ByteDance's app
(com.ss.android.essay.joke) was shutdown by CCP in 2018. Bytedance is a victim
of governments bullies.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/technology/china-
toutiao-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/technology/china-toutiao-
bytedance-censor.html)

> Vulgar content on the Neihan Duanzi app had “caused strong dislike among
> internet users,” a brief notice from the State Administration of Radio and
> Television said. The company was told to clean up its other platforms, too.

~~~
Thorentis
That... just shows that ByteDance will do what the CCP says. Which is exactly
the problem being discussed here.

~~~
est
> ByteDance will do what the CCP says

If bytedance does what CCP says there won't be any app shutdown in the first
place.

------
disgu
The fact that something, anything, can be declared a national security risk
without offering any proof for it whatsoever should worry everyone.

Pretty sure EU car manufacturers like Daimler or VW would like to buy up
Tesla's European operations for cheap. Just need the government to simply
declare them to be a national security threat and force them to sell or lose
access to the largest market on the planet.

~~~
SV_BubbleTime
Wasn't it shown that TikTok (and LinkedIn to be fair) was accessing camera
and/or clipboard when it didn't need to?

I have no dog in this fight, but isn't there at least a little evidence that
TikTok may be collecting data on a large scale? I haven't been following it
all that closely, but I thought that's what the original bans for military
members was about.

Edit: So, yes, but that’s ok because others were too.

~~~
mullingitover
> Wasn't it shown that TikTok (and LinkedIn to be fair) was accessing camera
> and/or clipboard when it didn't need to?

There's a gigantic list of apps that were revealed to be accessing things like
the clipboard in iOS 14. I just installed the beta, and I found that my credit
union's app reads the clipboard every time I open it. My third-party reddit
app does the same thing.

TikTok doing it isn't really even news. There are dozens to hundreds of apps
doing it, and it's likely a bug.

~~~
chrischen
Yea TikTok being mentioned was just clickbait/political because it was a
Chinese app.

~~~
vkou
Given how this administration behaves, it's just occurred to me that it's also
equally likely that TikTok is being singled out because it was used to
coordinate the bogus Trump rally ticket reservations.

Any time a firm, app, or organization does something to offend or
inconvenience the man, he launches an attack against it. There's certainly a
pattern of this behaviour.

~~~
chrischen
“Anti-US” interests could very well mean anti current administration.

------
enumjorge
I still don’t understand what Microsoft is thinking. Facebook, Google,
Twitter, and to some extent Apple have had to deal with content moderation
headaches on their respective platforms. Especially when it comes to politics,
it seems like un-winnable battle. Do nothing and you’ll get blamed for helping
spread hate and propaganda. Do something and you’ll get blamed for violating
free speech and censoring conservatives.

As far as I know, Microsoft has so far avoided being on that hot seat. So why,
now, get involved in the shit show that is social media? I still don’t
understand why Trump has a beef with TikTok specifically, but if the rumors
are true that this is payback for the prank they pulled on his first political
rally, isn’t this whole thing political in nature? What if TikTok users
continue to mess with Trump? I can imagine Trump now set his crosshairs on
Microsoft. I don’t understand why you’d willingly put yourself in the middle
of a controversy to buy a company that doesn’t exactly align with your current
businesses. What am I missing?

~~~
dmode
Your second paragraph is scary. It essentially says that a private
organization should make business decisions that doesn't upset the king. We
have entered faux democracy

~~~
krustyburger
Most observers are convinced this “king” is on his way out. I think the parent
was arguing that he’ll still be around just long enough to potentially cause
problems for Microsoft.

~~~
fiblye
They were sure he wouldn't have made it this far to begin with.

Any business decision riding hard on political hopes and dreams isn't really a
safe investment this decade, no matter which side it's favoring.

------
dmix
Interfering with business M&A using just a threat of action then asking for a
piece of the $$ for the treasury dept sounds like something a Soviet/command
economy would do.

This is how you can tell when a right leaning group is significantly more
authoritarian over liberty. Which is a divergence from many recent right
leaning administrations in America (see: tea partiers) and the rest of the
western world.

Not to mention its oddly similar to the thing they are accusing the Chinese of
doing.

------
rohan1024
Tiktok at this point should also sell their India business to Microsoft. It
would make sense for Microsoft because their are millions of people in India
who want TikTok back but don't want China associated with it. Also, I don't
think Indian government would have any issue if it's Microsoft.

~~~
bilbo0s
More money in the US Tik Tok audience to be perfectly frank. MS has to be
reasonably certain they will get their investment out plus some profit. Not
only that, but sometimes the MS's of the world won't even buy if the profit
they will make is not large enough.

I would think some Indian firm might want Tik Tok? Not really sure why no deal
has been made there?

~~~
victorvation
I could see Jio making a play, especially with their recent injection(s) of
capital.

------
unionpivo
I don't get it.

Since when does one need permission of USA President to make the deal?

I mean sure he could block the app in states, but I figure microsoft could
still use it outside ?

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _Since when does one need permission of USA President to make the deal?_

Since 1975 [1].

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Foreign_Investm...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Foreign_Investment_in_the_United_States)

~~~
thesausageking
CFIUS doesn't apply here. It governs US companies selling ownership stakes to
foreign entities (the FI is for "Foreign Investment"). For example when
Lattice Semiconductor wanted to be acquired by a Chinese company and CFIUS
blocked it.

This is the opposite situation: TikTok is a foreign company that's considering
a US company as an investor/acquirer.

~~~
carlosdp
Actually it does, the CFIUS has jurisdiction over any foreign company doing
commerce in the US. Which is why it has oversight over ByteDance's acquisition
of Musical.ly, both Chinese companies.

------
fatjokes
Is it just me, or has there barely been a peep from the CCP about TikTok? When
it came to Huawei or ZTE, China's gov't regularly engaged foreign gov'ts, but
it seems that they don't care much for TikTok. If that is the case, and not
just a case of it not being reported as prominently, I would put my conspiracy
hat on:

1\. TikTok is actually _not_ cooperating with the Chinese gov't (and maybe
this is the CCP's way of showing them that it goes both ways).

2\. The CCP is allowing the US gov't to destroy its own credibility and moral
high ground. These threads are usually solidly anti-China but there is a clear
stream of discomfort now, with the realization that if national security can
be used to override the law, and everything can be a national security threat,
then how strong is the foundation of law?

EDIT: A few of the replies have suggested 3) TikTok is simply not that
valuable. Which makes all the ruckus being raised by banning it, whether by
the US or by India, even sillier?

~~~
est
1\. TikTok is actually not cooperating with the Chinese gov't (and maybe this
is the CCP's way of showing them that it goes both ways).

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/technology/china-
toutiao-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/technology/china-toutiao-
bytedance-censor.html)

> The country’s top media regulator on Tuesday ordered the company, Bytedance,
> to shut down its app for sharing jokes and silly videos. Vulgar content on
> the Neihan Duanzi app had “caused strong dislike among internet users,” a
> brief notice from the State Administration of Radio and Television said. The
> company was told to clean up its other platforms, too.

~~~
mola
This is called being law abiding.

I'm pretty sure that when OP talked about cooperating with Chinese govt. He
was talking about what is hinted by trump, that they are doing massive
clendestine surveillance on US citizens on behalf of CCP.

(Which incidentally, we now know that some US companies are doing exactly that
for the US govt.)

------
jrochkind1
Well that sure improves Microsoft's negotiating position.

They've actually been in discussions to purchase for months now. But the U.S.
government comes along and says, actually, you better complete it soon, or the
value of the U.S. business will be zero.

~~~
ETHisso2017
Does anyone not see how fucked up this is?

~~~
tannhaeuser
It's totally fucked up. By the same reasoning ("national security"), any
country that hasn't already can and will now sooner or later ban US-dominated
social networks, especially when networks as they exist benefitted from US
antitrust turning a blind eye towards large scale purchases. The EU court of
justice has just ruled against "safe harbour" arguing that personal data can
be turned over to US authorities without due process. Pulling a "deal you
can't decline" also won't exactly help mutual investments.

I believe the gravity of this hasn't been appreciated yet.

~~~
Fjolsvith
Somehow I get the impression that this will kill FiveEyes, which was abused by
a recent administration, if I'm not mistaken.

~~~
shadowgovt
FiveEyes is an awful lot more than social media observation. Don't need to
care about social media if you've tapped email services.

~~~
Fjolsvith
True, but what I'm talking about is asking another country to spy on your
citizens for you so you don't have to violate the law. Wink-wink style.

An open mind that considers other viewpoints is one that can outplay
opponents. Literal thinkers can be led in circles.

~~~
shadowgovt
I'm talking about the same thing. For example, it's illegal for the NSA or CIA
to harvest emails between American citizens. But it's not illegal for the UK
to do so, and it's already understood how they did it in the past to Google
users by tapping inter-datacenter connections
([https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/nsa-i...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-
infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-
say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html)), then feeding
that data back to the NSA as a FiveEyes partner.

------
ekrebs
I'm confused about something and hope someone here can clear it up. A threat
of stopping the sale unless the US gets paid "a substantial amount of money"
sounds like extortion to me. Is there any precedence for the US getting cuts
of acquisitions?

~~~
tantalor
Yeah, it's called "taxes".

 _When companies merge, they pay taxes on the value of the capital, stock or
assets acquired during the process of a merger_

[https://smallbusiness.chron.com/taxable-
merger-22406.html](https://smallbusiness.chron.com/taxable-merger-22406.html)

~~~
valuearb
Foreign companies don’t owe the U.S. taxes when U.S. companies buy them.

~~~
bobwernstein
microsoft isn't foreign

~~~
valuearb
Microsoft isn’t getting bought.

~~~
bobwernstein
exactly so Microsoft pays

------
1f60c
Am I the only one who doesn’t like anything about this one bit? _Usually_ ,
the POTUS can’t tell private companies what to do.

------
jmspring
Here is what Microsoft does (I don't speak for them, just what I would do):

\- secure the purchase \- let it run independently like LinkedIn \- move cloud
components to Azure \- leverage Microsoft compliance with regulators and data
retention / collection plans \- let tweens and teens do their thing

Profit.

------
gumby
I hadn’t heard of “Key money” so I looked it up. Turns out it means an illegal
bribe:
[https://www.brickunderground.com/blog/2015/11/what_is_key_mo...](https://www.brickunderground.com/blog/2015/11/what_is_key_money)

------
pluc
How is TikTok's data policy any more acceptable if it's controlled by
Microsoft? Is there a clause to change the source code and not make it
tailored to the informational needs of the State?

------
RandallBrown
How exactly would an executive order ban an app?

Obviously it's easy to make Apple and Google remove it from their app stores
but couldn't ByteDance just release a new app called TokTik or something
similar? Could ByteDance just reincorporate as a different company if the ban
was at the company level? Would the order ban apps with > X Number of users
when owned by foreign investors?

Seems like this isn't something the president can actually do.

~~~
btown
This blog, once you get past the clickbait title, goes over a lot of the
mechanics: [https://www.lawfareblog.com/tiktok-and-law-primer-case-
you-n...](https://www.lawfareblog.com/tiktok-and-law-primer-case-you-need-
explain-things-your-teenager)

The short answer is that yes, it could be banned, but it would take a
concerted effort by the White House.

------
anthony_r
What a shitshow.

~~~
amir734jj
Well said

------
mathattack
Imagine if another country threatened to cancel an American company unless
they merged with a local firm and paid a one-off bribe to the government.

~~~
nimish
Boy have I got news for you about foreign direct investment regulations....

~~~
e9
Please do tell

~~~
nimish
India and China, along with basically every other country, have tons of
regulations around how foreign companies can set up operations and invest in
domestic markets.

You cannot do business without a local partners in many industries (read: a
"joint" venture in which the local "partner" will acquire your IP and
eventually compete with you down the road). Foreign ownership is restricted.
It was big news when China mildly liberalized its laws earlier this year and
only as a gesture in the ongoing trade disputes.

~~~
bohadi
Maybe Washington will legislate to reciprocal effect. Not wield wierdly
targeted executive order.

------
mytailorisrich
Strangely this is framed as an ultimatum to Microsoft when in fact it is one
to Bytedance/Tiktok, and it obviously helps Microsoft.

~~~
VWWHFSfQ
Yeah this is basically "sell to Microsoft or get banned". That obviously helps
Microsoft's negotiating position.

------
creato
People are thinking about this way too much in terms of personal data. I don't
think this really is about that.

Editorial control over what a significant fraction of people see is
significant power over those people. Even seemingly benign editorial actions
could have serious effects.

Facebook and Twitter are clearly being pressured by all political sides to
favor content they want favored and disfavor content they want disfavored.
What does that look like when the CCP weighs in on what American TikTok users
see? Maybe prioritizing posts about protests or just petty crime (even more so
than the internet tends to do by itself)?

I think there are endless ways to get creative and subtle here that could
cause problems.

~~~
Fjolsvith
Bingo. The conservative base on TikTok outnumbers the liberal base by nearly
double.

~~~
shadowgovt
That runs counter to the Trump administration looking into banning it.

~~~
Fjolsvith
Hello. Half of what Trump says is to push a chess piece around the table where
he wants it to go.

You all think he's playing 2D checkers but he's really at Spock's chess level.

~~~
shadowgovt
Please. His algorithm isn't too hard to fathom.

1) Say whatever he feels like

2) If there's bad news, say something controversial to try and jam the news
cycle.

He's already had to back-peddle on claiming mail-in ballots increase voter
fraud
([https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/08/04/trump-
backtracks-mail-voting-florida-391373)), probably because someone clued him in
that the biggest user demographic for mail-in voting is the elderly, most of
whom vote Republican.

~~~
Fjolsvith
Your analysis of him is as shallow as you think he is.

~~~
shadowgovt
No deeper analysis is needed because he isn't deeper. He's a man in over his
head in a job he never wanted, desperately trying to save his reputation. He
has no idea how to do his job (as indicated by the number of EOs overturned by
the Court).

What he has is a cult of personality that sucks in the gullible. It was
effective at selling sub-par steaks, but serves him less well as head of the
US Executive for successfully running his office.

If you believe he's playing some kind of hyper-chess feel free to provide
evidence.

~~~
Fjolsvith
Todd Scheller has an excellent analysis with citations showing your point to
be wrong:

[https://www.quora.com/How-many-Obama-Executive-Orders-
were-s...](https://www.quora.com/How-many-Obama-Executive-Orders-were-struck-
down-by-the-courts-compared-to-Trump-Executive-Orders)

~~~
shadowgovt
Ah yes, Quora, that bastion of well-researched, trusted facts. But in reality,
Trump has EOs overturned significantly more than Presidents in recent history,
with over 60 adverse rulings.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/the-r...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/the-
real-reason-president-trump-is-constantly-losing-in-
court/2019/03/19/f5ffb056-33a8-11e9-af5b-b51b7ff322e9_story.html)

More importantly, I don't know what a list of Obama EOs struck down by courts
has to do with Trump's Presidency. It's entirely possible they were both bad
at being President. Trump's failures are particularly interesting, to my mind,
because of how often he torpedoes himself; he may have pulled off ending
protections for immigrants from Haiti, Sudan, and Central American countries
if he hadn't chosen to call them "shithole countries," opening up the spectre
of his EO being racially motivated.

It's not 4D chess; he says what he wants and doesn't notice that a President
is held accountable to his own words. it'd be funny watching his self-
torpedoing buffoon act if he wasn't the President of the United States of
America.

~~~
Fjolsvith
That source doesn't list any of his Executive Orders. This source does:

[https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/here-s-full-
lis...](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/here-s-full-list-donald-
trump-s-executive-orders-n720796)

Which one has been overturned?

Edit: Holy mackeral! For a bumbling idiot he sure does tackle a lot of issues.

~~~
shadowgovt
[https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-
or...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-
collecting-information-citizenship-status-connection-decennial-census/)

Blocked by the courts, and now moot as the census has happened.

He also needed two bites at the apple to get 13769 legal; the first two are
overturned executive orders.

------
rapnie
What would the deal entail? Would MS get access to all the sourcecode, the IP
behind it, etc? Would TikTok effectively be forked into two separate apps that
evolve independently?

------
RavlaAlvar
Why Microsoft though, is there other company competing for the deal?

~~~
killjoywashere
I kind of wonder about this. The US Government pours money on Microsoft. The
number of Windows servers in government reels the mind, and of course every
desktop is Windows, with Office. They previously acquired LinkedIn, which is
where a huge number of US citizens, and particularly military folks, park
their resumes and roledexes. The LinkedIn social graph essentially subtracts
children and stay-at-home spouses, making it somewhat denser with the type of
information a foreign government might be interested in. Similarly, GitHub is
of huge US national, probably Western strategic interest.

I wouldn't be terribly surprised if some folks at Microsoft were "encouraged"
to pursue those deals to keep them out of other hands.

~~~
marmaduke
> The LinkedIn social graph essentially subtracts children and stay-at-home
> spouses

What does subtract here mean?

~~~
pluc
The same thing it means everywhere else - it's a social network _minus_ kids
and housewives.

~~~
ethbro
(Also househusbands)

------
nnm
MSFT stock rise about 5.62% (or $100b), likely due to the news to take over
TikTok in US. If this is a fair trade, one would not expect MSFT stock to
increase.

~~~
corin_
A bit of an over-simplification. A fair trade could cause the stock to rise if
people think it will likely be unfair, or if people think that TikTok will be
run better and more valuable in MS' hands, or that there's some synergy with
other MS products/users to take advantage of, or because lots of investors
might not move money from American stocks to Chinese but are happy to move
money from being invested in other US tech companies into MSFT, or... etc.

------
nouveaux
I think its important to note that this started November 1, 2019 by CFIUS[1].
While Trump is known for erratic behavior, he is acting on the investigation
by CFIUS.

[1] [https://www.csis.org/blogs/trustee-china-hand/tiktok-
clock-s...](https://www.csis.org/blogs/trustee-china-hand/tiktok-clock-
summary-cfiuss-investigation-bytedance)

~~~
nouveaux
Ok so I'm merely stating facts here. Why the downvote?

~~~
burfog
Two guesses, one for each side of the political spectrum:

1\. The word "erratic" suggests that there is error, rather than deliberate
behavior to make the news and to throw enemies off guard.

2\. You pointed out that the actions were in fact started by CFIUS, which is a
disappointment to anybody who wants to see the actions as being driven by
vanity or malice or corruption or similar.

------
kanox
Forcing a foreign business to "sell or close" is an insult to the rule of law.

~~~
scarface74
There hasn’t been a rule of law in the US for four years. Congress and the
judiciary have both been rubber stamping everything the President does.

Yet and still this is the same government that for some strange reason many on
HN trust to “regulate tech”.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _Congress and the judiciary have both been rubber stamping everything the
> President does_

This is patently false—the U.S. has been losing court cases left and right
[1].

[1] [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/why-
trump-...](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/why-trump-keeps-
losing-at-the-supreme-court/613315/)

~~~
scarface74
Yet and still.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-didnt-like-
rul...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-didnt-like-rulings-on-
daca-so-hes-defying-
them/2020/07/31/36458e06-d1e1-11ea-9038-af089b63ac21_story.html)

~~~
rorykoehler
This is an opinion piece.

~~~
scarface74
Are you saying the facts that it presents aren’t true?

~~~
rorykoehler
It's behind a paywall so I don't know but what I do know is that I don't take
any opinion piece as factual. Ever.

~~~
jmcqk6
This is one of those shortcuts we use to cut out complexity, but in process,
we create blind spots for ourselves.

It is not reasonable to expect things to either have opinions or not. An adult
should have the sophistication to read something and understand what is
opinion and what is fact. I get that many adults these days apparently lack
that ability, but that doesn't excuse it.

~~~
rorykoehler
I use it as a shortcut because I got tired of reading BS using the skills you
describe. Now I don't read the opinion section at all. Once bitten twice shy.

~~~
jmcqk6
Sure, but this is impossible to escape. Even if you're looking at a dry set of
facts, there was editorial decisions made regarding what to put on that list
and what to leave off. There is literally nothing you can read where you can
escape the opinions of others.

~~~
rorykoehler
No disagreement there

------
mullingitover
Trump just openly demanded that the US government get a cut of the sale if it
goes to Microsoft.

If I were TikTok I'd be shopping the company to europeans just to avoid any
further headaches. They'd still get access to the US market but wouldn't have
to deal with the headache of a sale to a US company.

~~~
katmannthree
Is that normal? I haven't heard of that happening before and it feels really
weird.

~~~
jonathankoren
No, and when pressed on the point, he deflected.

There's no authority -- presidential, or otherwise -- to "ban" TikTok, nor
enforce a sale of a foreign entity to an American (The foreign investment act
is about _selling_ American companies to foreign companies, not Americans
_buying_ foreign countries.), nor is there any way for the federal government
to get a cut of any sale.

It's just typical Trump talking out of his ass.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/03/trump-
mic...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/03/trump-microsoft-
tiktok-treasury/)

------
onetimemanytime
This smells. US should ban them or not. This pressure to sell cheaply has a
third world country feeling

------
rcgorton
This seems to be a legitimate business move on the part of Microsoft. What is
not legitimate is The-Donald/Twitler objecting simply because one of his
rallies was oversubscribed by US Tik-Tok members. He is being a petulant
toddler (ass-hat) and wants revenge.

------
platetone
How badly will Microsoft fuck this up once the deal is closed? I can't imagine
they're going to be able to successfully make this app secure.

------
nouveaux
For those who are against US retaliation to China, how do you propose
competing when China forces transfer of IP, blacklists companies and people
when they make public statements they do not like, and bans apps[1] when apps
do not fall inline with China's unethical policies? (I'm being generous here
when I say China bans apps for political reasons when they can easily ban to
be anti competitive.)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_mainland_China)

~~~
zyang
This is a missed opportunity to force China open up. Let Google, FB compete in
Chinese market. Win-win all around. Forcing the sale is short sighted and only
deepens the divide.

~~~
nouveaux
I'm not supporting the move here. I'm asking what you would do instead. How do
you force China to open the market up?

~~~
est
Setup a web page monitor in both countries that fetch pages periodically and
governments must guarantee network SLA.

------
ETHisso2017
The US has permanently lost China's technologists and entrepreneurs at this
point. I'm seeing people in the tech industry advocating for Facebook to get
secondary sanctions from China - as in, companies which operate in China are
not allowed to do business with Facebook. Presumably, this would mean Apple
and Google (via Android)...

~~~
sdinsn
Facebook is banned in China...

> The US has permanently lost China's technologists and entrepreneurs at this
> point.

What? We never had them. China's economy is closed and state-controlled.

~~~
est
> China's economy is closed

Well except Tesla and ExxonMobil just setup their WOFE in China.

------
justicezyx
Sadly, the sentiment on HN showcases the inability of people to apply
objective reasoning:

The primary indicator I saw is the diminishing sentiment towards the injustice
suffered by TikTok.

At the very beginning, the sentiment that TikTok were mistreated was quite
popular. Or even was the minstream [1,2].

Now, the sentiment has shifted that "why MSFT buy TikTok, why not TikTok sell
to FB/Google". Like what's shown here.

To this date, except the broad claim that "TikTok is owned by a Chinese
company, and Chinese government will force TikTok to share private
information", there isn't a single evidence that is even remotely relevant to
national security.

I am seeing a lot of US company executives are preparing to break from China
very unpleasantly in the near future...

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24016938](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24016938)
[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23832183](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23832183)
[3]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23755863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23755863)

