
Pavel Durov on the TikTok Sale to U.S. company - AnonHP
https://t.me/s/durov/123
======
ucha
A free trade agreement must be abided by both parties.

By prohibiting Chinese companies from operating on US soil, Americans aren't
renouncing their values or losing the moral high ground as long as companies
from other free countries are allowed to operate. The actions of the US admin
are long overdue and Europe must muster up the courage (and incur the costs)
of taking a similar position now.

Saying if some countries aren't allowed to freely trade on American soil then
none should is a non-sequitur.

~~~
hobs
If this policy was applied across the board there would be a lot less
complaining, but this is obviously targeting a company because they pissed off
the president.

The united states is in no way making this a universal policy, and is clearly
just doing favoritism.

~~~
bitcurious
One way of interpreting is that this is a private company which pissed off the
president.

Another way is that this is a company beholden to our geopolitical adversary
that intentionally interfered in our domestic politics.

~~~
plehoux
It's either unregulated social networks are a threat to free and fair
elections or they are not.

If you have the former position, which seems to be embraced by the majority of
HN users, you can't accept to have Tik Tok, a chinese controlled social
network, taking over everyone under 30 in the US.

How would this not be a major threat? As opposed to bot farms on FB/Twitter
controlled by foreign actors?

~~~
DuskStar
> How would this not be a major threat? As opposed to bot farms on FB/Twitter
> controlled by foreign actors?

Bot farms are symmetrical - you can use them to support Democrats or
Republicans.

TikTok is asymmetrical - it can be used _by the owner_ to support one side or
the other, but users of the platform have no influence on this.

~~~
jovial_cavalier
FB and Twitter aren't owned by someone?

Also, if bot farms can sway elections I would either want them to be pliable
to more than just Democrats and Republicans.

~~~
DuskStar
Facebook and Twitter are both owned by someone, but the primary driver of what
content you see is your social graph, not their magical algorithms. (though
this is decreasing with both)

With TikTok, the primary determinant of what you see in your feed is what they
choose to show you - and it could be from anyone in the world, with any degree
of separation from you.

------
ridaj
> the US move against TikTok is setting a dangerous precedent that may
> eventually kill the internet as a truly global network

Well no. For many years now, the internet is no longer a truly global network,
considering at least how China has been treating foreign-owned properties
(Great Firewall).

If you wanted to make a point in favor of a global internet, I guess you could
suggest that the US should take the high road and reap the benefits of
openness and competition, rather than get down to mudslinging Chinese foreign
investors. Not that we should preserve something that in reality has been gone
for over a decade now.

------
krn
There is a reason, why India banned not only TikTok, but 58 other apps of
Chinese companies, after at least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a clash
with Chinese forces this year. It's called _national security_.

Russia's Yandex, Mail.ru, and VKontakte have been banned in Ukraine since 2017
for the same reason[1]:

> Russia also continues to hack into individual cellphones, with Ukrainian
> Colonel Ivan Pavlenko saying that the Russians had gotten into his phone at
> least twice in 2018. He also confirmed that Russia has used its ability to
> tap into cellular networks to send SMS text messages to Ukranian troops.

> These are tactics that the Kremlin has also reportedly used against NATO
> countries, including the United States, and allows Russia's intelligence
> services to both scrape potentially useful personal information and possibly
> insert disinformation onto these devices. The texts can also be
> psychological warfare tools, with past reports that some were purely
> insulting or threatening. Using hacked personal information, those threats
> could include very distressing ones directed at family members or
> significant others.

I believe, that the Internet of the 2020s cannot be compared to the Internet
of the 1980s. It has become a business platform, and any country has the right
to ban a foreign company from operating in its territory.

Especially so, if that company is based in a foreign state that is not
considered trustworthy. And trust is based on mutually shared values: which
the US and China have almost none.

At least to the Communist Party of China this has been clear for decades.

[1] [https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/30741/ukrainian-
office...](https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/30741/ukrainian-officer-
details-russian-electronic-warfare-tactics-including-radio-virus)

~~~
Barrin92
> It's called national security.

it's called retaliation. Can you explain to me how a social media platform
mostly used by teenagers relates to military clashes on a contested border?

And Ukraine isn't exactly the best example. The country is a political and
economic basketcase with a lower per capita income than Iraq, and one of the
reasons is that for eons terrible policy making has been justified by vaguely
pointing at Russia.

You really can't just say the words 'national security' like some magical
incantation. There better be an actual evidence-backed reason for clamping
down on economic activity. Especially if the group you're clamping down on
actually is one of your biggest trading partners, which happens to be the case
for both US-China and Ukraine-Russia.

~~~
krn
> it's called retaliation. Can you explain to me how a social media platform
> mostly used by teenagers relates to military clashes on a contested border?

That's bullshit. The US and India are not the only countries that are
concerned about the TikTok's data collection practices. The investigations
have also been launched by the governments of Australia, Japan, Turkey,
Indonesia, Pakistan, and the EU[1].

> You really can't just say the words 'national security' like some magical
> incantation. There better be an actual evidence-backed reason for clamping
> down on economic activity. Especially if the group you're clamping down on
> actually is one of your biggest trading partners, which happens to be the
> case for both US-China and Ukraine-Russia.

Here you go[2]:

> Russia’s intervention in Ukraine expanded beyond geography and into social
> networks last year, when Moscow officials tried to collect personal data on
> Ukrainians who joined social media groups protesting the country’s pro-
> Russian former president.

> Pavel Durov, founder and chief executive officer of Russia’s largest social
> media website, VKontakte, claims he refused a demand by the Federal Security
> Service—the KGB’s successor agency—to turn over details on members of 39
> protest groups with VKontakte pages.

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/08/03/its-not-
just...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/08/03/its-not-just-united-
states-these-governments-see-tiktok-growing-problem/)

[2] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-17/the-
kreml...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-17/the-kremlin-
tried-to-use-vkontakte-russia-s-facebook-to-spy-on-ukrainians)

------
chenzhekl
I would like to say that Uber was not forced to sell its Chinese business to
the local corporation. At that time, Uber's throwing tons of money to compete
with Didi and Kuaidi. No one knew when that would come to an end. That's why
Uber exited the Chinese market.

[https://ig.ft.com/sites/uber-in-china/](https://ig.ft.com/sites/uber-in-
china/)

~~~
eddieplan9
That is what they want you to believe, as everything in China must look
reasonable. Google left because it decided censoring according to law was too
much for them. Really? They suddenly got tired of censoring after doing it for
years? Or is it [1]?

The timing of Uber leaving China - Aug 2016 - coincided suspiciously with the
Chinese government legalizing ridesharing - announced in July 2016 to kick in
November 2016. Isn’t that interesting? Per HBR:

> Under the new regulations, the data collected by Uber would come under the
> purview of the government. There would be no more subsidies. Market prices
> would prevail, the regulations state, “except when municipal government
> officials believe it is necessary to implement government-guided pricing.”
> According to Xinhua, ride-hailing companies would be urged to merge with
> taxi companies. (Many of those also happen to be owned by the local
> governments.) Uber would have to get both provincial and national regulatory
> approval for its activities anywhere in China. Online and offline services
> would be regulated separately.

> Moreover, foreign companies like Uber would be subject to even more
> regulation than their competitors.

This has always been the MO of Chinese government: blackmail though selective
enforcement of broad-stroke laws. They tell you to leave without having to
mouth it.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora)
[2] [https://hbr.org/2016/08/the-real-reason-uber-is-giving-up-
in...](https://hbr.org/2016/08/the-real-reason-uber-is-giving-up-in-china)

~~~
beaunative
Didi has always been the target of local law enforcement to this day because
local government collect taxes from taxi but not with Didi, as Didi pays tax
to the city it's registered in. This shouldn't affects the national government
because it collects taxes either way. This is similar to the issue with online
sales tax.

------
throwawayiionqz
Can't wait the EU force FANNG to sell their EU activities to native EU firms

~~~
catalogia
I'm sensing some sarcasm, but would this not earnestly be a good development
for everybody except current FANNG shareholders? Bringing internet firms
operating in the EU into a position where they could be more effectively
regulated by the EU seems like it would be a huge win for the EU.

~~~
throwawayiionqz
National security. Why would the EU let some foreign country have access to
all their citizens' private and work email, social media profiles and
e-commerce purchases? Especially when it has been proved that that country's
intelligence agencies have access to all of FANNG's data on EU citizens
through various intelligence programs.

~~~
cblconfederate
National security of EU countries is provided by NATO, though. Few EU
countries spend a lot on defense.

~~~
pjc50
I think the wider point is that national security is not just about guns, it
can also be about media ownership, social media platforms, and electoral laws
about communications and funding.

~~~
cblconfederate
if a government can't effectively physically protect their citizens, then they
have no rightful sovereignity over their data

------
mikece
1\. TikTok busted for reading the contents of users' clipboard[1]

2\. Microsoft and the NSA have had a very cozy relationship for a long time

3\. Microsoft is bidding to buy TikTok's US operations.

Yeah, I must be crazy to think something SIGINT-wise is afoot.

[1]Didn't the LinkedIn app also get busted for reading the content of the
clipboard on iOS?

~~~
gruez
>Yeah, I must be crazy to think something SIGINT-wise is afoot.

How is it useful to the NSA? I get how tiktok would be useful for propaganda
purposes, but it doesn't seem useful for actual intelligence gathering. Are
terrorists going to upload short video clips of themselves planning a bombing?
Do criminals do their business transactions over tiktok?

------
diego_moita
> Soon, every big country is likely to use “national security” as a pretext to
> fracture international tech companies. And ironically, it’s the US companies
> like Facebook or Google that are likely to lose the most from the fallout.

He is 200% right: this isn't an isolated event, it is the end of an era.

There was a time, starting in the Clinton administration when conservatives
and liberals all over the world wanted open borders markets (with lots of
trade agreements and China entering the WTO), democracy (in Latin America,
Eastern Europe and Asia), migrants and open internet across borders.

Then, little by little people soured on all of that openness and
globalization. Now many of the places that sought democracy are returning to
authoritarian rulers (e.g: Hungary, Turkey, Russia, Brazil, China).
Protectionism and closed borders are on the rise (Trump's wall, tariffs and
withdraw from Trans Pacific Partnership, Brexit, EU crackdown on immigrants
and staled new trade deals).

Tech will be the next victim. All over the world governments will begin
restricting foreign companies, for economic, ethical, military or
authoritarian reasons. China, Russia, Turkey and Iran always did it. Now the
EU is getting sour on Google, Apple and Amazon. Trump is in full war against
Huawei and now takes on TikTok.

Businesses will need to find ways to navigate these hostilities. Those that
aren't cautious will pay an heavy price.

How do businesses handle that? I see two ways. Microsoft and IBM are two
veterans on navigating regulations. Their secret has been a careful mix of
compliance and heavy and expensive lobbying. Google seems to be learning this
lesson. It seems to work. Huawei will need to learn it with them.

Another way would be to make tech that is immune to regulation either by
design (Bitcoin, Signal) or by it's scale and how deeply is supported by local
communities (WhatsApp). I don't believe this is effective in the long run.
China, Russia and Turkey have shown that they can simply block these
technologies when they become a nuisance.

~~~
dirtyid
Last 12 months:

Wielding entity list against Huawei, IC industry talking about
"deamericanizing", Barr lowkey suggesting getting US company to acquire
controlling share in SE or Nokia to compete in 5G (Cisco said no), TSMC
coerced into US plant, Google + Apple controlling contact tracing standards
during a pandemic while rebuffing nation state request for more fine grain
collection, an now forced sale of TikTok. Nvidia / ARM purchase in conjunction
with reshoring IC production and containing Chinese IC industry smells like
Barr too. Every line that could have been crossed has already been crossed. US
done everything it accused China would do, which China has yet to. Even prior,
many countries were moving towards data sovereignty and local warehousing
laws. Not

------
tekkk
Now that is a very well thought-out post about the whole ordeal. I don't know
why, but from what I've read here and in other sites, people tend to veer off
to the extremes when discussing anything these days. This issue being no
exception. So it's good to read something that does not attempt to play with
your emotions or treat things as black and white.

But yeah, the situation is sad to say at least. I wholly understand US
blocking Chinese social media company to reciprocate how China (and others)
have done in their markets. Yet the current US administration has not
necessarily framed it in such light, rather just claimed ambiguous spying
claims which are a bit of blanket statement.

Is it actually the case here or is it just a distraction or a negotiation
tactic, hard to say. Certainly democratic countries should not stand idle when
authoritarian governments attempt to extend their influence and spying
capabilities especially within their own borders, even when it happens
indirectly through companies. Sometimes playing nice and keeping status quo
won't get you anywhere. But in this case the play seems rather dirty coming
from a nation as devout of a believer in the free trade as US.

I guess at the core of this whole matter, is the imbalance in how the profits
from internet, possibly the greatest invention since electricity and
combustion engine, are distributed to the world. The way it's happening now
shares some similarities to the imperialism age, where there were those who
only produced goods (now consumers of internet services) to the richer
countries without getting much in return. Similarly Google and Facebook might
control the whole search and social media market in a country with local
competitors having no chance of competing, without paying any taxes on the
profits or contributing employment.

So by not wanting to become just another colony of the foreign technology
companies, I guess authoritarian government can exploit that to legitimize
their banning of Google and Facebook to help establish their own. But which in
reality serves a bigger purpose as part of their security apparatus to spy and
censorship their own people.

Of course I'm now completely omitting the angle that Google and Facebook could
also be considered as part of US's spying apparatus, but I'll assume some good
will here.

------
helios_invictus
Did the USG force TikTok to sell to a US based company? Or did TikTok choose
to sell under pressure? I know it's a matter of degree's here, but TikTok
still has a very real choice. While the executive ban would have forced TikTok
out of the US market, how effective would that have actually been? What if
TikTok had just called the bluff on the executive ban?

~~~
ab_testing
The problem with calling a bluff is that if that bluff comes true, your
valuation just plummets from $30-50B to zero in an instant.

------
juskrey
Note this is the second paranoid Durov's message in a week (first was a pretty
PR-ish rant about Apple store fees and in-app purchases a week ago - looks
like this prevents him from launching of some grey token project). If
anything, this tells much more about the financial state of Telegram.

~~~
beaunative
I don't recall Telegram ever shows signs to become a profitable company.

~~~
juskrey
But he still takes VC money from 3rd parties of quite the opposite views. Why?
Durov is a cheap liar, running out of funds, period.

Pity, Telegram was so usable app.

------
cblconfederate
The fragmentation of the internet will lead to separate technology stacks
instead of the monolithic "vertical integration" of a handful of US companies
that we have nowadays, and will be a good thing for overall technological
innovation. Of course it will come with a lot of conflicts.

------
plehoux
> If you want to access the markets of other countries, you should also open
> your market to them – that would be fair.

I don't understand the relation from ^ with the rest of his take.

He is saying the US should ban Tik Tok instead of forcing a sale of the US
operation to a US company?

~~~
rhaps0dy
I think he is saying the US should just let TikTok be, because the Internet
should be open to all.

------
edouard-harris
I believe the focus on US precedent-setting here is a bit misplaced: India was
in fact the first non-authoritarian regime to ban TikTok, and this set a
precedent which may have influenced the US's own decision.

------
badrabbit
This isn't about free trade, tiktok is seen as an arm of a hostile foreign
government. The ban wouldn't have taken place if tiktok was based in Japan for
example.

------
nine_zeros
When such godfather-like extortion becomes part of the federal government,
that country soon becomes untouchable for business.

~~~
gruez
So just like China right? Trade policies is one of the few places where eye-
for-an-eye retaliation makes sense.

~~~
nine_zeros
Yes just like China whose apps are getting banned all around the world. US has
more to lose though if Amazon, FB start getting banned because of extortion
laws.

~~~
gruez
>US has more to lose though if Amazon, FB start getting banned because of
extortion laws.

That's probably not going to be an issue unless US starts banning apps for no
apparent reason (eg. forcing spotify to sell their American operations). For
now the administration (regardless of their actual motives) can plausibly say
that it was done in retaliation, which makes it look more acceptable to third
parties.

~~~
nine_zeros
Banning might be fair. But extortion? Come on. That is mafia level.

If you owned a coffee chain across the country and some counties police took
extortion money to "protect" your assets or forced you to "sell" your
operations to local goons, would any other business observing this ever open
more businesses in those mafioso counties?

~~~
gruez
Clearly they would if there's money to be made, as we've seen in China.

------
j45
I wonder if this acqusisition explicitly would remove the monitoring in
TikTok, or simply migrate it into Microsoft hands?

------
squarefoot
TikTok sale has nothing to do with economics, it's all about internal
politics, not even foreign. TikTok hosts many groups hostile to Trump that
were successful at ruining his rally in Tulsa, and could have some more tricks
in their arsenal with elections in sight, so he desperately needs to take
control of the platform and the users, and the only way to do that is for a US
company to acquire it. Before elections of course. It's a win-win scenario for
both Microsoft and Trump: Microsoft gets a big user base and Trump their
personal data.

------
Barrin92
Durov is right but what's even more hilarious was Trump's mention of 'key
money' yesterday, implying that the US government is supposed to collect a
sort of finders fee after the US government forces tiktok to sell their
operations to another private company.

Not only is that ridiculous on its face because it's the government that's
forcing the sale in the first place, it's also a fairly shady real estate
practise, so we know where he got the idea. Imagine thinking ten years ago
that the US government would force a private company to sell all their assets
and then pay the government for that 'privilege'.

~~~
est31
Trump's threat to ban TikTok is likely decreasing the sale price as the sale
is forced. Who should benefit from that decrease? The US government which made
the decrease possible? Or the Microsoft shareholders?

Also note that Trump is a TV personality, he wants to look like he's running
the US like a business like he promised on the campaign trail. So he's making
a lot of noise about the key money thing. He could just have done it silently
but he wants people to admire how tough he is, and reelect him.

~~~
Barrin92
>. Who should benefit from that decrease?

Nobody obviously because if the government gets a monetary incentive to ban
foreign companies and sell them to the US government you encourage the
government to act like some sort of mafia landlord, destroying the rule of
law.

That I'm being downvoted for this simply fact shows how far gone people even
here are, Jesus Christ.

------
bg24
Companies in this new era have the potential to get to the largest top 10 in
10 years. They can influence the world's economy. And displace lots of old
laggards (20+ years and not innovating is old).

I am absolutely supportive of all actions taken to promote US companies,
particularly against countries (including China) who have taken repeated
drastic steps to promote home grown companies.

I have issues on how it is being handled by President Trump.

------
cblconfederate
"free trade and free speech" post-communism were about US trade and speech, of
which the US had more than plenty to export. A multipolar world forces both
parties to take off their masks and be more honest.

------
golemotron
This seems like a bit of tech myopia. Forced divestures happen all across the
world and in many other economic sectors.

------
throwaway194702
The comments here would be funny if they weren't so sad. So much thinly veiled
nationalist glee about finally doing something "against China".

It's like the run up to the Iraq war all over again.

Seriously, people, you can't justify something by pointing out how other
people have also done something wrong. You can't justify something by positing
a principle that never existed before.

This whole story sounds like out of some dystopian bizarro fiction novel. So
lip syncing teen girls are a national security risk now? What are you going to
do when something _real_ happens then?

~~~
plehoux
The risk here, if I'm not mistaken, is far from being teens lip syncing, it's
the ability for a foreign actor to control the algorithm of what Tik Tok users
end up seeing in their feed days after days.

This could potentially be used to stir the political discourse of a country
towards one outcome or create unrest by putting groups of citizen against each
others, etc. All done by controlling what users see.

~~~
throwaway194702
I understand that, and that's exactly what I meant to call out in an
admittedly slightly polemic way.

This is the argument for banning Hollywood movies in every country that isn't
the US, because it gives "illegitimate influence to foreign actors" or
something along these lines.

It's completely antithetical to Western values.

~~~
throwaway194702
The downvotes without counterargument are frankly chilling given what I'm
saying. But I _am_ actually interested in dialog, so let me expand a little:

American (online or not) media, advertising and tech companies have been
vastly successful all over the world, and that has - rightfully, to a large
degree - been attributed to the quality of their products.

Now there's a successful tech company from China, and you're saying that means
they must be banned or expropriated because they could influence public
opinion? That's peak hypocrisy.

Yes, China has done similar things. But that's an unfree, communist country!
Stooping to their lows makes you wrong, not right.

The other comments here pointing to how the EU could act similarly towards
FAANG or Tesla are spot on. It definitely _shouldn 't_ in my opinion, but if
it did I guarantee you you'd hear the same gleeful "good for you" rhetoric
from this side of the Atlantic.

It would make a few people feel all fuzzy and energized for a while, but in
the long term it would simply destroy the free, open exchange of goods, people
and ideas that has done so much for us and that's dear to so many of us.
Thankfully, EU leaders aren't (yet) that unwise apparently.

~~~
logicchains
What do you expect from a predominantly American website? Most humans have a
hard time putting their values ahead of their in-group loyalties. Just look at
the immigration debates here, where people who profess to oppose
discrimination against people based on circumstances of their birth like race
and sexuality are happy to discriminate based on people's country of birth.

