
Trump gives nod to Oracle buyout of TikTok in US - reddotX
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53830533
======
mdtancsa
... When I think "youth market monetization", no one knows "the kids" like
Oracle does....Its fresh.

~~~
hoistbypetard
Your comment made me chuckle as I pictured Larry Ellison with his MAGA hat
turned backwards, a "Music Band" shirt, and a skateboard slung over his
shoulder saying "How do you do, fellow kids?" on a TikTok video.

~~~
quickthrowman
You’ve made the common mistake of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison, there’s no
need for that here, this is a safe space :)

~~~
jjeaff
Oh, of course Larry is a human. And a young one at that. Just look at how
tight his face is. That's how you know how young a human person is... the
tightness of their face skin. Just like the tight faces of other youthful
humans.

------
the_duke
Apart from all the political discussions, I have no idea how the buyer is
supposed to buy out just some regional markets.

Would development still be done by the original company, and the new owner
just operates regional data centers? But without inter-connectivity? Without
being able to influence development, or offer access to the developers for
debugging and ops? Seems exceedingly unlikely.

Otherwise, do they get a code dump of a huge, complex code base, and are
supposed to continue development on their own? With the original TikTok still
operating in other parts of the world, and slowly diverging? I can't see that
happening either.

Would they buy the brand name too, and the rest of the world would start using
a different name?

That all seems pointless. The only thing that makes sense to me is taking over
globally.

~~~
vasco
They're literally different apps with different names, user bases that don't
interact with each other.

~~~
kube-system
Yes, in China, it's a different app, called Douyin. (This is probably why the
icon looks like a letter 'd'.) ByteDance says they're operationally separate
from TikTok as of 2019.

[https://apps.apple.com/cn/app/%E6%8A%96%E9%9F%B3%E7%9F%AD%E8...](https://apps.apple.com/cn/app/%E6%8A%96%E9%9F%B3%E7%9F%AD%E8%A7%86%E9%A2%91/id1142110895?l=zh&ls=1)

[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/27/tiktok-moves-to-separate-
app...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/27/tiktok-moves-to-separate-app-from-
chinese-operations-amid-us-probe.html)

------
greatpatton
The huge hypocrisies here is that the sell must be done to a US company, not a
European or an Indian one for instance but specifically a US one. I think
that's a good lesson for the rest of the world, and a big warning.

Btw I think that following this and the Huawei little war, Apple is about to
suffer from it. It's very probable that the Apple store will be forbidden in
China. This will destroy Apple in China (impacting 18% Apple revenue), and it
will at the same time preserve the image of China as the factory of the world.
This is just the beginning of a long war.

~~~
nine_zeros
Exactly this. The ban itself was fine. But to force sale of assets to a US
company (which reduces bidding prices significantly) is just corrupt thuggish
politics. At this point, a third country should be wary of doing any business
in the US.

~~~
asdfthvaa2
What? its not worse than a ban, its so not worse that ByteDance could simply
not sell its US operations and stop being present in the US, making it just
like a ban. A ban would leave no option.

This is pretty much what China does, but for every service.

~~~
nine_zeros
> This is pretty much what China does, but for every service.

Since when did we aspire to become more like China?

> its not worse than a ban, its so not worse that ByteDance could simply not
> sell its US operations and stop being present in the US, making it just like
> a ban

The difference is, why should a US entity own this asset for it to have
operations in the US? Why can't it be a EU entity or Australian entity or
Canadian entity or Ugandan entity?

Does this mean that US government is going to erratically force foreign
businesses to sell US assets when they want?

The equivalent of this would be EU asking Apple to sell all EU operations to
Nokia or whatever to be able to operate in that market. Does this sound
business friendly?

------
gruez
First it was getting Kodak to manufacture pharmaceutical chemicals. Now it's
getting Oracle to buy tiktok. Is there a reason behind these baffling choices
by the current administration? Why are they giving sweetheart deals to
dinosaur companies? Is there some insider trading angle? Did those companies
have better lobbyists?

~~~
ethagknight
It’s certainly fair to consider nefarious reasons, but it’s also important to
consider less interesting reasons, like Kodak already (historically) dealing
heavily with chemical production and Oracle making a bid to pivot and stay
relevant. Who else might want to pay the most for TikTok US? From FAANG, only
Facebook seems like a fit but Facebook won’t pay “market” rate for TikTok
because they already have Reels, Microsoft and AANG don’t seem like fits.
Outside of those, it’s some private equity group but they would need to spin
up an operation around actually running and developing TikTok, that’s
complicated.

Or it could all just be sweetheart deals.

~~~
emteycz
How is Oracle a better fit than Microsoft? At least Microsoft deals with
customers and not only businesses.

~~~
wtf_is_up
MSFT has business interests in China and ORCL doesn't.

------
soapdog
Many here don't get the big picture. This acquisition makes total sense for
Oracle. They'll be able to milk those influencers by charging TikTokers by how
many cores they have on their phones and video audience size. </s>

~~~
KnobbleMcKnees
And here I was thinking that they'd immediately shelve it, and then spend
their time litigating against influencers and copycat platforms.

------
qalmakka
Among all the feasible buyers, Oracle feels like the worst possible one. They
are basically the real life version of Mr. Robot's Evil Corp, and they have a
very bad record when it comes to acquisitions.

~~~
MrBuddyCasino
Yes. I hope they acquire TikTok.

~~~
XaspR8d
I don't understand the hate for TikTok I frequently see on HN. Is it just
ordinary ageism/curmudgeonliness?

I'm not in its core audience myself, but it seems to me to be a very smartly
put together app, both in its core features (practically the only video
remixing/editing app for mobile that retains tolerable levels of both
accessibility and expressiveness) and in its platform (particularly the
recommendation engine which seems to drive pretty solid engagement).

~~~
krspykrm
It's cognitive dissonance. America is supposed to be the good guys, but on
American social media everyone is toxic and hates each other and it's all full
of political and corporate AstroTurfing; China is supposed to be the bad guys,
but on TikTok everyone's happy and enjoying themselves and the content is
organic and largely apolitical.

The easiest way to get rid of the cognitive dissonance is not to fix US social
media, but to get rid of TikTok.

~~~
lenkite
That's because TikTok does pretty heavy 'auditing' \- the content is NOT
organic at all. Only the good-looking people and the happy videos go to the
top. The others go to the bottom or are 'disappeared'

~~~
smallchungus
Congrats you just described society.

~~~
lenkite
This has little to do with "society". Its policy.

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-
how-tiktok-censors-videos-that-do-not-please-beijing)

[https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-
us...](https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-users-
discrimination/)

[https://www.businessinsider.com/internal-guidelines-show-
tik...](https://www.businessinsider.com/internal-guidelines-show-tiktok-
censors-videos-that-would-anger-china-2019-9)

~~~
smallchungus
And the policy was written by........?

------
1vuio0pswjnm7
"According to those reports, Oracle was seriously considering buying TikTok's
businesses in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand with investment firms,
including General Atlantic and Sequoia Capital."

That's only 4 out of the "5 eyes".

~~~
TMWNN
The US is 10% of TikTok's user base but 50% of revenue. Most of TikTok's most-
followed users are American ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-
followed_TikTok_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-
followed_TikTok_accounts)). Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are probably
another 5% of revenue. The UK may be not included because TikTok has stated
that it wants to establish its global headquarters there.

There has been talk that Microsoft is interested in buying all of TikTok
worldwide (TikTok isn't available in China; ByteDance has a separate, similar
business there), which would be easier technically because TikTok's operations
and algorithms would not need to be divided. India was TikTok's largest
userbase until the recent ban; presumably a non Chinese-owned TikTok could
quickly reopen there.

~~~
mcintyre1994
Does TikTok actually make any revenue itself yet? I know its top users are
making millions from advertising stuff, but they don't seem to have any ads in
the platform itself yet?

~~~
mprovost
Yes they insert ads into your feed the same as IG or FB.

~~~
pottertheotter
Really? I see them on FB/Instagram, but I've never seen one on TikTok.

~~~
capableweb
Did you just starting to use TikTok? Many platforms show less ads to new
users, in order to not scare them away and it's not until you've used it for a
longer period of time that they ramp up how many ads you're seeing. Also
different profiles gets different amount of ads.

------
erulabs
Sort of hard to imagine a more ham-fisted owner for something as cool as
TikTok. If IBM or GE bought them it wouldn’t make less sense.

~~~
therouwboat
Why is tiktok cool? Or more cool than vine or imgur.

~~~
DanBC
Vine doesn't exist. Imgur has a mildly toxic community and a load of porn.

~~~
UncleOxidant
I think the implication of the question was why did TikTok become "cool" when
vine didn't? They're essentially very similar.

~~~
DanBC
Vine was cool, when it existed, and there are many vine videos which got
uploaded to YouTube, and there are many Vine compilations on YT with millions
of views.

------
StavrosK
I don't understand how the US can force a Chinese company to sell itself, can
someone explain?

~~~
waihtis
The equation is a bit similar to the one played out in the movie "Goodfellas".

You have two mobsters, the good mobster and the bad mobster, and a business.
The bad mobster actively harasses the business in multiple ways, prompting the
business to seek protection from the good mobster in exchange for buying into
the business.

Of course, both the good mobster and the bad mobster are in the same mob, and
benefit from the revenue stream from the newly acquired stake in business.

~~~
ngcc_hk
Tell that to wechat and Whatsapp ... the ccp is the bad guy.

~~~
waihtis
Its not meant to be a commentary on whos good and bad on some objective scale,
just an anecdote on the effects in play

------
bsharitt
This doesn't make any sense, there's no Ask.com toolbar for Oracle to bundle
on phones.

~~~
dathinab
I heard Oracle is deep into really shitty kinds of user tracking/spying.

So I think they hope to get two things out of it:

\- Good PR with the next generation (they lost most/all? good PR with my
generation as far as I can tell).

\- A lot of data about young users.

~~~
encom
>I heard Oracle is deep into really shitty kinds of user tracking/spying.

Absolutely not defending Oracle, but who __isn 't __into shitty user tracking
and spying? It 's a central part of most business models, because they give
the service away for free.

~~~
dathinab
I mean like more bad then what you normally get.

Like using gray legal area devices to track you in the real world even if you
never signed any agb. Like tracking Bluetooth IDs in and around shopping
center, like tracking the anti theft/processing pipeline RFID ships which
might still be left in your closes, like adding spyware to apps which listens
to ultrasonic sound bakons in the background and then phones home. Like using
face recognition on security cameras in shops but potentially also in the
streets around them.

I.e. all the kinds a questionable tracking which many people aren't aware of
at all (as far as I can tell).

And Oracle seems to be big into bringing all this tracking sources and data
from Google/Facebook/etc. and data they can get from other sources (e.g.
finance institutes) together and automatically analyze it to create profiles
about everyone.

Through only as far as I remember, it's a while back that I read about that. I
somewhat hope that I'm misremembering tbh. Would be a nicer world.

------
mothsonasloth
This will be hilarious if it happens.

TikTok is terrible, Oracle is terrible.

At least it will increase the statistic on "3 Billion Devices Run Oracle Java"

------
PedroBatista
This looks like yet another Petrodollar merry-go-round look-alike.

US TikTok is the price to pay for that sweet long term government contracts.

------
Mindwipe
TikTok feels a completely bizarre purchase for Oracle. Especially when
abandoning the UK market.

They have no synergy, no experience, no moderation infrastructure, nothing. Do
they want to be Yahoo?

Literally the only justification I can think of is that they want to keep the
current administration happy and see this as a quasi-bribe, in the hope of
getting more work in future from them in things they actually do. But that
seems crazy given the likelihood (on the basis of polling, not making any
judgements on whys or wherefores) that the administration will be gone in
three months.

------
swiley
I can’t be alone in being more creeped out by Oracle than bytedance. So we’re
giving a pathological collector of software control over a huge group of
easily manipulated teenagers? Yikes!

~~~
lovehashbrowns
Does anyone know if tiktok has any patents or potential patents that oracle
can leverage? That's even more scary to me.

------
VoxPelli
As a Swede it feels so weird to read about eg. Trump meddling in such details
in affairs like this.

In Sweden ministerial rule is outlawed:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministerial_governance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministerial_governance)

Our prime minister would not be allowed to have an opinion on any specific
case like this, he would rather have to have opinions on the overall legal
framework or such instead and leave the interpretation and application of the
legal framework to the appropriate agencies.

To me that feels like the right way to go about things like this.

~~~
donavanm
I believe youre seeing an artifact of how governance is divided. It looks like
sweden (and many other parliamentary systems) puts the administration &
execution of law under the direction of a minister, who’s primarily a
legislator.

In the USA these areas are more clearly divided. The federal legislature is
comprised of a bicameral house and senate. There is a discrete executive
branch charged with enforcing the law set by the legislature. The president is
the head of that executive branch who enforces those laws. Thats where the
aspect of specific enforcement by the president comes in.

~~~
VoxPelli
That separation exists in Sweden as well. The parliament makes the laws while
the government is the executive branch.

But yeah, slightly different as its our prime minister who sets up the
government, the parliament who picks the prime minister and the people who
elects the parliament – through proportional representation.

The ban on ministerial rule is an additional separation on top of the one you
mention – a separation within the executive branch, that even further avoids
opportunities for eg. corruption. (And confuses foreign leaders who are
unfamiliar with it)

------
xyst
One

Rich

Asshole

Called

Larry

Ellison

Among the many reasons I still turn down any Oracle offer is because of their
CEO.

~~~
almost_usual
So you also refuse to own a Tesla?

~~~
rsynnott
Honestly, not that I'd be in the market for one anyway, but the extreme
bonkers-ness of the CEO is one thing that would put me off if I was.

~~~
elkos
If I recollect correctly, Ellison is in the board of Tesla too.

------
Taylor_OD
Can someone explain this potential acquisition for me? I cant think of a
company more unlikely to acquire TikTok than Oracle. What business need could
they fill for Oracle? Is this an effort to get into social media/massive data
collection in a big way? Have they tried to acquire other social apps in the
past?

I just don't get it.

~~~
XaspR8d
Up next: DuPont acquires Discord, ExxonMobil acquires Bumble, McKesson
acquires Niantic/Pokemon Go...

------
yalogin
This is shrewd of Ellison to do this. He knows he is the edge as he is a trump
supporter. However it’s a terrible idea for tiktok to sell to oracle, a
dinosaur that has no idea how to deal with consumer tech. I still don’t know
why these companies want tiktok in the first place. It will be a nightmare to
disconnect them from China and even then all the Chinese employees who dreamed
up the tech are not coming, what’s the point?

Also I suspect this is just election pandering from trump. Initially he gave a
45 day “chance” for companies to find a buyer and then extended it by another
45 days. That takes it close to the election or past that date. At that point
he doesn’t care and can push it under the rug just like the other “harsh
stances “ against China.

~~~
throwaway5752
This really isn't that shrewd. The outcomes are either 1) to drive up MSFT's
TikTok acquisition price 2) to disrupt the sale process and harm or destroy
TikTok 3) to ingratiate themselves with the current president or 4) the gambit
is sincere and they successfully acquire them.

None of those address Oracle's core challenges which that they are getting
hollowed out by competition in their core database market, are being
outcompeted by Workday and SFDC in CRM and ERP verticals, and one just has to
look at the comments here to see how they are perceived in the market. This
may be temporarily gratifying, but is ultimate a distraction for them when
they should not be distracting themselves.

------
ivolimmen
Oracle : "it seems you have installed TikTok. Pay up or we will sue".

------
ReplicaGrove
Oracle or their data collection subsidiary BlueKai? Strongly surprised no one
mentioning them. Sounds like a perfect fit!

------
Traster
What happened to Microsoft? Surely if the US really wanted a fast sale then
turning it into a bidding war is a stupid move?

------
tibbydudeza
ByteDance and their investors are going to get a nice cash infusion on their
way to world domination outside the US and Oracle will promptly kill it like
they did Sun.

US Zoomers will move to the next big thing.

------
ivanstojic
When I was working in Oracle, there was a running gag that there were more
full time attorneys employed by the company, than there were engineers.

Maybe that is what you need to run a business like that?

------
spcebar
The world has turned into a parody of itself.

------
aussiegreenie
Of all the reasons not to use TikTok Oracles proposed ownership has to very
high in the list.

All the kewl kids use Oracle.....

------
nonamenoslogan
So soon enough, we'll see the TikTok logo on the back of a Facebook sign?
Sniff...

------
Just1689
All Tik-Tok ers will now receive pre-sales training for Oracle Cloud

------
gentleman11
Public corporations are inherently immoral manipulators. We shouldn’t trust
any of them with massive access to the nations “youth.” At least private
companies have a chance of _maybe_ having a founder with a heart who will turn
down a sketchy way to make money

------
kohlerm
How would fit TikTok into Oracles portfolio?

~~~
OldHand2018
As a use-case demonstration for Oracle Cloud?

------
bitwize
Good. They deserve each other.

------
suyash
Great news, can't wait for Oracle to buy TikTok!

------
floatinglotus
In my wildest dreams I could not create a stupider headline.

I guess the idea here is that Oracle destroys everything they buy, Trump hates
Sarah Cooper, so he approves of this deal.

------
nocoder
Aren't the countries banning TikTok becoming more like China by doing this?
Plus Trump comments about US gov needs to get money from this sale sounds like
plain bribe.

I have not seen a convincing proof that TikTok is more of a national security
threat versus FB or Twitter. What am I missing? I am also more suspicious
because along with TikTok, Wechat was banned while other investments in US by
Tencent where not touched supposedly because it would impact American
companies. Wechat is definitely insignificant to be a security threat.

~~~
kube-system
> I have not seen a convincing proof that TikTok is more of a national
> security threat versus FB or Twitter.

Don't make the mistake of confusing national security and privacy. FB and
Twitter's operations answer primarily to US law.

------
knolax
TikTok should just let the US government ban them. Teenagers can figure out
how to VPN to Mexico and it's better PR for TikTok. "So good the government
won't let you use it" is better optics than "TikTok, now owned by some Boomer
company". As a hip youngster myself, just the name Oracle makes me think of
beige and grey Windows Vista era software and shitty enterprise software.

~~~
kalleboo
The problem is that with a transaction ban, no US companies can buy ads on
TikTok, removing any financial point in running the service for US customers

~~~
JetSpiegel
Proving that TikTok is just a money-making enterprise, not a CCP tentacle
manipulating foreign elections. Otherwise they you just run it at a loss, like
Voice of America or RT.

------
hestefisk
Somehow it doesn’t surprise me Larry is a Trump supporter.

~~~
almost_usual
Would it surprise you he’s also a Tesla board member?

~~~
elkos
I guess he isn't the only Trump supporter in that hoard

