
Mark Zuckerberg Stoked Washington’s Fears About TikTok - ra7
https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-stoked-washingtons-fears-about-tiktok-11598223133
======
holografix
Reality is that while China blocks Facebook, Google, etc and smartly props up
their own clones, it’s “aghast” at the American protectionism and xenophobic
behaviour. How dare the Americans block a Chinese app?! China is not a
democracy. It’s not interested in fairness. China is playing the long game.
Just like the wars of the past were fought with little toy armies of a few
thousand knights and noblemen marching into each other’s countries until
someone decided to conscript their whole nation into battle, the West is
fighting allowing China to pilfer its technology, wreak the environment, and
compete with state backed organisations. Wanna compete with Huawei? Good luck
sending in your company noblemen, China is sending their whole nation behind
it.

~~~
Aperocky
There's a difference, facebook did not attempt to run its social media
business in China, and Google voluntarily quit so it doesn't have to comply to
censorship law. Meanwhile Tiktok has a US branch and is complying with laws in
the US.

China has a restrictive internet where if you want to operate, you have to
comply with a certain set of rules that are unsavory to say the least.
Facebook, Google decided to not bother instead of complying to those rules,
but they very well could have, Bing and Amazon is in China.

Tiktok's US branch did not violate any US law and its being prosecuted with
administrative action, which is why your equivalence is false - The actual
equivalence would be to make laws that enforces ownership for social media
companies and make them store their content in location. And enforce those
laws, like China did.

~~~
baby
I don't think you realize how impossible it is to enter the Chinese market...
Google wasted a ton of money trying to enter the US market (I recommend
watching this video
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XImsSgdr4fg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XImsSgdr4fg)),
and Facebook did too. Look at how it went for Uber.

If you want to give an example of a US company that is doing much better in
China, it's Apple, and the sole reason is that everybody who works for the
Chinese government owns an iPhone.

BTW I was living in China when Facebook got banned, it was in 2008 when it
started becoming popular outside of the US. Nobody saw it coming, and
obviously there was no way for Facebook to go back into that market once the
CCP decided against that.

~~~
Aperocky
There's probably a way, register facebook.cn and allow censors to censor
content, store everything in a data center somewhere in China, people has to
use ID to register, etc.

At which point it doesn't make much sense to operate in China.

This is also precisely why TikTok is not available in mainland China, because
it doesn't meet those standards.

~~~
baby
tiktok is available in mainland China, it's called douyin

------
Firebrand
Sort of a Frankenstein’s monster situation Zuckerberg created for himself. He
took Bytedance’s money so they could plaster TikTok ads all over Facebook and
Instagram back in 2018.

TikTok pays its approved creators around $0.035 per 1,000 views. Maybe compete
with that.

~~~
lazzlazzlazz
So a video with 100,000,000 views gets around $35,000? That seems low.

A few searches suggest YouTube pays at least an order of magnitude more,
depending on geo and engagement.

~~~
tjr225
I dunno, I was just doing this math and thinking that seems pretty awesome.

You only get $35,000 but the hardware you need is in your pocket.

Of course, you need to be cool and be good at marketing- but still!

~~~
throWaythxMod
I have this exact problem. In my niche, I am the best. Most people post their
opinions, but I collect data and do math. It makes the content better than
competitors.

However I don't have a marketing team, and I'm not a hip hot girl.

Don't get me wrong, the website is popular and I've been on BBC, but I can
tell my lower quality competitors are doing better.

~~~
mcphage
> However I don't have a marketing team, and I'm not a hip hot girl.

Why not hire a marketing team?

~~~
throWaythxMod
I tried 3 companies and they sucked, but I spent lots of money.

I think I don't have the cool factor.

------
chmaynard
Mark Zuckerberg knows that if another platform were sufficiently compelling,
his users could turn on a dime (notice I didn't say customers). Zuckerberg is
deathly afraid of competition and he is very aggressive about protecting
Facebook's stranglehold on the social media advertising market.

~~~
bjo590
> Zuckerberg is deathly afraid of competition and he is very aggressive about
> protecting Facebook's stranglehold on the social media advertising market.

It is incredibly common behavior for large businesses to raise the barrier of
entry for new competitors. Almost every established business does this. It's
why patents exist. Mark Zuckerberg doesn't participate in this activity to an
abnormal amount.

~~~
chmaynard
Anti-competitive behavior is a federal crime. These practices are common in
the USA because the Dept. of Justice has more or less stopped enforcing our
anti-trust laws. Patents have nothing to do with it.

------
kevin_thibedeau
I wouldn't be surprised they paid for PR to put the heat on Cambridge
Analytica. CA got burned bad for not breaking any US laws. FB got off mostly
scot-free. If you make the competition look bad you will look less bad.

~~~
lalos
Huh? CA worked with Palantir. Both Facebook and Palantir are connected via
board member Peter Thiel. They are in the same boat, no competition at all.

------
nimbius
Goosing elderly senators with another red scare sure was a convenient pivot
from having to defend his own social network.

------
babl-yc
Facebook is banned in China. Is it unreasonable to encourage US gvt to apply
pressure for a more even playing field?

I know the narrative (and majority of comments) like to hate on Zuck, so just
adding another perspective for this particular situation.

~~~
baby
I actually see this rhetoric a lot, and I'm not completely disagreeing with
it, but at the same time I'm scared of the effects of playing the same game
with the CCP and the ramifications of such move: it seems to always end up in
a "us versus them" scenario which further divides the world. If you see a few
people backing the US government's decision of attacking Chinese apps, imagine
how the Chinese people are being brainwashed to hate on the US gov for
attacking Chinese apps. IMO it is only with leading by example that we can
change the situation, and the situation will change when China gets wealthy
enough, and we shouldn't be scared of China becoming wealthy and joining our
ranks.

~~~
prh8
Is there benefit to setting an example that Chinese citizens would never see
anyways?

~~~
baby
believe me they see it, a couple years back you could ask Chinese people in
the street what they thought of Americans and a lot would answer that they
like the fact that they are more "free" and "open minded". There's a bunch of
videos like that on youtube [1][2]. Nowadays I don't think people would say
the same stuff[3].

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gqXLxCU-
fY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gqXLxCU-fY)

[2]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_E38TJpU6Q&t=451s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_E38TJpU6Q&t=451s)

[3]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOlu624glKw&t=432s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOlu624glKw&t=432s)

~~~
frequentnapper
it doesn't matter. chinese citizen opinion doesn't matter to the chinese govt.
Western companies lose by trying to play fair against the chinese companies.
This is all in accordance with game theory. By trying to be nice, we will be
wiped out. The only choice we have now is to fight dirty like them.

~~~
archibaldJ
You may be surprised to find out how much Chinese citizen opinions matter to
the Chinese Govt. State-sponsored censorship (like the one in RPC) exists to
meddle with public opinions. Denial of access to information is a mean, not an
end. Artificial consents are being manufactured via the media on both sides.
Just done differently, largely because one way is more cost-efficient and
cost-effective than the other in terms of the place’s GPD per capital.

$10,262 [65th in the world] vs $65,111 [7th] (IMF, 2019)

------
indigodaddy
[http://archive.md/KMpHm](http://archive.md/KMpHm)

------
KKKKkkkk1
You know something is broken when the CEO of Facebook chooses to apply himself
to lobbying the government to ban his competitors instead of building a better
product.

~~~
MengerSponge
In fairness, though, the CEO of Facebook hasn't built a better product in
almost two decades. Instead, his company's growth has been based on
_brilliant_ (and occasionally very shady) acquisitions.

~~~
tmpz22
There was nothing brilliant about buying two obviously successful apps:
Instagram and WhatsApp.

~~~
2arrs2ells
I’m not here to defend Zuck, but those acquisitions only look obvious in
hindsight. People thought Facebook was insane for paying a billion for a photo
sharing app with a tiny team. And while WhatsApp was ubiquitous, it was very
under the radar in the US until Facebook paid what seemed like an ungodly sum
($12bn) at the time. Instagram may go down in history as one of the greatest
acquisitions of all time.

~~~
manquer
WhatsApp was quoted at $19B . You are right that those two were really smart
acquisitions .

While WhatsApp has not really changed all that much since the acquisition,
there is very little that is the same between Instagram pre Facebook and now.

Were they worth the 1B and 19B price tag? yes totally, however both could have
been done cheaper and earlier. There was lots of discussions with snap before
whatsApp. The way occulus($3B) due diligence was handled also does not show
give a lot of confidence. Facebook just got their way with sheer amount of
money they could spend.

------
badwolf
I'm guessing Zuckerberg wasn't able to buy out TikTok, so went with plan b.

~~~
hello-world
He actually tried to buy the precusor to TikTok in 2017, but did not go
through with it because he didn't want to have to give data to the CCP.

------
heimatau
Well, he got to eliminate competition and had a copycat tech ready in the
wings. Typical business/cronyism move.

------
winenbug
And they released Reels right when the executive order hits. Business and
politics will forever go hand-in-hand.

------
largbae
This discussion has been interesting. This article is newer than the top
frontpage post with more points and more comments. Why is its ranking sinking
so fast?

------
darthrupert
"You know all the data we give you from every person on the planet? TikTok
does the same for China."

That probably scared them a bit.

------
neonate
[https://archive.is/KMpHm](https://archive.is/KMpHm)

------
Fr8TRN
I strongly disagree that Zuckerberg is the mastermind behind taking out
TikTok. A lot of this discussion was explicitly Chinese propaganda a few years
ago egging on past presidents to ban a few foreign companies.

In my opinion Trump is driving this particular issue not at the behest of
Zuckerberg. I dont think Trump sees eye to eye with other american social
media companies. I think Trump just sees sensitive data about americans in
foreign hands.

This EO action lacks complexity and is a somewhat, extremely messy way to do
things. Trump's response does not react with the reality of the industry and
that is all of our data is being scooped by everyone and banning a single
company will do nothing. Hypothetically if he wanted to promote a culture
change there needs to be more pointed discussion on this issue.

Additionally if Trump really really wanted to shove some regulation down data
miners/brokers throats he would ban the sale of data (like ccpa but with
actual teeth), and obliterate S.J.Res.34. GDPR is a farce and is like a cop
making everything illegal but selectively enforcing the law.

This discussion on HN is somewhat helpful but few comments here are including
the necessary complexity of this case.

------
shoulderfake
This is horseshit. The last thing fb wants is for nations to start banning
each others technology companies. Tik tok being banned in India and USA could
start a domino effect that see's fb being kicked out of many countries that
follow.

~~~
metamet
How exactly is this "horseshit"?

    
    
      In a private dinner at the White House in late October, Mr. Zuckerberg made the case to President Trump that the rise of Chinese internet companies threatens American business, and should be a bigger concern than reining in Facebook, some of the people said.
      
      Mr. Zuckerberg discussed TikTok specifically in meetings with several senators, according to people familiar with the meetings. In late October, Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.)—who met with Mr. Zuckerberg in September—and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) wrote a letter to intelligence officials demanding an inquiry into TikTok. The government began a national-security review of the company soon after, and by the spring, Mr. Trump began threatening to ban the app entirely. This month he signed an executive order demanding that TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance Ltd., divest itself of its U.S. operations.

~~~
baby
this doesn't seem to indicate that Zuckeberg said that the reaction should be
to ban these apps.

------
wombatmobile
It’s difficult to know what to make of Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal’s
claim about Zuckerberg’s alleged claims about TikTok because I can’t read past
the paywall.

But there are so many informed comments here on HN,I must be the only non-
subscriber, yeah?

Can anyone post the article text?

~~~
dredmorbius
[http://archive.md/KMpHm](http://archive.md/KMpHm)

~~~
wombatmobile
Zuckerberg's alleged "message hammered behind the scenes in meetings with
officials and lawmakers during the October trip and a separate visit to
Washington weeks earlier" are sourced to "people familiar with the matter."

That's not journalism; it's gossip. Or worse.

~~~
dredmorbius
At least one quote acknowledges Zuckerberg's communications and is named:

 _Kelli Ford, a spokeswoman for Sen. Hawley said the senator’s concerns about
TikTok predated the meeting with Mr. Zuckerberg. “Facebook has recently been
sounding the alarm about China-based tech as a PR tactic to boost its own
reputation,” she said._

------
abraxas
Sociopath Zuckerberg found out how easy Trump is to manipulate. Things will
get interesting from here on out. It might be in Mark's interest to ensure
there is a compliant puppet in the White House for the next four years.

------
bluntfang
yikes

------
spicyramen
Why the US should support chinese companies and not US companies, if Facebook
did it under the law I'm fine

------
executive
Wonder how long he disappears for this time. He is already reeling from the
sunscreen fiasco.

------
oxfordmale
Zuckerberg is damaging Facebook reputation. I was approached by Facebook's
recruitment team, but decided not to go ahead with it given the recent
negative news around this company. I predict a slow decline for Facebook, like
IBM, if Zuckerberg stays on as CEO.

~~~
throwawayobyy
I work at Facebook and we have a bi-yearly satisfaction survey. Trust in
zuck's management is probably the highest metric, up there with agreeing with
the global mission of the company (which is to connect people). I'd say he's
one of the strong reason why people stay in the company even with the non-
stopping bad news cycle. Don't think that what you see outside reflects what
really happens inside. What I personally see inside: all of the issues that
make the news are discussed openly, privacy issues are addressed on day one
during bootcamp, and addressed weekly via trainings, zuck answering questions
at the Q&A, communications, etc. What people tend to forget is that Facebook
is a pretty large company, due to its scale, and it only takes a few fuck ups
to end up with a bad news article. While I realize that we need the public
scrutiny to keep ourselves honest, it also seems a bit disconnected from what
is truly happening internally.

~~~
matchbok
Yeah, none of that matters. What matters is the harm FB is doing to the
country.

Only companies that do shitty things need to have that much "training". Think
about that.

~~~
throwawayobyy
I don't agree, and obviously a lot of people working for FB don't agree as
well, but it is your right to think that what we're doing is shitty while
ignoring all the upside and how the world has changed in a positive way
through social networks.

