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ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in US if legal options fail, sources say (www.reuters.com)
submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 73 points 7 months ago (5 children)

Makes sense from a business point of view. Why sell to create a new competitor with the same technology and an impregnable market base in the USA?

Better to force US competition to start from scratch.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

I mean the sale agreement could require the buyer to never expand outside the US.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

For money. Whoever buys it has to pay you for it. Shutting down just means leaving a gaping hole in American social media that some other company will fill and you'll be in the same position but with less money.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

Yeah I agree, there really is no incentive for a for-profit company to choose shutting down over selling. Unless they never cared about profit and had ulterior motives from the very beginning.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

YouTube/IG are hardly starting from scratch.

But they don't have the international reach of TikTok.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

IG is owned by FaceBook which actually has about double the userbase of TikTok if you don't count DouYin's 700 Million. I kind of hope that they also fuck up and trigger Section I if not full blown Section H of the bill.

[–] Buttons 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

Why don't they just sell TikTok to a US Citizen who happens to believe TikTok should remain the same?

TikTok would remain exactly the same, with the exact same algorithms, but it would then be the free speech of a US Citizen so everyone would be happy. Maybe TikTok couldn't send the data directly to China anymore, but they could certainly sell personal data on the shadowy data markets, just like every other US owned tech company does, and if that data happens to find its way to China then 🤷 .

Shell companies hide the true owner of companies all the time. Why can't TikTok do the same?

The problem is they targeted TikTok specifically in the law and it will be easy to circumvent. "TikTok is banned, but check out this totally new website called TokTik with the exact same content but owned by a US Citizen".

This is why they should have created regulations that apply to all companies. Because making regulations that depend on who owns the company will only cause TikTok to change the technicality of who owns the company. They can do so through all kinds of legal tricks without ever actually giving up control.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

Why don’t they just sell TikTok to a US Citizen who happens to believe TikTok should remain the same?

They already did that. TikTok is incorporated in the Cayman Islands with headquarters in Los Angeles. The bill of attainder is post-that

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Why don't they just sell TikTok to a US Citizen who happens to believe TikTok should remain the same?

Who? What USA citizen is prepared to buy something for the privilege of fighting the USA government with would obviously get mad and probably block the sale if byte Dance TikTok is still involved.

I don't really follow USA politics but didn't this law pass by quite large margins? They could obviously ban toktik.

[–] Buttons 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

They can't actually ban TikTok by name, it's unconstitutional to make laws targeted at individuals.

The current law actually says "no company can operate in the US with over 20% owned by China, Iran, N. Korea, or Russia", or something like that.

There's a lot of people in the US and at least of few of them would be willing to run TikTok the same way, same algorithms, same content, and sell the users data on shadowy data markets (which China can surely get their hands on), etc. I'm repeating myself now.

Again, my point is there are a lot of people in the US and surely some of them can form a company willing to do what China wants, and isn't that their right by our laws and morals of free speech? I know if things get heated enough laws and morals will be ignored (see Japanese internment camps).

And my even broader point is that this move against TikTok has ulterior motives. We should have created regulations that apply to all companies instead of targeting TikTok specifically. Even though we didn't technically target TikTok specifically, we effectively did.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Our House of Representatives and Senate are more than 20% owned by Russia.

[–] Buttons 2 points 7 months ago

They could even own a President. Unheard of! /s

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago

If you help TikTok in that way you would absolutely get on the government's hit list (literal or not).

It would probably be quite easy to just make a new law or revision that stops the theoretical loophole.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (2 children)

This is part of Section H of H.R.815 that was signed into law:

(A) any of—

(i) ByteDance, Ltd.;

(ii) TikTok;

(iii) a subsidiary of or a successor to an entity identified in clause (i) or (ii) that is controlled by a foreign adversary; or

(iv) an entity owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by an entity identified in clause (i), (ii), or (iii); or

(B) a covered company that—

(i) is controlled by a foreign adversary; and

(ii) that is determined by the President to present a significant threat to the national security of the United States following the issuance of—

(I) a public notice proposing such determination; and

(II) a public report to Congress, submitted not less than 30 days before such determination, describing the specific national security concern involved and containing a classified annex and a description of what assets would need to be divested to execute a qualified divestiture.

(4) FOREIGN ADVERSARY COUNTRY.—The term “foreign adversary country” means a country specified in section 4872(d)(2) of title 10, United States Code.

So, no, they don't just get to change their name. They don't get to change everything and still send data overseas to China. They have to cut ties with the CCP or else they cannot escape this.

[–] Buttons 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I see. You're right about the text of the law. Thanks for taking the time to post that.

I would say it violates the 1st Amendment then. US Citizens have a right to say what they want, which includes saying what China wants if that is what the person wants.

The courts will have to decide.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

For the record, they're not currently sending data to China. Though they'd probably only have to gently twist one or two arms and need about 12 hours to do so.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (2 children)

The company openly stores the data in China. Ex-employee Yintao “Roger” Yu, who was head of Engineering for all of ByteDance's US Operations in 2017-2018, claims that the CCP had full immediate access to all collected data.

[–] Buttons 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I've also heard the data is physically stored and hosted by Oracle. So maybe China just copies it? The primary copy is in the US currently. Which doesn't really mean much.

I wouldn't be surprised if Meta's data ended up in China too. But Congress isn't targeting them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

When Facebook was investigated following the 2016 election for selling Data that inevitably ended up in Russia, the DOJ reccomended their case to the FTC who in 2019 fined them 5 BILLION USD. This isn't even the only time they've been fined or investigated, either, they've got ongoing lawsuits from the states and federal governments.

And now, the FTC no longer has to wait for a DOJ investigation because H.R.815 also included Section I that enshrines their ability to fine the companies who sell data to adversarial countries including China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, etc.

But sure, "tHeY'RE NoT TaRGetTiNG faCeBOoK." I can't tell if you're supremely uninformed or a CCP shill, but to be very frank I don't have patience for you in either circumstance.

[–] Buttons 0 points 7 months ago

You've made the most substantive comments in this post. Especially quoting the law and this information about Facebook.

For context, Facebook's revenue in 2019 was 70 billions dollars. So a 5 billion dollar fine isn't nothing. Everyone can judge these bans and fines for themselves and judge whether there's a double standard though.

You seem upset because I said TikTok stores their data in Oracle, but that's what they said in 2022. https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/17/tech/tiktok-user-data-oracle/index.html But, as you say, it appears in 2018 they were storing their data in China, and presumably that continued up until mid-2022.

I'm not a shill, but I am a cynic who believes the government is acting on behalf of their corporate friends (US media companies) rather than on general principles. I have no love for China. I wanted regulation that applied equally to all US companies. If you don't want to talk to me, fine, I'll discuss my opinion with others; even so, you've shared a lot of important and concrete information here, so thanks again.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

That's the guy who's worked there for six months and exaggerated his role there, right?

I'm in favor of the bill, but I want the information we have to be accurate.