Banning TikTok from the US?

[lpetrich]

I'd earlier posted on No TikTok app on gov't computers? Trump is now considering banning it from the US.

Trump To Ban TikTok | Voice of America - English

Trump said Friday he could take action as soon as Saturday to stop the operation of the popular video-sharing social media app in the U.S.

“As far as TikTok is concerned, we’re banning them from the United States,” he told reporters traveling with him Friday from Florida.

...
U.S. officials are concerned that TikTok may pose a security threat, fearing that the company might share its user data with China’s government. However, TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has said it does not share user data with the Chinese government and maintains that it only stores U.S. user data in the U.S. and Singapore. TikTok also recently chose former Disney executive Kevin Mayer as its chief executive in a move seen as an effort to distance itself from Beijing.

TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance ‘prefers independent spin-off over Microsoft sale’ as Donald Trump threatens ban | South China Morning Post

• A source briefed on the discussions says management is reluctant to sell to US tech giant but is open to setting up a separate entity
• US President has said he wants to stop the video-sharing app, which is facing growing security and privacy concerns

TikTok faces Australian security investigation as Donald Trump threatens US ban | South China Morning Post

• Prime Minister Scott Morrison has reportedly asked the country’s security services to investigate the Chinese-owned app
• Social media platform has already been banned in India and has caused growing international concern about data security and user privacy

Trump's threatened TikTok ban could motivate young users to vote, some say

Like scores of other apps, TikTok tracks phone locations and users’ metadata, and China has demonstrated an appetite for Americans’ personal data.

TikTok has repeatedly said that it is not influenced by China’s demands and that it is an independent company. Still, Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, recently indicated that China views TikTok as a domestic company.

But many TikTokers have said they’re unbothered by the app’s connection to China and feel that if it was owned by a company based elsewhere, Trump wouldn’t be taking this kind of action.

 

[lpetrich]

Exclusive: Trump gives Microsoft 45 days to clinch TikTok deal - Reuters

Trump changed his mind following pressure from some of his advisers and many in his Republican party, one of the sources said. Banning TikTok would alienate many of its young users ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November, and would likely trigger a wave of legal challenges. Several prominent Republican lawmakers put out statements in the last two days urging Trump to back a sale of TikTok to Microsoft.

“A win-win in the making,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted in response to Trump’s new stance on Sunday.

TikTok owners will relocate to London from Beijing, Sun newspaper says - Reuters

Microsoft to continue discussions on potential TikTok purchase in the United States - The Official Microsoft Blog

Microsoft confirms interest in buying TikTok, is in talks with President Trump and ByteDance - GSMArena.com news

 

[lpetrich]

Why Microsoft wants TikTok - The Verge

AtAt first glance, a Microsoft acquisition of TikTok seems a little unusual. Microsoft has spent years walking back consumer plays like the Groove Music service, the Kinect Xbox accessory, its Microsoft Band fitness device, Windows Phone, and more recently the Mixer streaming service. Microsoft has been favoring its enterprise software and services, and even Cortana has transitioned to be productivity-focused. How does a service that caters to dancing teenagers fit with Microsoft’s buttoned-up business demographic?

If you dig a little deeper into Microsoft’s future ambitions, though, a move to acquire TikTok’s operations in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand could benefit many of Microsoft’s existing businesses while also setting the company up as a real competitor to YouTube and Facebook.

M$ could use the data that TikTok collects, just like how it uses the Xbox data that it collects.

TikTok could help correct a Microsoft blindspot and even influence how other software and services are developed inside the company. Microsoft has all the data it needs on business usage of software, but it hasn’t been successful with pure consumer services in recent years, which has left the company with a gap of insight into consumer behaviors.

That’s particularly relevant when you consider that a large number of young Americans are growing up in an environment dominated by Android, iOS, and Chromebooks in classrooms. With Gmail also dominating consumer email usage and document sharing through Google Docs, it’s possible to grow up in the US without needing any Microsoft software or services. Microsoft missed the mobile revolution and has been playing catch-up ever since, but it doesn’t want to miss an entire generation of future workers.

Thus working around M$'s desktop and office-suite near-monopoly. I am old enough to remember when that was a big issue, back in the 1990's and 2000's.

What would Microsoft do with TikTok? Hit social video app goes against recent trend for tech giant - GeekWire
LauraButler on Twitter: "I can’t wait for TikTok to join the illustrious group of successful Microsoft social collab and consumer products.
MSN, Messenger, Hotmail, PlaceWare, Skype, GroupMe, Zune, LinkedIn messaging, Sunrise, Accompli (O mobile has decayed), Wunderlist, Intentional, Mixer, ... Oh wait." / Twitter

Back to the article.

But the clear trend at Microsoft under CEO Satya Nadella has been to focus on the company’s enterprise roots, cutting short its fanciful forays into consumer technology. Witness the recent decision to discontinue the Mixer game streaming service and the company’s decision this week to pull the plug on its Cortana voice assistant apps for iOS and Android.

All of this makes the reports that Microsoft is in negotiations to buy the U.S. operations of TikTok, the breakout social video app, a head-scratcher on multiple levels.

Rafael Rivera on Twitter: "@maryjofoley @teroalhonen Agree, however I do see some interesting integration potential with Minecraft, Xbox (console, GameBar, xCloud) and even Skype (or consumer Teams)." / Twitter

 

[lpetrich]

Trump's TikTok ban could make Big Tech even more dominant - CNN

On Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg pushed back against claims that his company is too dominant by name dropping a list of his competitors. Almost all of the ones he cited were other Big Tech companies whose CEOs were appearing virtually beside him at that very moment in a high-profile antitrust hearing.

But one company on his list could truly be viewed as a threat to Facebook (FB) and it wasn't named Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL) or Google (GOOGL). "The fastest growing app," Zuckerberg said in his opening remarks at the hearing, "is TikTok."

That may not be true for long.

....
But Trump's decision to ban TikTok outright, which comes more than a month after tens of thousands of TikTok users trolled the Trump campaign by reserving tickets for a Tulsa rally they did not attend, may only make some of these powerful companies at the hearing -- most notably Facebook and Google -- even more dominant.

For all the controversy over TikTok's connections to China through its parent company, ByteDance, which is based in Beijing, the video app is perhaps the only social media service in recent years that poses a true risk to the bigger platforms that have long dominated the space.

In a short period of time, TikTok amassed some 100 million users in the US, many of them part of a younger demographic coveted by advertisers and tech companies alike. It gave birth to a new crop of social media stars, viral memes and has had an impact on popular culture.

That bit of pique might be Trump's real reason. He is a hypersensitive man-baby, and TikTok's Chinese connections may be a good pretext for him getting back at it.

 

[lpetrich]

Microsoft and Bytedance Put TikTok Talks on Hold After Trump Signals Opposition - WSJ (paywalled) - Updated Aug. 2, 2020 11:26 am ET - "Negotiations aren’t believed to be dead, but the companies are trying to get clarity on White House’s stance"

Microsoft eyes TikTok purchase after Trump talks - Axios - updated 15 hours ago. That's Sunday 8 pm ET

What a confusing mess.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

What next, is he going to ban K-Pop?

 

[Worldtraveller]

Although I don't use any social media apps except FB, it seems hypocritical in the extreme to try to use 'the software spies on you' as an excuse to ban it.

Hell, my information in the hands of the Chinese govt is probably less of a direct threat to me than that same information in the hands of the US govt.

 

[Patooka]

Although I don't use any social media apps except FB, it seems hypocritical in the extreme to try to use 'the software spies on you' as an excuse to ban it.

Hell, my information in the hands of the Chinese govt is probably less of a direct threat to me than that same information in the hands of the US govt.

I'd be more worried about your personal information in the hands of private companies. Or has everyone forgotten about Equifax?

 

[Harry Bosch]

About the only issue that I can possibly think about where I agree with Trump is him getting tough on China. I hate to say it, but the Chinese government are thugs. They rule their country with an iron fist. Any dissent is put down, immediately. People who complain, are disappeared. They threaten their neighbors with invasion. They are planning an invasion of a sovereign country, Taiwan. They put millions of their own citizens in concentration camps. They steal technology and don't allow privacy. They bully their neighbors (India, Philippines, south Korea, Japan) by stealing their land, water rights, mineral rights, and etc. In short, they are no Bueno.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Although I don't use any social media apps except FB, it seems hypocritical in the extreme to try to use 'the software spies on you' as an excuse to ban it.

Hell, my information in the hands of the Chinese govt is probably less of a direct threat to me than that same information in the hands of the US govt.

I'd be more worried about your personal information in the hands of private companies. Or has everyone forgotten about Equifax?

Yeah, our most important data was already stolen by hackers, well... people that opened the unlocked door to the vault. Tik Tok is a red herring... I think. With Trump it is really hard to gather what is pompous stupidity or pompous narcissism or pompous but calculated misdirection.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

About the only issue that I can possibly think about where I agree with Trump is him getting tough on China. I hate to say it, but the Chinese government are thugs. They rule their country with an iron fist. Any dissent is put down, immediately. People who complain, are disappeared. They threaten their neighbors with invasion. They are planning an invasion of a sovereign country, Taiwan. They put millions of their own citizens in concentration camps. They steal technology and don't allow privacy. They bully their neighbors (India, Philippines, south Korea, Japan) by stealing their land, water rights, mineral rights, and etc. In short, they are no Bueno.

Yes, but Facebook and Twitter provided international forces the tools to sway an American election. China is an adversary. No doubt. But when you provide a nation a boatload of your production, you have already agreed to the consequences of being reliant on them.

 

[barbos]

If Trump and his gang simply banned TikTok in US that would have been reasonable response to what Chinese did to Goggle/facebook.
But it all looks like a robbery.

 

[Worldtraveller]

About the only issue that I can possibly think about where I agree with Trump is him getting tough on China. I hate to say it, but the Chinese government are thugs. They rule their country with an iron fist. Any dissent is put down, immediately. People who complain, are disappeared. They threaten their neighbors with invasion. They are planning an invasion of a sovereign country, Taiwan. They put millions of their own citizens in concentration camps. They steal technology and don't allow privacy. They bully their neighbors (India, Philippines, south Korea, Japan) by stealing their land, water rights, mineral rights, and etc. In short, they are no Bueno.

Yes, but Facebook and Twitter provided international forces the tools to sway an American election. China is an adversary. No doubt. But when you provide a nation a boatload of your production, you have already agreed to the consequences of being reliant on them.

Also, nothing about that description of China's govt doesn't apply to the current US regime as well. That may change after the election (a little), but seriously, the US doesn't exactly have the moral high ground in this kind of situation.

 

[Harry Bosch]

About the only issue that I can possibly think about where I agree with Trump is him getting tough on China. I hate to say it, but the Chinese government are thugs. They rule their country with an iron fist. Any dissent is put down, immediately. People who complain, are disappeared. They threaten their neighbors with invasion. They are planning an invasion of a sovereign country, Taiwan. They put millions of their own citizens in concentration camps. They steal technology and don't allow privacy. They bully their neighbors (India, Philippines, south Korea, Japan) by stealing their land, water rights, mineral rights, and etc. In short, they are no Bueno.

Yes, but Facebook and Twitter provided international forces the tools to sway an American election. China is an adversary. No doubt. But when you provide a nation a boatload of your production, you have already agreed to the consequences of being reliant on them.

Also, nothing about that description of China's govt doesn't apply to the current US regime as well. That may change after the election (a little), but seriously, the US doesn't exactly have the moral high ground in this kind of situation.

The US isn't currently planning on any invasion of a foreign country.

 

[KeepTalking]

Also, nothing about that description of China's govt doesn't apply to the current US regime as well. That may change after the election (a little), but seriously, the US doesn't exactly have the moral high ground in this kind of situation.

The US isn't currently planning on any invasion of a foreign country.

On the other hand, the US is occupying a couple of countries that we invaded a few years back. Kind of puts that invasion planning thing into perspective, don't you think?

 

[Harry Bosch]

Also, nothing about that description of China's govt doesn't apply to the current US regime as well. That may change after the election (a little), but seriously, the US doesn't exactly have the moral high ground in this kind of situation.

The US isn't currently planning on any invasion of a foreign country.

On the other hand, the US is occupying a couple of countries that we invaded a few years back. Kind of puts that invasion planning thing into perspective, don't you think?

So you think that because the US has about 10,000 troops in Afghanistan that Americans can't support Taiwan who is facing invasion and bullying from China? Why are you so defensive of China?

 

[KeepTalking]

On the other hand, the US is occupying a couple of countries that we invaded a few years back. Kind of puts that invasion planning thing into perspective, don't you think?

So you think that because the US has about 10,000 troops in Afghanistan that Americans can't support Taiwan who is facing invasion and bullying from China? Why are you so defensive of China?

Did I say anything of the sort?

No, I did not. You threw out an idiotic comment about the US not currently planning to invade any country, when we have invaded two countries in the last 20 years. Can you name two countries that China has invaded in recent years?

It isn't about defending China, it is about the US not being innocent in that regard.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

On the other hand, the US is occupying a couple of countries that we invaded a few years back. Kind of puts that invasion planning thing into perspective, don't you think?

So you think that because the US has about 10,000 troops in Afghanistan that Americans can't support Taiwan who is facing invasion and bullying from China? Why are you so defensive of China?

The US and China both have issues. I'd say China is really thinking outside the box with the whole 'build islands' in the South China Sea and their anti-Democracy crack down in Hong Kong.

US actions in Iraq did lead to the displacement of 1 million plus Iraqis and deaths of over at least 125,000. This isn't a compeition. This is about an app.

TikTok can certainly be used for propaganda... not as much spying as EVERYONE uses apps for spying certain details. Trump's concerns with TikTok seem to be very short-term, dating back to when TikTok didn't crush his Tulsa rally.

 

[Harry Bosch]

On the other hand, the US is occupying a couple of countries that we invaded a few years back. Kind of puts that invasion planning thing into perspective, don't you think?

So you think that because the US has about 10,000 troops in Afghanistan that Americans can't support Taiwan who is facing invasion and bullying from China? Why are you so defensive of China?

Did I say anything of the sort?

No, I did not. You threw out an idiotic comment about the US not currently planning to invade any country, when we have invaded two countries in the last 20 years. Can you name two countries that China has invaded in recent years?

It isn't about defending China, it is about the US not being innocent in that regard.

So, the USA "not being innocent" means that Americans can't condemn other countries when they are wrong? If I were Canadian, would you attack the Canadian mistreatment of Indians if I dared talk bad about China?

Here's the deal: I was against the US invasion of Iraq. It was a disaster. I believe that Trump should have honored the treaty with Iran. I don't think that we should be bullying Cuba. I'm perfectly willing to criticize the US when it commits wrongs. Are you willing to to condemn China for bullying Taiwan? Are you willing to say that it is wrong for China to be planning to invade a sovereign country that poses no threat to China?

 

[KeepTalking]

Did I say anything of the sort?

No, I did not. You threw out an idiotic comment about the US not currently planning to invade any country, when we have invaded two countries in the last 20 years. Can you name two countries that China has invaded in recent years?

It isn't about defending China, it is about the US not being innocent in that regard.

So, the USA "not being innocent" means that Americans can't condemn other countries when they are wrong?

No, it means the US isn't innocent of actually invading other countries this century, much less planning to invade them. You can only accuse China of one of those things.

If I were Canadian, would you attack the Canadian mistreatment of Indians if I dared talk bad about China?

If you were a Canadian complaining about China planning to mistreat Indians at some point in the future, and Canada had mistreated Indians in the recent past and was continuing to do so, I think I would be right to note that Canada is not innocent with regard to the mistreatment of Indians.

Here's the deal: I was against the US invasion of Iraq. It was a disaster. I believe that Trump should have honored the treaty with Iran. I don't think that we should be bullying Cuba. I'm perfectly willing to criticize the US when it commits wrongs. Are you willing to to condemn China for bullying Taiwan?

Yup.

Are you willing to say that it is wrong for China to be planning to invade a sovereign country that poses no threat to China?

Yup. On the other hand, this is the thing you said that prompted me to note that the US is not innocent with regard to invading countries in the recent past:

The US isn't currently planning on any invasion of a foreign country.

I think it is perfectly reasonable to call out a person making such a statement for lacking a bit of perspective.