Trump Says TikTok Will Be Banned If Not Sold By Sept. 15, Demands Cut of Sale Fee (axios.com) 208
President Trump said Monday that TikTok will be shut down in the U.S. if it hasn't been bought by Microsoft or another company by Sept. 15, and claimed that the U.S. Treasury should get "a very substantial portion" of the sale fee. From a report: Trump appears to have backed off his threat to immediately ban TikTok after speaking with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who said Sunday that the company will pursue discussions with TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance to purchase the app in the U.S. TikTok has come under intense scrutiny in the U.S. due to concerns that the vast amounts of data it collects could be accessed by the Chinese government, potentially posing a national security threat.
bad statement (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now they don't have any rights, unless we give it to them.
Somebody should tell Trump that's not how rights work.
Re:bad statement (Score:5, Insightful)
> Somebody should tell Trump that's not how rights work.
Chinese company... Chinese model.
He doesn't want to create a double standard :)
Re:bad statement (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
> I've yet to meet a trumper who couldn't rationalize a reason to hurt somebody or something they didn't like
You tell'em qe2e! Trump and his ANTIFA thugs are gonna get what's coming to them.
Trump wants to wet his beak everywhere (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly deserving of the insightful moderation. However not the insight I was looking for.
If Trump manages to extort a cut out of this forced deal, then I'm looking for him to go the rest of the way. If Trump can do anything to increase the evictions, then he can demand a cut from the real estate speculators who snap up the distressed properties.
I'm still saying that it's wrong to be gambling and making money on other people's problems. Especially other people's deaths. Even more wrong when the gambling on other people's deaths is with other people's money (which is how the real estate speculators do most of their deals, but also applies to a lot of the stock market speculators right now).
Covid-19 is NOT an economic problem. Capitalism is not the solution. It is not possible to write insurance policies against pandemics.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Somebody should tell Trump that's not how rights work.
That's exactly how the rights of corporations work. They have no rights, not even the right to exist, except as we the people choose to give them rights.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah except businesses are people now. Oops.
Re: (Score:2)
"Corporations are people, my friend!" - 2012 Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney
Re: (Score:3)
The mods certainly agree with Mr Romney. It keeps surprising me how much the Slashdot crowd seems to love them some corporate rights these days. I don't get it.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not for giving most rights to a corporation. But the right to a fair trial and due process are two that are required. If we think that they're reporting back to the Chinese government let's prove it in court and ban them. But it doesn't get to be the arbitrary decision of one lunatic.
Re:bad statement (Score:4, Informative)
Re:bad statement (Score:5, Insightful)
So your goal is to be on the level of the Chinese government? I have higher standards in mind.
I have no problems with banning TikTok if its really doing the privacy invasive things I've heard. But it doesn't get to be decided on the whim of the president.
Re: (Score:2)
Somebody should tell Trump that's not how rights work.
They would if everyone was not busy waiting for Mexico to pay for the wall.
No fuckign idea what TikTok is (Score:2, Insightful)
but if my gov banned it I sure as hell would go and use it. If its bad for the gov is sure must be good for the citizen.. Maybe someone should introduce Trump to Streisand
Re:No fuckign idea what TikTok is (Score:4, Funny)
The government generally bans you from setting yourself on fire, but nothing else is really stopping you. Treat yourself!
Re:No fuckign idea what TikTok is (Score:5, Informative)
My wife watches it for some reason, god knows why. It's basically nothing but short videos of people dancing or some other random video set to music, with text overlaid. Imagine if Vine and Twitter had a bastard social media lovechild, and you'll be close.
Re: (Score:2)
OK....how is that different from Facebook?
(Sorry if this is obvious, but since I don't trust javascript, I don't visit either very often, but sometimes a link takes me to a Facebook page that works without javascript, so I have an idea about Facebook. This hasn't happened with Tiktok.)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:No fuckign idea what TikTok is (Score:5, Insightful)
Best hypothesissis I've heard of this is that it's like instagram, but even better. Instagram is popular because when you're using it, it's basically a dopamine button for the lab rat. Taps a screen or press a button, see another pleasant colourful image. Nothing else. Just colourful images. So it's a cycle of tiny bursts of dopamine with every tap on the phone screen.
Video is even better than images, and since they're short, you get almost as many of those short dopamine bursts. But they're probably stronger bursts than what you get with instragram's images, because video is generally more natural than still images considering how human sensory systems evolved.
And so, those two are super addictive. And very hard to comprehend why for those of us that don't use them.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Imagine if Vine and Twitter had a bastard social media lovechild, and you'll be close.
So basically a great waste of time. Sounds like watching TV except with out the brain damage followed by the ads for legal services to sue people who gave you brain damage.
At least people dancing and doing random shit is entertaining. If you want the full lobotomy watch "reality TV". There's nothing like wasting your life watching someone else waste theirs.
Re: (Score:2)
He knows, he just want to prove his "purity". Kind of guy that he's proud to say he doesn't know what Facebook is...
Ah, yes, the "I don't own a TV" guy.
Re:No fuckign idea what TikTok is (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
because I don't own a TV
Re: (Score:2)
I own TVs but they're for watching DVDs and BluRay's and not over the air stuff.
[John]
Re: (Score:2)
Does it count if I recognize most of all these names but have never actually used them and have no inclination to do so?
Re: (Score:2)
TikTok is why the stadium was empty at his last rally in Tulsa. TikTok is where Sarah Cooper releases most of her videos.
Re: No fuckign idea what TikTok is (Score:2)
Nude?
Re: (Score:2)
Are you 12?
Re:No fuckign idea what TikTok is (Score:4, Insightful)
Trump actually doing something right for once. (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm inclined to cut the Big Bad Orange a bit of slack on this one.
His actions are going to be largely futile and he will fubar it sooner or later, but there is a real threat here.
Re: Trump actually doing something right for once. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Trump actually doing something right for once (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Trump actually doing something right for once. (Score:5, Informative)
You do know that those permissions are pretty common across Apple and Google apps...
Re: (Score:3)
Those are minimal requirements for almost ANY internet-connected app. Nothing to see here...
Re: (Score:2)
Permissions are:
Secure detailed information on the user’s location using GPS
I don't know why that gets repeated perhaps it used to be the case, now it doesn't seem to be: https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com] If I was CCP and wanted to spy on something interesting I'd use data from the alibaba app that actually requires gps data: https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]
Re:Trump actually doing something right for once. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm inclined to cut the Big Bad Orange a bit of slack on this one.
His actions are going to be largely futile and he will fubar it sooner or later, but there is a real threat here.
Going by the quotes in this story he's already fubar'd it.
Over the decades the US has had a lot of success with a fairly simple playbook:
1) Advocate for an international set of rules that suit the US.
2) Adhere to that set of rules (and encourage everyone else to do the same).
So the US tends to win on the international stage not by cheating as much as rigging the game to favour countries that look a lot like the US.
By this playbook the way for the US to counter the security concern from China's applications would be for a set of rules that make if hard for any country to leverage private software makers for espionage.
If that's not practical, you come up with a very narrowly policy directed towards China and other bad actors with a clear national security motivation.
But now Trump doesn't even have that. He's literally saying "I'll shut down the app if you don't sell to a US company and give the US government a cut". He's lost the national security pretext and now it's just looking like a shakedown.
Maybe he somehow pulls it off and gets a few billion in the national bank, but he just cost the US loads of credibility and it's going to be a lot harder for the US to get that set of cushy rules during the next round of international agreements. And the price of that is going to dwarf the purchase price of TikTok.
Re:Trump actually doing something right for once. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
I would have called it extortion, but I guess shakedown is equally apt.
Re: (Score:3)
Extortion requires long-term planning, you don't want to kill the golden goose while there are still eggs to be had. Rump doesn't have the attention span for extortion.
Re: Trump actually doing something right for once. (Score:2)
How about a false flag operation. Ruin some celebrity with super detailed information normally protected by HIPAA and a bunch of other privacy laws and put Tik Tok fingerprints all over it. Make it a blackmail shakedown to buy shares of heavily chinese owned companies.
Re: (Score:2)
That becomes a problem in countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, which don't have a pro-corporatism culture. While those countries are unlikely to do anything anti-American, the USA doesn't want organized resistance to its imperialism (assuming those countries can survive their own tribalism). This is why the USA continues to micro-manage them (via a forever war), yet the quality of government does not improve.
... a clear national security motivation.
Orwell implies the purpose of a forever war is dependance on the government. The inabi
Re: (Score:2)
A threat which demands a policy change, not just an immediate action. That's for Congress to deal with, if they can spare the time from trying to cram more amendments into the next relief act.
threat? (Score:2)
What's the threat, exactly? That the Chinese government will find out what kind of cereal you buy?
Re: (Score:2)
The threat is that some idiot with a wifi enabled laptop who uses Tiktok will log into a high security network...and everything will get loose.
Yeah, Tiktok isn't unique there. But it's one of a large number of "attractive nuisances". And it attracts idiots...and be aware that we're all idiots in some area or other. (E.g., Tiktok isn't all dancing cat videos. I've seen "Tiktok for sex" ads...and who isn't vulnerable to *that*. You may resist, but you *know* you're vulnerable. And some folks find they
Re: (Score:3)
And, aren't 100% of "smart" phones made in China, as well...?
I know that I'm not concerned about the Chinese government. As an American, I don't know what they could do to me, or why. I even have a Chinese government visa for a trip there, and I'm not concerned.
I AM much more concerned about Google (or Facebook or Amazon) collecting and using my data, because that cou
Re: threat? (Score:2)
How does tik tok for sex work?
Re:Trump actually doing something right for once. (Score:5, Insightful)
No. This is *not* the right thing. Banning* Tiktok might be the right thing. I'd need a bit of convincing. Extorting them is *not* the right thing.
*banning: Forbidding them from doing business within the US or in any extraterritorial area (such as embassies, military bases, etc.). And forbidding it to be installed on any computer used in such areas. And forbidding US military active duty from using it. Etc. (Lots of details, but the general idea is it doesn't get on US govt hardware or in hardware used on US govt. property...which isn't the same as state or civilian property. But would definitely include civilian computers located, even temporarily, on military bases.)
Legal? (Score:5, Interesting)
This sounds like Trump is demanding a bribe. What legal basis is there for the Treasury getting a cut?
Re:Legal? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. None. More grandstanding bullshit.
It's classic Trump bullshit of demanding the opposite of reality so that it looks like both sides are equally valid. The reality is that Trump's actions have reduced the value of TikTok so he should actually be compensating them following any form of coerced sale.
Re:Legal? (Score:5, Interesting)
Pssht. Legal basis. The man says literally any thought that crosses his mind at the moment that it crosses it.
Someone has to be able to extract money out of forcing the deal, and since we're not such a kleptocracy that it can be him or Kushner, it may as well be the U.S. Treasury because votes.
Re:Legal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Pssht. Legal basis. The man says literally any thought that crosses his mind at the moment that it crosses it.
Someone has to be able to extract money out of forcing the deal, and since we're not such a kleptocracy that it can be him or Kushner, it may as well be the U.S. Treasury because votes.
You know, if an American business were trying to buy/sell a company and had to pay a cut to a local government agency in order for the transaction to go through, they would possibly run afoul of corruption laws here. This is legit tin pot, banana republic corruption shit, and he is claiming it openly.
Re:Legal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, he actually thinks this is how to run a government. Just like running a casino. House gets a cut.
In wider sense, there is no way in hell that Trump cares about upholding and protecting the Constitution. His focus is just not there. He lacks both the attention span and the ethics to do the job. What we're seeing now is just one manifestation of that problem.
Re:Legal? (Score:4, Interesting)
In fairness, he doesn't know a casino runs either. And I don't mean in a "haha his casinos went bankrupt" way. I mean, when you listen to him try to describe a casinos revenue centers and how it generates money he literally doesn't get it. There's a reason his casinos were in the black until a helicopter crash took out the three people running them.
Re:Legal? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is not just a bribe. It is extortion. It is protection money. He is saying that the Tiki Tok has to be sold, and the sale depends on paying the government a protection fee.
Any regulation the government does for these types of acquisitions have to be at least theoretically above board. The government has to show it is basing the decision on the needs of the country, not on bribes, or at least overt bribes.
Tik Tok, like all social media apps, is a security and privacy nightmare. From the point of view of private business and public government, it's foreign connection make it useless for anything other than public facing communication. This is true for any social media app. Anyone who is using this for sensitive information is just dumb. Just like the dumb people who negotiated contracts over a gmail account.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm doubtful that the US government will actually do what Trump is saying here.
If it does then it's a big problem because that is serious corruption under its own laws, but I think that once this is out of the Trump limelight that the administrators that are actually running the Treasury and other regulatory bodies involved will do the correct, non-corrupt process. Even if they do participate in this corruption, it'll probably go to court and get overturned. This has played out over and over again over the
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
We ch
Re: (Score:3)
There isn't even a legal basis for his banning it. He could (as commander in chief) ban its use by all US military personnel. I would very much like to know how he thinks he has the authority to ban it's use by the rest of us.
I hope they call his bluff.
Re: Legal? (Score:2)
Social media Is the very core of groupthink. They tell you what to think, who is popular, who everyone is voting for, and the sheep get right in line. You are right about blackmail, but likely wrong as to the motive. Make him look amazing and you keep your company.
Re: (Score:2)
Duh, if you lost $1B you probably wouldn't pay taxes for several years either. He had to have $1B in gains to offset those losses before he started paying again. Those rules apply to everyone.
Re: (Score:2)
But that would require thinking things through, rather than just relying on the shock value of the statement, like the insinuation of a bribe from the post title!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No, the tax loss is your basis in the the item. So if you spend $1 for house, claim it is worth $1B, then set it on fire - your loss for tax purposes is $1. It is not possible to create losses out of thin air. But... it can be more complex than that. Say you borrowed $1B, bought a casino with $1B, and then the casino burn down. You would have a $1B loss. But then maybe you don't actually lose all of that by negotiate a write down on the loans. But loan forgiveness counts as income.
Re: (Score:2)
It is not possible to create losses out of thin air.
It's done in real estate money laundries all the time, and that's been Rump's real profession for decades. Buy something for three piles of money, sell it for one pile, and you have a loss. Wasn't Mierda Lago was a deal like that?
Re:Legal? (Score:4, Informative)
If I somehow incurred $1B in capital losses, I'd be able to offset that loss against my wage income, current and future -- at $3000/year, so I could reduce my taxable income that amount for 333,333 years. (I'd still be paying taxes each year, of course, though probably not for the full 333,333 years.)
That said, wage income is really only an issue for the workers. If you're one of the elites and get most of your income from capital gains, then you can apply your past capital losses against your current capital gains with no $3000 maximum, because reasons.
Re: Legal? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Duh, if you lost $1B you probably wouldn't pay taxes for several years either. He had to have $1B in gains to offset those losses before he started paying again. Those rules apply to everyone.
Except his losses are nearly-proven-unless-you-believe-everything-Trump-spews fraudulent. From what I understand, Daddy Trump and The Great Orange One engineered a massive business loss right about when Donald inherited the business, almost certainly busting a crap ton of federal and state laws in the process. Massive loss = reduced taxes for years, in addition to lower inheritance taxes.
This might come to light once Trump is out of office and the New York prosecutors get down to real work. From what I
Re:Legal? (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course the answer is taxes on capital gains if the TikTok shareholders are US citizens and several of them are. I love how the press can take a perfectly normal tax payment and make it sound sinister. Might even be ordinary income depending on how long they held the investment.
Trump's words:
“A very substantial portion of that price is going to have to come into the Treasury of the United States because we’re making it possible for this deal to happen,”
That doesn't mean "Pay your taxes". He wants an actual cut of the proceeds from the sale. He is saying "we're letting you do this, so pay up".
Re: Legal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, we are back on the "you have to look at what he means, not what he said" cycle now. I thought we were still on the "you have to listen to what he is saying, not what you think he is saying" part of the cycle.
Re: Legal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
No no no. Let's run with this! Let's pretend it's "taxes" now. Then when he's done with his presidency throw his corrupt arse in jail for shaking down a private company since it's blatantly illegal.
Re: (Score:2)
Since bribes like that are illegal, grant him some poetic license -- it is taxes.
It literally is not taxes [axios.com]. Certainly not taxes in existence on or before September 15, 2020.
Re: Legal? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not mine. But I did blow the blockquote tags so as to make that unclear.
Re: (Score:2)
How do you get that from this [axios.com]?
Re: Legal? (Score:3)
This is called "greasing the wheels". He wants a payment for "letting the deal happen". That is bribery/corruption.
Re: (Score:2)
Inheritance tax doesn't kick in until $5 million. If you're getting that much money for nothing more than out-surviving someone else then you can afford to part with a portion of it.
Re:Legal? (Score:5, Insightful)
The government always gets a cut. Sometimes double or even triple dipping, they find a way. Sell a used car to a private party? The government taxes you on that sale. Invest some of your income in stocks and make money? Your money you paid tax on is now taxed again. Inherited money from a relative? If they have that money in their account then taxes were paid. But willing that money to someone else? Bend over because that one is going to cost you.
The only accurate example you gave is the used car sale.
When you buy stocks and sell them, you're only taxed on the amount you earned, which is the sale price minus the purchase price.
When you inherit money (or other assets, like houses and cars), the first several million dollars are not taxed at all. The minimum estate value for taxation is now $11.58 million (according to the IRS [irs.gov]). Some sites talk about that being per person, but it's not clear to me whether it's the decedent(s) (ie, a married couple dies in a car crash) or the beneficiaries. In either case, the bulk of the estate value most likely wouldn't have been taxed before death, since houses and stocks are only taxed when you sell them. I'm assuming that estates that are above $11.58MM are mostly houses and stocks or other investments like those.
The inheritance tax only applies to approximately the top 1% of households in the US, according to this page [dqydj.com] - scroll to the section labelled "Who are the top one percent by net worth"
There are variations by state as well. The big things to remember are (a) most people don't pay an estate tax and (b) estates that are subject to tax likely hadn't been taxed on the bulk of their value.
Re:Legal? (Score:4, Insightful)
You only get taxed on the profit you make from selling stocks, not the purchase price. Any stock trading software or broker will report taxable income as only the part above your purchase price (aka basis.)
Re: (Score:3)
Let's say you earned 1,300 and you lost 300 to taxes. There's your income tax (for sake of argument)
Then you put the 1,000 into stock. The stock is flat and you sell it to get your 1,000 back. You owe no additional taxes. If what you said were true, then you would owe taxes in this scenario, but you don't.
Let's say instead the stock went *down* and you sold for 900. You actually get to use the loss of 100 as a deduction to *reduce* the taxes you owe.
If the stock goes up to 1,500 and you sell, then you still
Hold on... (Score:5, Funny)
President Trump said Monday that TikTok will be shut down in the U.S. if it hasn't been bought by Microsoft or another company by Sept. 15, and claimed that the U.S. Treasury should get "a very substantial portion" of the sale fee.
Did Trump really just try to play the "That sure is a nice acquisition there. It's a shame if something should happen to it" card? This is literally right out of the mafia shakedown playbook.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, he is convinced that the NATO works like an US protection racket as well.
Re: (Score:2)
We have been waiting for the other jackboot to drop, and here it is. Pardon criminals who do you favours, extort money from the innocent.
Re:Hold on... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oligarchs in China have a huge investment in Tik Tok. (You didn't think it arose rapidly out of nothingness without their permission, did you?) He's kicking them in the nuts as hard as possible.
Ok, and? It's illegal for American companies to pay bribes in foreign states (yes, it still happens anyway). Trump literally just said if the deal gets done he wants a cut, with the implication that if he doesn't get a cut he will ban the app anyway. That. Is. Illegal.
Re: (Score:2)
Probably true, but he's still going about it in a terrible way. Such a threat demands a proper investigation by the intelligence services, a congressional committee, and - if necessary - a law passed to establish a new legal policy and framework by which such threats may be evaluated and addressed in future.
Instead of all that, Trump is grandstanding on the world stage and making it all about himself, then threatening to ban a company purely on the authority of 'I'm the president and I say so.'
Re: (Score:2)
I don't see how FCPA applies in this case.
Re: (Score:2)
He's inept...he's got no clue!! (Score:3)
President Trump said Monday that TikTok will be shut down in the U.S. if it hasn't been bought by Microsoft or another company by Sept. 15, and claimed that the U.S. Treasury should get "a very substantial portion" of the sale fee...
If I were Tik Tok, I'd simply embed a VPN service into the application enabling esteemed users operate normally.
Trump should ask the Russians how banning Telegram worked out for them.
Re: (Score:2)
Any other US company (Score:2)
if it hasn't been bought by Microsoft or another company by Sept. 15
Another company? Suddenly Mark Zuckerberg's interest is rekindled. (Internal memo by Mark: See if we can divert 100-200 of the lawyers on the "try buying Snapchat" task-froce on this transaction)
Though in practice it doesn't matter much. Whether TikTok goes into Microsoft's pocket, or goes into Zuckerberg's or any of the remaining member of GAFA's pocket doesn't matter much to the end user -- their privacy will get utterly raped all the same.
The whole thing will turn like Alien vs Predator's tagline "whoev
Re: Any other US company (Score:2)
Social media is the only thing stupid fucking millennials believe. If you control that media you control 30% of the votes.
He can't "ban" shit (Score:3)
This is 'the donald' having a toddler hissy fit (Score:2)
I want a hamburger, NO!! A cheeseburger... (Score:2)
So this is Slashdot in 2020? (Score:2)
Mob mentality (Score:2)
This is literally stuff the mob does to businesses.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, he tries to act like a criminal. Trump sounds like an idiot.