Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
China United States

TikTok Sale To Walmart, Oracle Shelved Amid Biden Review (bloomberg.com) 57

TikTok's forced sale to Walmart and Oracle has been shelved indefinitely as the Biden administration takes on a broad review of national security risks posed by Chinese technology companies initiated under his predecessor, according to the Wall Street Journal. From a report: Former U.S. President Donald Trump had ordered the popular video app, which is owned by China's ByteDance, be sold to an American company last year, citing national security concerns about users' data falling into the hands of Chinese authorities. But multiple legal challenges held up a deal. The most recent ruling on Dec. 7 said Trump's executive order likely overstepped his authority. Discussions have continued between ByteDance and U.S. security officials at the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., the Journal reported citing people familiar with the talks. One of the people said possible solutions include use of a trusted third party to manage TikTok's data, which wouldn't require an outright sale. But no decision on how to resolve the issues is imminent as the Biden administration undertakes its own assessment of the risks of Chinese technology companies and data collection.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

TikTok Sale To Walmart, Oracle Shelved Amid Biden Review

Comments Filter:
  • Un-canceled (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    So Biden un-canceled the work of Trump, the King of Cancel Culture.

    Excellent!

    • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by guruevi ( 827432 )

      TikTok is used to mass surveil the US public, there is proof that TikTok has sent location of military bases to China, it has been caught recording audio and video without the app being open. Not a problem for me since I don't use that stuff, but it's definitely an issue for the less-informed/technical that don't understand the nuances.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        Sheesh, now the Chinese have all that data on the acne and adolescent fears of America's teenagers. It's horrible to think about.

    • by jbengt ( 874751 )

      So Biden un-canceled the work of Trump, the King of Cancel Culture.

      Well, according to TFS, it was a court that ruled Trump couldn't force the sale by fiat, Biden's team is just trying to figure out what to do next.

  • with National Security. Young people were organizing politically on it. Since Young people don't usually vote Republican (and since they made fools of Trump and the Republican party multiple times) Trump and his party went after it.

    It's similar to how/why Nixon started the Drug War (seriously, look it up) or how Occupy Wall Street was shut down using the Patriot Act (look that one up too). Whenever young folk organize politically you can expect the right wing and big money to show up and try to shut it
    • ByteDance (Score:2, Interesting)

      by JBMcB ( 73720 )

      ByteDance's previous social media product, Neihan Duanzi, was shut down by China's regulators as it didn't align with the "core values of the CCP." Zhang Yiming, the CEO of ByteDance, formally apologized and promised that ByteDance would "further deepen cooperation" with the ruling Chinese Communist Party to better promote its policies. To that end, the company has an internal governing council comprised of CCP party members. This probably had something to do with the accusations that they were censoring pe

      • It's a good point, and it is hard to judge as for sure any phone app will collect as much info as it can (which is pure profit), often it's not even by the app developer, but libraries used, yet the very timing of TikTok pursuit puts the whole "Chinese threat" as a reason into question, as the app had been on the market for a long time by then and the former administration had 4 years to address it, yet it became an issue only when TikTok users walked over former president's ego.

        Isn't it true that the US is

    • Also similar to how China pressures web services to stifle dissent - step 1, get your claws into them by forcing them to choose between onshoring or being blocked. Step 2, if they onshore, then you take control of the content to block dissenting speech. In this case the onshoring step conveniently involved forcing the sale of the company to a regime crony.

    • I've heard you or someone else say that before.
      There is just one part I don't understand. Why did Schumer want to help Republicans?

      Your assertion seems to be:

      1. Young people use TikTok
      2. Young people are inexperienced and vote more Democrat
      3. ???
      4. So when ByteDance violated the terms of the acquisition Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, demanded the CFIUS action

      Help me understand step 3.
      I'm not seeing why the Democrat Senate majority leader is upset at young people voting for him.

      • that's a byproduct of the Republican party moving so far right and of our 2 party system that's the result of our "First Past The Post / Winner Take All" voting system.

        This is about preventing them from organizing politically at all. It's a generalized attempt (largely successful) by the pro-corporate American Right to prevent youth from getting involved in politics because young people will generally demand higher wages and more benefits and, well, the Right Wing having aligned itself in total with bus
        • I see, the senior leadership of the Democrats are actually Republicans. Who get upset when they think that a year later somebody might play a prank on Trump.

          How did the senior leadership of the Democrat party know that the Trump prank was going to happen six months later? They had initiated the CIFIUS action LONG before the rally.

          You ended your comment with the words "none of this makes any sense". Finally that's something you and I agree on.

    • I have to disagree a bit. Foreign powers that might be using social networks to spy on US citizens particularly military personnel is a matter of national security; however, Tik Tok was just Trump's single minded focus on one topic at a time as the solution to everything. Attention to detail, complex information, logic is beyond his grasp.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Good.

    Whatever threat Bytedance may pose to US national security, it's not anywhere close to as bad as Walmart and Oracle are.

    About the only worse scenario for national security would be if Amazon bought it.

  • by Cowardly Lurker ( 2540102 ) on Wednesday February 10, 2021 @10:22AM (#61047358)

    Whatever this story says about political this or political that. I'd just like to point out the fact that Fuck Oracle.

  • Remember the reason Trump was so keen to shutdown the whole TikTok platform was because he thought the Dems were using it to conspire against him, like what happened at the Tulsa rally.

MS-DOS must die!

Working...