TikTok Mulls Splitting From ByteDance If Proposal With US Fails (reuters.com) 33
China's TikTok is considering separating from parent ByteDance to help address U.S. concerns about national security risks, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Reuters reports: A divestiture, which could result in a sale or initial public offering, is considered a last resort and will be pursued only if the company's existing proposal with U.S. national security officials does not get approved, Bloomberg reported. The short-form video app is undergoing a national security review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and it agreed last year to implement a number of measures under the plan, nicknamed "Project Texas", in an attempt to placate hostile lawmakers.
CFIUS has stalled in its process, leaving TikTok unsure of whether its plans will be sufficient to continue operating in the country, according to the report. Members of CFIUS from the Justice Department have been unwilling to accept TikTok's proposal, it added. CFIUS, a powerful national security body, had in 2020 unanimously recommended that ByteDance divest TikTok because of fears that user data could be passed on to China's government.
CFIUS has stalled in its process, leaving TikTok unsure of whether its plans will be sufficient to continue operating in the country, according to the report. Members of CFIUS from the Justice Department have been unwilling to accept TikTok's proposal, it added. CFIUS, a powerful national security body, had in 2020 unanimously recommended that ByteDance divest TikTok because of fears that user data could be passed on to China's government.
Eh just ban it (Score:3)
Re: Eh just ban it (Score:3)
It's the video version of Tumblr, a mental illness factory. Kids go there, get exposed to mental illness LARPing and fringe sexual practices, then mimic it. It doesn't need to be owned by the CCP to serve their interests.
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It provides no value, get rid of it, problem solved.
Oh - it provides a lot of entertainment value!
I for one, hope that TikTok can come up with some way to survive, because it is gold, Jerry, gold!
Anyhow Seinfeld quotes aside, there is a whole lot of unintentional entertainment going on there. There is a whole Youtube reaction video section that takes clips of angry ladies who are mad that now that they've reached 45 and are ready to settle down and start a family that no guys seem interested, screaming and hitting their phones because a date didn't bri
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I have never even used TikTok and cannot see enough value (to me) to even spend the time to give it a shot. Perhaps I'm just getting too old. But it would be ridiculous for me to say any company used by 1.5 billion people provides no value. Even China isn't forcing its populace to use the app. People are only using TikTok because it provides value to them. You can disagree with their life choices, but saying the app provides no value is objectively false.
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I signed up a while back to see what the fuss was about. So far as I could tell, it's pretty much entirely narcissisistic teenagers filming themselves pretending to be background dancers for their favorite K-Pop groups. Whatever floats your boat, I guess. But I didn't see any value to spending my time watching imitators on TikTok when there are plenty of BTS* music videos and recordings from their concerts showing their real dancers dancing on YouTube if I were interested in watching. I think I had TikT
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Apparently injecting bleach is also an option.
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This is all just a satanic panic in congress.
I've always assumed it is another round of protectionism by America. China have always been what they are but it wasn't much of a problem until recently.
America does like to have an enemy to point at too.
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Ironically I think part of TikTok's popularity is that the oldies hate it so much. The more they try to ban it, the more the kids want to use it.
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I've always assumed it is another round of protectionism by America. China have always been what they are but it wasn't much of a problem until recently.
It makes sense that countries are not going to give full trust to foreign companies (or even local companies). Even the EU (close allies to the US) places limits on US companies for privacy and similar concerns. All countries have a mix of private and state control of their local corporations, but China pushes to spectrum very far towards state control. It seems appropriate for the West to take strong precautions when dealing with Chinese companies, both for the above reason and for their lack of respect fo
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Re: TikTok news is often more accurate and compell (Score:4, Insightful)
What about Meta and Facebook? (Score:1)
Can we also force Meta to divest Facebook for fears...er...because it does pass user data on to US government and intelligence agencies?
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Can we also force Meta to divest Facebook for fears...er...because it does pass user data on to US government and intelligence agencies?
If TikTok guaranteed the US government equal access to the data as the Chinese government gets, I'm sure the US wouldn't have a problem.
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Oh, ok, sure. So Facebook/Youtube/Twitter should all guarantee the Chinese government equal access to the data as the American government gets?
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Oh, ok, sure. So Facebook/Youtube/Twitter should all guarantee the Chinese government equal access to the data as the American government gets?
It sounds only fair.
Sauce for the goose. How much worse could it be? All the 5 eyes members having access to your data AND China?
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Oh, ok, sure. So Facebook/Youtube/Twitter should all guarantee the Chinese government equal access to the data as the American government gets?
China would certainly be within their rights to force Facebook / YouTube / Twitter to share any information China asks for in order to operate in China. Facebook / YouTube / Twitter are then within their rights to choose not to operate in China.
As is stands today, China and these social media companies have made decisions which have caused these apps to be blocked in China. This is likely a combination of these companies not allowing the level of control China would require and China simply not wanting fore
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A country that does not consider the US a close enough ally to trust the relationship between the US and US companies would certainly be within their rights to ban those companies from operating in their country. China, Iran, North Korea, Uganda and Russia all ban the use of Facebook within their country. That is a perfectly reasonable response to companies these countries view as a risk because of either being foreign or simply being seen as a threat.
If you take the EU as an example of a close ally to the
Whether they "separate" is irrelevant. (Score:2)
They're still owned.
And you can set all the caveats you want.
It won't stop the free flow of data to China.
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There's a difference between searching and scraping and simply directly funneling data to China.
And this is China. Steal anything that's no nailed down.
And if it's nailed down, break in and steal it anyhow.
Then claim that you "invented" it.
elaborate dance for a straightforward decision (Score:2)
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Second... why? Is there any legitimate use case for non-work video sharing or other social media on a work device, especially one used for sensitive data or national security? No. Absolutely not.
Bruh we're not even talking about that. This is about whether TikTok will get outright banned in the whole country. It's already been banned from government devices, and nobody is even talking about changing that.
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We'll pretend not to be run by the CCP (Score:2)
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