US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days | Hacker News Reader

US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

asia.nikkei.com

734 pointsbaylearn1,265 comments

I don't get it. It's US companies standing to loose their stronghold (near monopoly) on social, advertisement, and other forms of monetizing the web if the US creates a precedent for "national security" in this way, as in "we're welcoming social networks and free speech as long as it benefits the US and can be searched without warrant." Quite predictably, governments all over the world will be pressurized to question why they should give US companies (bred by teethless US antitrust) a free pass to destroy their publishing industry. Publishers themselves will put this onto the agenda in their own best interest. The French are already on the fence to create new digital tax legislation after EU/US negotiation have been aborted by the US side. Maybe hurting Google, Facebook, Twitter & co is seen as desired collateral damage?

China doesn’t allow many western companies to operate in China. Why should the US allow Chinese companies to operate in the US??

This is an outrage that we should not allow. They steal our intellectual property, create state funded companies that are given monopoly access to their markets, and then unleash their stolen products on the world market. And if American or other western companies try to compete on the ground in China, they can’t.

Would WeChat or TikTok exist if western chat and social media apps were given total access to Chinese markets??? Extreme doubt.

The eventual end result of bending over to China is a world where all of the goods, services, and software are owned by China. This imbalance that China has created is unworkable and cannot be allowed to continue.

>Why should the US allow Chinese companies to operate in the US?

The US gains very substantial economic benefits from being an attractive place for international companies to do business. Foreign investors know that when they invest in America, they're getting a stable regulatory environment and a reasonably trustworthy civil legal system. If America decides to undermine that trust for short-term gain, there will be a substantial long-term cost.

You might believe that hostile trade policies prevent American companies from competing in the Chinese market, but that's starkly contradicted by the number of American companies for whom China is a key market. Apple earn $11bn a year in China. Wal-Mart have thousands of stores there. Yum! Brands (KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell) have 40% of the Chinese fast food market and make more revenue there than anywhere else. Starbucks have 70% of the Chinese coffee market. The shelves of Chinese convenience stores are groaning with American-owned brands.

An all-out trade war with China might be appealing, but be under no illusions that it'll be all upside for America. If China want to put the hurt on America, they have more levers to pull and more staying power. It's definitely not a fight you want to lose, but it might not even be a fight worth winning.

China aren't thinking about next quarter or next year, they're thinking about the next generation. Where does the US see itself in 2050?

I think too much brain-cells are devoted to debating this point based on non-factual premises. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tiktok-china-state-medi...

According to Lee Kai-Fu who launched Google in China: "Chinese laws are clear about what foreign companies can do to operate in China. In TikTok's case, though, the company was left no choice but to consider a forced sale."

China doesn't not allow western companies to operate. Google proactively made the choice to exit China. I'm not arguing that they should have elected to follow Chinese laws but the actions the Chinese government took with western companies was not to either tell them to stop existing in the Chinese market or abdicate their ownership to a domestic company.

Let's debate on non-imaginary premises.

> China doesn’t allow many western companies to operate in China.

This is simply false, yet it gets repeated on every discussion about China.

Western companies are everywhere in China, and they make massive revenues there. The presence of Chinese companies in the West is tiny by comparison (if you want proof, just look at FDI figures in each direction). Anyone who's spent time in both places can see this.

It's very difficult to discuss China-US trade issues when so many people begin from completely false assumptions about what the present situation is.

I don’t follow the logic of “China does something that we think is bad, therefore we must do the same thing that we think is bad.”

When you say "steal" and "imbalance that China has created" - you expect to move almost all design, planning and manufacturing to China gradually over decades of time, give them all the technology because they are just "low-level workers", embrace what they build themselves because it's cheaper and good enough, and for them to be happy, in perpetuum, to receive a fraction of the profits? This situation was not created by China - it's just completely expected consequences of decades of un-strategical behavior which is now starting to bite back.

Because allowing Chinese companies to operate in the US is good for American consumers. This isn’t a zero-sum game.

Google's dragonfly would allow it to operate in China. It didn't because of domestic pressure, not the Chinese government. There used to have a huge debate of that here on Hackernews. It would not be fair to say that China banned Google for protectionism reasons. At least for China, the government have a standard, a list of censorship requirement to follow. There are things a company can do to operate in China. While here now at the US, it's protectionism that targeted a specific company without doubt. I'd hardly call that the rule of law, would you?

> Would WeChat or TikTok exist if western chat and social media apps were given total access to Chinese markets???

WeChat caters to the needs of Chinese users. As far as I know, WeChat invented integration of payments in messaging apps and Western apps like Messenger and iMessage copied that. I don't think the Western apps have QR payments, which is very important to Chinese. And I don't think a Western app would have come up with the group hongbao exchange feature.

TikTok doesn't have a surviving American equivalent so, yes. Definitely it would exist.

> Why should the US allow Chinese companies to operate in the US??

For the same reasons that China should allow American companies to operate in China.

This is correct, thank you for this reply.

Or there is actual national security issues at play they dont want to tell

TikTok has only recently had any competitors from the west, and WeChat is still far and beyond any chat platform the west has offered. I have extreme doubt the western companies would at all be able to compete in China. They don't get the culture, they have inferior features and inferior user experience.

In fact, if the west weren't so racist I suspect WeChat would dominate just like TikTok is dominating in the west.

Isn't this just reciprocity? China banned a long list of media companies: FB, Google, YouTube, Twitter, Netflix, and every traditional media. Now the US is banning two apps made in China.

It's only reciprocity if you divide the world into two tribes, the "China tribe" and the "US tribe". Someone from the "China tribe" did something bad to the "US tribe", so now we're going to grab a random member of the "China tribe" and punish them for it, even if they're not the one responsible. I used to think the Western world had abandoned that kind of collective punishment, but apparently not.

It ceases to be reciprocal if you distinguish groups at an only slightly higher resolution: Chinese businesses like TikTok and WeChat and American businesses like Google and Facebook in addition to the Chinese and American governments. The Chinese government demanded that all businesses censor content, but Google and Facebook had most of their users outside China, so they could choose not to comply and still survive. Whereas TikTok and WeChat didn't have that luxury and censor their Chinese users (TikTok by offering Douyin as a separate product and making TikTok unavailable in China, WeChat by censoring messages in conversations with at least one Chinese participant). So far, both Chinese and American businesses were bullied by the Chinese government. Now the US government decided to "reciprocate" and ... decides to bully businesses as well, but only Chinese ones. Great justice.

If TikTok or WeChat have done anything wrong they deserve to be punished for, then sue them, or, if it's not illegal, make a new law that requires them to stop doing whatever it is. That law should then also apply to Google and Facebook, just in case they might be tempted to try the same thing.

But having the president order arbitrary punishment without proof of guilt (what happened to presumption of innocence?) looks like a dictatorship to me. Maybe I'm just biased by living in a parliamentary democracy where the voting system aims for proportional representation.

>Isn't this just reciprocity? China banned a long list of media companies: FB, Google, YouTube, Twitter, Netflix, and every traditional media. Now the US is banning two apps made in China.

This really could be the end of the thread. For years China has banned systems and applications from other parts of the world. The fact it has taken this long to respond with action is stupefying. China would like the benefits of an open internet, but don't want to participate.

The decision is 100% appropriate, but wasn't handled in the best manner.

>China banned a long list of media companies

That's not a wholly accurate characterisation. The internet is regulated in China, in the same way that broadcast media is regulated in the US. You might vehemently disagree with the specifics of Chinese media regulation, but the regulatory principle is the same.

Foreign media companies that choose not to go through the Chinese regulatory system are blocked from operating in China. Google and Facebook have chosen not to operate in China rather than comply with their regulations, but many American media companies have, most prominently the Walt Disney Company.

There is a fundamental difference between having a legible and uniform regulatory system and arbitrarily banning companies based on the whims of the executive. If a Chinese company started beaming satellite TV channels into the US that flagrantly violated FCC rules, we would fully expect the FCC to take strenuous enforcement action. You or I might consider Chinese attitudes to freedom of speech abhorrent, but the regulation of Chinese media is a matter of Chinese sovereignty.

It feels unequal after this was called censorship and anti-democratic, being used as a basis for propaganda against China, for years?

I think reciprocal would be more like the 50% local ownership plus government oversight just like China does. It just doesn't look good that they're singled out to be sold off 100% seemingly for being successful with their only issue being that they have been hoovering up data which isn't that unusual for an app.

China didn't ban them, they just asked them to play by Chinese Rules. I think it should be the same. Instead of Banning the US should setup what US rules they expect international companies to play by, as should the EU etc.

Just to correct some details: Netflix, LinkedIn, Bing are not banned in China.

There's douyin for china and tiktok for everywhere else.

Chinese companies go to the effort of creating separate apps to comply with the laws and cultures of other countries. Why can't American companies do the same and obey Chinese law? Yet again, "American Exceptionalism" strikes again.

Also see LinkedIn and Bing, which disproves the idea that it's all some plot masterminded by Beijing to only allow Chinese companies to succeed.

If you claim to stand for free trade, you can't go along in these protectionism wars without losing a lot of credibility and, along with that, soft power.

Did China ban them? I thought they refused to follow China’s censorship laws?

Skype is available in a China.

This is a fallacious argument.

For example when Google worked in China they were ripped apart for doing that, and so decided not to.

Most of these companies could work in China if they followed Chinese rules. They decided not to, so they don't.

What's the point in reciprocity here?

"And if you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss gazes back into you".

In one way, yes, it seems like reciprocity, but the impact here seems to be larger than a diplomatic dispute: China is communist, US is free (in terms of public imaging). So in that positioning, while China as a communist, authoritarian nation would be the type to ban online services, the US is supposed to be "better than that."

In any case, I think that the result of this is more that TikTok will sell at an even cheaper price, since it's coming from a position of weakness, not strength. And for WeChat -- who in the west actually uses it? The impact there I believe is a slight dip in Tencent Holdings' stock price, which will quickly bounce back.

>Isn't this just reciprocity? China banned a long list of media companies: FB, Google, YouTube, Twitter, Netflix, and every traditional media.

Yes, which is bad for China, because it robs the Chinese people of choice. As Milton Friedman said when speaking on tariffs, "why do to yourself what you do to an enemy at war?"

China engages in censorship and limits the freedom of their people, so we're going to do the same to stick it to them? Excuse me if I don't see the logic

Is free speech conditional on reciprocity?

China asked these companies to obey the local law, but none of them 'surrendered', not including Apple and Microsoft.

I don't think that's reciprocity. China has punished its citizens for being born in China by banning FB et al. In response, the US has punished its own citizens by banning WeChat et al. Reciprocity would mean that Xi is banned from using Facebook while Trump is banned from WeChat.

This "we'll be like the worst examples in the rest of the world" is not a winning strategy. It is simply remarkable that anyone in the US, much less anyone learned, could cheer this nonsense on.

Further Trump didn't just say they had to be sold, but instead they have to be sold specifically to a US buyer. That is...incredible. He is effectively engaged in technology piracy. Then again he just announced new tariffs on Canadian aluminum -- leaving Russian and Chinese aluminum untouched, and just after the ratification of the revised NAFTA -- under the guise of "national security", so it's into serious parody territory now.

The US is currently a corrupt banana republic.

Regardless, China has an enormous number of US targets they can and likely will retaliate against. And when they do, be sure to thank Trump.

"Just" reciprocity? "Just" an eye for an eye?

And when the other guy takes out our spleen, we should take out his too?

And his muscles?

His brain?

And heart?

Until we are both nothing but dust.

Yes, let's reciprocate. Let us take until we are shit in the wind.

Reciprocity doesn't justify repressing human rights. The pursuit of happiness is a human right. Some people pursue happiness by making dancing mobile apps and earning money with them. If China decides to limit that right it doesn't justify the US also limiting that right.

Of course this is tiny compared to the much more extreme human rights violations we see in China, the US, and elsewhere. But we should uphold rights and rule of law in all cases.

What's stopping Volkswagen from lobbying Germany to ban Teslas because all the cameras in it pose a "national security risk"?

This is, by all account, a shortsighted move

Are you still trying to find logic in trumps actions?

The popular opinion on reddit seems to be that this is just trump being told that tiktok users where responsible for his failed tulsa rally, and personally, that explanation seems just as likely as any of the other explanations given here...

You're overthinking this. It's one thing for a popular app to come from another country. It's another thing when that country has complete control over business decisions, is your biggest global competitor, and is known to play dirty.

What still amazes me after 5 (?) years since Snowden's revelations it's how EU hasn't banned US social platforms yet.

Doesn't Tencent own interests in all of these game companies? Does mean that even things like Fortnite are illegal now?

The US lost that near-monopoly years ago.

Broadly speaking, I think we're witnessing the birth of three distinct global powers.

One is centered on the US, and consists (broadly) of Canada, Mexico, the rest of Latin America, the Commonwealth nations, Japan, Korea, Israel, and Taiwan.

An American civil war would destabilize this to a large degree, so we'll have to see if that plays out.

Edit, since people seem confused: This would be an absolute nightmare scenario, but it is in the realm of possibility, and would massively change international political structures.

Another is centered on Germany and France, and controls Europe, parts of Africa, and the Middle East.

Finally, we've got China, which will likely control a big chunk of Africa and Southeast Asia.

Russia is a tough one, but I see them siding with China or Europe.

Contested territory will include Taiwan, bits of the Middle East, and an escalation of the border disputes with Japan. Likely bits of eastern Europe, plus conflicts on the China/India border...

What a time to be alive.

Edit: Just because somebody says that something is a possibility doesn't mean that they want that thing to happen.

Me coming down with a case of COVID is a possibility. In fact, I'm operating under the assumption that I will be infected at some point, regardless of precautions (masks, hand-washing, stepping back from my competitive doorknob-licking career, etc.)

That doesn't mean I want a case of Horribly Shitty Virus With Not-Yet Well-Documented Complications.

I'm just prepared for the worst (as best as I can), and hoping for the best (because why not?)

> and other forms of monetizing the web if the US creates a precedent for "national security"

By far not a precedent. USA has been doing this even with its Western European "allies" for as long as NATO existed.

As for Chinese cos. Forced sales at firesale prices are not unprecedented too: Sany

What I also don't get is why they'd be so stupid. Just tax the companies locally and make a profit.

As long as they contribute to the local economy, provide a service, and operate within the bounds of the law, that should suffice.

Banning them is just worse for everyone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_sovereignty

US have just joined the rank.

What I don't get about the fervor the Trump administration is placing on banning Chinese apps over national security is that: i) on one hand there were Congressional hearings held 2 weeks ago where Trump said "Big Tech (FAANGs) were too big and needed to be broken up", and ii) on the other hand the US gov wants to now further cement American companies as de facto 'monopolies' for the world.

There's already various international issues with CCP-affiliated companies, but there must be some ulterior motive to go after TikTok and WeChat with such urgency right now, as opposed to any other time in the last 4-5 years.

* Personally, I think the result of what happens to TikTok, WeChat, or US app stores over Chinese apps doesn't matter in the end. What matters is that demands on Chinese apps to come to a deal with the US by September gives Trump more firepower to work with - if the deal happens, Trump paints himself as a US savior from Chinese meddling; if the deal doesn't happen, Trump blames China entirely as the bully and pushes America to retaliate.

Advertising won't stop. It is just someone else who will make the money.

a) Publishing is altogether a different situation.

b) Small nations can't feasibly have their own social app networks to any degree of scale.

c) The US is not China. For the most part FB is not a national security risk, whereas the Chinese apps could become that. China uses it's apps to observer and control every aspect of behaviour in China - the wherewithal, mans, intent etc..

d) This is tit for tat: China does not allow foreign social media in it's house.

I'm not so sure I agree with this, but it's not so outlandish.

Election. Team Trump believes it needs to take a firm stand on something or other.

There are much more obvious national security threats, but this is kindergarten tit for tat politics for ratings. So don't expect any action on those.

Or any understanding of second order consequences for the US. Or a coherent national IT security strategy, which is what the US and EU really need.

The Trump administration is stirring up China hate as a means of getting reelected. Anything goes. The national security concerns may or may not be factual, but Trump doesn't care about that one bit.

It baffles me that people cannot see this very obvious fact. Just proof that his strategy is working.

I really think its as simple as Trump hates TikTok because 95% of TikTok users are not Trump supporters. Every thing else is just excuses/rationalization for the ban (although some of the reasons may actually be good, they aren't what Trump cares about)

You have posted the reason why this and the TikTok ban is most likely a bluff.

This (ordering companies such as Apple and Google to sever all business with TikTok and WeChat's owners and by extension removing them from all app stores) is a cannon that only can be fired once and will be so loud that it will fundamentally damage the centralised app store model.

This is similar to the muslim travel ban and will be overturned by some court and the Trump administration probably expect this. But does this anyway for the purpose of political communication.

> if the US creates a precedent for "national security" in this way

It can be a real threat to national security[1]:

> Thursday's order alleges that TikTok "automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users," such as location data and browsing and search histories, which "threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans' personal and proprietary information -- potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage."

It has nothing to do with other Western nations. It's about protecting your citizens from aggressive foreign states that operate based on completely different values.

I would consider going even further, and banning all Chinese researchers from the top US schools[2]:

> Seventy-one institutions, including many of the most prestigious medical schools in the United States, are now investigating 180 individual cases involving potential theft of intellectual property.

> Almost all of the incidents they uncovered and that are under investigation involve scientists of Chinese descent, including naturalized American citizens, allegedly stealing for China.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/politics/trump-executive-orde...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/health/china-nih-scientis...

As you stated, this is about national security, which should be of the utmost urgency and concern. So you think saving the likes of Google, Facebook, Twitter is more important than saving the liberty of citizens and the lives of the overseas dissidents that are being endangered?

Regardless of how I feel about this particular company or transaction, to me this is a bad overreach of presidential power. I guess it's merely a reflection of the incompetence/inaction of Congress to study the matter and do something about it, as is their responsibility.

Why do I say so?

1. The justification for this is that it's a "national emergency with respect to the information and communications technology and services supply chain". Supply chain? Are you kidding me? The permissions given to the executive to declare emergencies for critical goods and services such as related to war time -- these extend to a voluntary communications app? Strains belief, and however you feel, this is not a good precedent to allow.

2. CCP is censoring / monitoring / scraping users' data, so this is a national emergency.... but not for 45 days and then also ok if we can buy the company on our terms.

This is yet another thing I guess time to throw up your hands and say, this is how we live now. One throw-it-against-the-wall proclamation after another.

Even if you're somewhat ok with it, are you really ok with this principle being applied, when someday it may not go how you want, for something you care about?

Justifications are meaningless. The US wants to curtail Chinese influence and power, so it finds some mumbo-jumbo to justify it.

Does anyone remember when Trump bombed Syria while hosting Xi, and then bragged about how beautiful the chocolate cake was?

None of these Chinese companies would have grown to what they are today without intense government-enforced protectionism at home, and until China agrees to compete on a fair playing field I'm perfectly fine with them all being banned outside of their firewall.

Would China ever agree to let Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Messenger etc. or any new startup operate freely and make money there? It should never have had this one-way economic benefit to begin with.

It's pretty much impossible for lower-income countries to develop economically without protecting their emerging businesses from being slaughtered by established foreign competition.

The priority of the Chinese government is the benefit of its citizens (leaving aside that the CCP doesn't consider ethnic minorities in China to be full citizens, as this is a separate issue) and its domestic economy, not the benefit of the American tech sector's senior executives and shareholders.

It's not reasonable to expect, much less demand, that the Chinese turn their tech economy over to silicon valley by allowing unrestricted US entry. It's not in their economic interests, nor is it in their security interests, and no amount of US bullying will change this.

China is not Europe; it's not going to hand over the keys to its economic future to the United States just because the US asks for them.

You couldn't be wronger.

Alibaba wasn't protected by the government at all. Ebay's then CEO bought a local e-biz site eachnet and relocated to Shanghai but still failed at competing with Alibaba.

Amazon bought some local e-biz site too and failed at competing with Alibaba too.

MSN was a huge player in China with far more users than QQ when it was taking off. ICQ was in China too. At the time IM wans't a big deal for big players. Tencent went IPO as very small startup, far less than Sina, Sohu etc., China's portals.

Chinese internet giants could win because they adapted fast to local market.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. US companies don’t have to trade with China.

But the US banning trade with China is nothing but an attack on Americans and my freedom to trade and communicate.

How so? Google operated in China for more than a decade and never got a major market share, and they already did fairly well compared to others. Facebook was largely unheard of after being available in China for many years before finally got banned in 2010. Amazon has been operating in China forever but is basically irrelevant to most Chinese. Most American companies did terrible job in localization and I see no chance of them winning the competition with their local competitors.

If they face strong local competition in any other country, they'd fail too

> None of these Chinese companies would have grown to what they are today without intense government-enforced protectionism at home

As others have mentioned, Alibaba, Taobao, Alipay grew the same time as mazon, Paypal and eBay was available in China. Also newegg had a much better headstart than jd.com but still failed.

At one time even Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger was a serious threat to Tencent QQ. Wordpress was much more popular than QZone.

>None of these Chinese companies would have grown to what they are today without intense government-enforced protectionism at home

Ah yes, I remember when the Chinese government killed off Vine to give TikTok a head start.

What are you talking about? All countries protect their industries. Are we forgetting about Bombardier? All military contractors are almost part of the US government at this point. And Apple, and now Microsoft apparently are leveraging Trump to gain every bit of advantage they can. The US forces entire countries to give favorable deals to american companies and has for decades.

Those companies are free to operate in China if the comply with Chinese law.

The US hasn’t issued any legal barriers for TikTok to jump over, they just straight out banned it.

The best argument I have read here.

Some people here are wondering about the implications of this. What this means IMO is that all Chinese investments in SV need to be liquidated at fire sale prices in the next 45 days. Regardless of how people here feel about China this is a huge escalation. The US is inflicting huge losses on Chinese companies for no clear violation of US laws on their part. The pandoras box is now open.

Do countries get to do this to each other whenever they feel like it now ? Can China force Tesla to sell its Chinese operations because Teslas data gathering poses a national security risk ? China has some pretty serious means available to it for escalation. China can ban Boeing from China forcing the US taxpayer to incur serious losses in keeping the company afloat.

The whole thing is pretty stupid overall. Most people don't realize that during the 2008 crisis it was Chinas 500 billion dollar stimulus that kick started demand and pulled the world out of a depression. China and the US are interdependent and hold up the global system upon which global growth depends. If China slows down as a result of all this that reduces global growth. Pushing China to the wall can make them take extreme steps like undercut the entire dollar based financial order leading to mass instability. The US might come out victorious anyway but its not worth the risks. Not to mention a war which if it breaks out could lead to WW3.

Previous attempts to contain China were much more tactful with things like the TPP and the Iran deal. Right now the world is hurtling towards the abyss and most people here don't even realise it.

A meta point I'd like to add is that currently 10 % of the earths population in the "Westosphere" controls 60 % of the worlds wealth. This is untenable in the long term and all this flailing about will not stop a reversion to a more balanced world. Its better that this happen gracefully than in a violent fashion.

I think we are already passed the point of any of this mattering. Increasingly the rhetoric seems to me to just be: what matters isn't who is in the right or what is just or fair. Increasingly the only thing that matters is which side you are on. Are you with us or are you against us? It's just dogma at this point.

In this kind of environment people that are rational either stick to their tribe or learn to keep their mouths shut because it's no longer safe to express a contrarian opinion (just like in China). You see already see this in comments sections throughout western publications and forums where questioning policy or taking the opposite side means you are a bot/stooge/unpatriotic/50 cent warrior, etc, etc, etc.

Can China force Tesla to sell its Chinese operations because Teslas data gathering poses a national security risk ?

China can force any company out of the country for any arbitrary reason whatsoever. As far as I know, they are still banning Houston Rockets games because Morey supported Hong Kong in a tweet.

> Do countries get to do this to each other whenever they feel like it now ? Can China force Tesla to sell its Chinese operations because Teslas data gathering poses a national security risk ?

Yes? Are you unaware that China has been doing exactly this for many, many years?

Just as two examples, AWS was forced by China to sell off its Chinese operations to a Chinese company because of arbitrary national security reasons. Blizzard Entertainment was forced by China to go through a Chinese intermediary who controls and publishes all Blizzard games in China.

What are your views on IP theft by some companies there. Should that be considered first strike by China.

> Do countries get to do this to each other whenever they feel like it now ?

No, countries get to do this to each other whenever they feel like since the dawn of mankind. "Now" isn't any different.

Despite all this, US tech firms still have a harder time operating in China.

> A meta point I'd like to add is that currently 10 % of the earths population in the "Westosphere" controls 60 % of the worlds wealth.

True wealth is really hard to measure. Stocks and dollars and euros are not wealth. They are mediums of exchange no different then dogecoin.

When I am hungry, I can’t eat them directly, I can only trade them for food. And the amount of food I will get varies based on supply and demand.

> A meta point I'd like to add is that currently 10 % of the earths population in the "Westosphere" controls 60 % of the worlds wealth. This is untenable in the long term and all this flailing about will not stop a reversion to a more balanced world. Its better that this happen gracefully than in a violent fashion.

That has been the case since at least the start of colonialism, so something like 200 years now. It depends on what you mean by long term, but that is already a long time. (And it has been sort of non-violent since the de-colonization wars in the 60s).

Wasn't China already doing stuff like this?

> forcing the US taxpayer to incur serious losses in keeping the company afloat.

That would be a first now would it.

"China can ban Boeing from China..."

Not if they don't want an airline industry. China does not have the capacity to build a jet engine yet alone a commercial plane in service.

Looks like Trump had been promoted to the external M&A consultant for SV tech companies.

I'd prefer we reference CCP instead of China to differentiate the Chinese people from their tyrannical rulers.

The laws in America not outright making it illegal for tyrannical organizations who operate concentrate camps and partake in genocide (Uighurs) to have access to our democratic societies and benefit economically doesn't mean it's not something you should stand for - and where the laws likely should exist for that.

Likewise, the CCP would likely just takeover Tesla's operations - maybe paying them, maybe not. The difference in the US, currently at least, is TikTok has options: 1) they don't sell and the ban comes, they don't receive any $x billions compensation, or 2) they understand a ban is likely in the US (and growing other democratic nations) and they make the smarter economic decision of selling for $x billions - maybe at fire sale pricing, however there are many competitors who could still compete and be capable of taking over operations, so perhaps not as low as otherwise it could be.

We're not hurtling towards the abyss, that's fear mongering; you may be right that SV startups may have to divest their China based investors, however that may or may not hurt them - and that would be the result of countering external costs to supporting and allowing CCP that we haven't been adequately accounting for for decades.

This is a strategic political-economic pressure decision to put pressure onto the CCP - notice that we're paying attention and won't stand for the level of abuse and tyrannical behaviours of the that we're becoming more and more aware of.

Economic pressure and preventing access to democratic societies for economic gain IS the graceful way to go about this, rather than allow CCP to gain more reach, access for propaganda for intelligence gathering and manipulation, to then spoil politicians further and become more entrenched in our societies economically and via investments in the most popular apps, etc.

And finally, the CCP isn't suicidal - their $500 billion stimulus you reference was for their own survival as well; they also wouldn't want this system they've been creating getting its fingers strongly into the rest of the world economy (which they depend on to maintain) to collapse, the collapse of which would mean things would shift greatly and more likely away from their own benefit.

This is nothing new; it's geopolitics. The big boys have been doing this since the dawn of time.

Think of it like a playground: Everyone generally gets along, but the big kids can and sometimes do monopolize things they think are important at the time. The smaller kids make way for the bigger kids, and every now and then there's a fight between the bigger kids when they disagree strongly enough. They exchange words, jostle and block each other, or maybe it even comes to blows, and then things return to the status-quo for awhile.

That's how geopolitics work, except that it's usually a LOT more subtle or at least hidden from the public eye. Trump isn't a member of the political elite and is completely lacking in tact, so it's a lot harder to keep an appearance of calmness when he's in the room. Expect a much cleaner appearance of normalcy once he's out of office.

Anytime you do business with China your essentially doing business with the CCP.

We would all like China to be a positive part of the global community but the fact of the matter is you can't ignore their overall policy. A possible genocide against the ethnic Uighurs, aggressive expansion in the South China Sea, normalization of censorship and suppression, treatment of Hong Kong & Taiwan: all of which are a complete contrast of Western values.

Could China force Tesla to sell Chinese operations? Absolutely. I don't think any one would be surprised. Companies that enter the Chinese market (if they can in the first place) are subjected to getting a smaller piece of the pie from the start.

Facebook has relentlessly tried to tap the Chinese market but are blocked by the CCP. So why does TikTok get a free pass to the American market? Why does __any__ Chinese company get a pass?

I think we need to continuously evaluate our relationship with China.

WAL-MART, Starbuck, Ford, General Motors, GE, Microsoft, Apple, Tesla, UnitedHealth, HP, IBM, JPMorgan, Pepsi, CocaCola... all these companies are easy targets of China. But the Chinese government is not likely to make any move unless really cornered.

China has been doing this for a very long time to US companies. I'm not sure what pandora's box is being opened here. They just didn't selectively to two companies, they do it to all of them (other than Tesla who was the exception to the rule).

>>it was Chinas 500 billion dollar stimulus that kick started demand and pulled the world out of a depression.

unlikely. That much doesn't move the needle, world economy right now is $140+ TRILLION. USA gave out over $700 Billion for that matter in 2008-2009 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvest...

EU gave $200+ billion, plus each country did their own thing.

Ask FB or Google about their Chinese websites. How are they doing? This should have been done long time ago, tit for tat.

As for the rest, I doubt China can resort to stupid stuff. US and EU are not happy with them for a lot of things, including Covid, and China desperately needs them. China allowed manufacturing not to help us, but to gain taxes, employment and to steel IP.

This is sad, we in the US are losing the little high ground we had and no longer lead by example to bring the world closer together by encouraging free markets and free people. I'm against this protectionist nationalism, it only leads to future conflict.

> no longer lead by example to bring the world closer together by encouraging free markets and free people.

It does not work very well if you are the only nice guy within a group of a--holes. You just end up being beaten up. Free Markets work well if pretty much everyone adopts the same rules of commerce, but China is way beyond that point.

US is merely reciprocating the policies of CCP: let them allow US companies to compete fairly in China as well.

Not really. There are other developing economies with serious tech sectors like India which operate according to the rules based open market system we have in place.

If the US doesn't take action against Chinese protectionism, why should other countries abide by the rules and give US access to their markets? The US provides China it's market even though China closes it down for everyone.

I think US being soft on China sets a bad precedent.

> I'm against this protectionist nationalism, it only leads to future conflict.

And unfortunately this is what the top comment preaches and I am very disappointed to see that the more-educated-than-the-average-person readers of HN fall into the trade war / retaliation fallacy.

Trade always benefits both parties. Otherwise they would not start trading in the first place.

I don’t think the US has ever lead by example. Europe has though.

You need to study up on game theory. Being the only nice guy surrounded by jerks who take advantage of you benefits them and wipes you out.

I'd rather that US lose the moral high ground than lose its bread and butter.

The only thing that matters is long-term consequences. This could be war, but literally nobody wants that, least of all China. It also could be beating China down on its knees, and forcing it to free its people and its markets. That would be a remarkable outcome (not sure Trump can get there, though - I expected something in this direction in his dealings with North Korea, but he dropped the ball... I don't know, maybe he just got bored?)

it's not only about protectionism, WeChat is also used for tax evasion through wechat payments, let alone security risks with Chinese gov having access to all photos, documents and videos of residents of US who have this spyware on their phone

According to Sam Dean (LA Times): "Video game companies owned by Tencent will NOT be affected by this executive order! White House official confirmed to the LA Times that the EO only blocks transactions related to WeChat." [0]

So that clears up at least a little of the ambiguity.

[0]: https://twitter.com/SamAugustDean/status/1291576813685108736

not yet, but this just shows how unpredictable US is. that will surely have an effect on many businesses.

So does this ban transactions with all of Tencent or just those in relation to WeChat? https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-or...

  Section 1.  (a)  The following actions shall be prohibited beginning 45 days after the date of this order, to the extent permitted under applicable law: any transaction that is related to WeChat by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, with Tencent Holdings Ltd. (a.k.a. Téngxùn Kònggǔ Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī), Shenzhen, China, or any subsidiary of that entity, as identified by the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary) under section 1(c) of this order.

They have since clarified, only WeChat apparently

https://twitter.com/SamAugustDean/status/1291576813685108736

Similarly, and I honestly feel a bit silly asking this, but does this ban US investors from purchasing Tencent stock? It doesn't seem so - are these literally just bans on app transactions? Or does this also mean that, for example, WeChat couldn't host infra on Azure in Africa?

Did you edit in the quote from the EO after? It specifically says "any transaction that is related to WeChat". The TikTok/ByteDance order doesn't include a "related to" qualifier like that, the same section in it just says:

    any transaction by any person, or with respect to any property, [...] with ByteDance Ltd.

It's still not clear what exactly that will mean, but the intention definitely seems to be to restrict it to WeChat and not hit everything from Tencent.

And what's a "transaction"?

You won't be able to play overwatch anymore.

considering the "OR" I would assume it includes any transaction with Tencent Holdings Ltd. including their games, QQ etc.

Is there any precedent for a president to do such a thing? I am completely astonished and dumbstruck that everyone is ok with this.

>That happened in 2012, the only legal challenge to CFIUS since it was established in 1975, when Chinese-based Sany Group’s affiliate Ralls Corp. bought wind farms in Oregon. Then- President Barack Obama ordered Ralls to not only divest the wind farms, but also forced it to remove items added to the facilities, including concrete foundation, and barred employee access to the premises. Sany complied.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tiktok-trump-breaking...

The government frequently bans foreign products that have national security implications.

Because many US companies have been at the receiving end of unfair trade practices, copyright theft and blatant IP violations from the mainland. It's good that we are finally doing something about that.

The outcome of this ban has important implications for potential bans in the future that affect apps at odds with administrations. End-to-end apps like Signal come to mind.

At least in my social circles, this has been one of the few things trump has done that both dems/conservatives agree with. Why would you be ok with CCP collecting info on US citizens and spreading misinformation to benefit a foreign regime?

Dumbstruck that we wouldn’t allow an adversarial country collect data on all of our citizens locations? And potentially more?

The (US-HQ'd) company I work for has a small but significant office in China. We are not a household name, even within tech, so I doubt we'd be a target of any retaliation by China.

However, my worry is this: Whilst we have a lot of really good people in China, we don't do any business in China (and there's no realistic prospect of us doing so). So at this point operating in China seems like a huge exposure to risk for relatively little reward in the long term.

But I don't see an alternative for us. Pull out of China and business continuity would take a huge hit; stay in China and accept the risks & uncertainty.

Basically, I'm torn about the whole situation.

Your Chinese employees will be fine, but foreign personel coming in should indeed be very careful not to pique the party's attention as it will actively be seeking pawns.

How bad of a hit would your business continuity take? Not to get dramatic, but, is it worth risking the lives of your employees over? Personally I won't step foot within PRC borders given my staunch pro-Taiwan sovereignty stance. It's a vicious state that has in the past indicated it will go to any lengths to protect its stature.

I am going to ignore value judgment over whether it is fair, or whether it even makes sense and am going to jump straight to enforcement framework and EO interpretation.

EO appears to single out two entities WeChat ( Tencent subsidiary ) and TikTok ( ByteDance subsidiary ). EO appears to indicate that the restrictions will be governed by sanctions framework.

Tencent owns a fair amount of gaming outfits so based on ownership, for example, Grinding Gears could be affected since Tencent owns 80% stake there. Gears seems to interpret the order in an optimistic way leaning heavily on phrase 'any transaction that is related to WeChat', but ignores 'with Tencent Holdings Ltd.' and how it is likely going to be interpreted by the banking. In short, Tencent interpretation right now is 'it applies only if it only blocks transactions related to WeChat.'

I personally have less generous read, but if a lawyer could actually weigh in, that would work:P

Original text:

Section 1. (a) The following actions shall be prohibited beginning 45 days after the date of this order, to the extent permitted under applicable law: any transaction that is related to WeChat by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, with Tencent Holdings Ltd. (a.k.a. Téngxùn Kònggǔ Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī), Shenzhen, China, or any subsidiary of that entity, as identified by the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary) under section 1(c) of this order.[1]

[1]https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-or...

Diclaimer:

I am not a lawyer yo. Don't be an idiot.

This joke was good:

> In addition, the application captures the personal and proprietary information of Chinese nationals visiting the United States, thereby allowing the Chinese Communist Party a mechanism for keeping tabs on Chinese citizens who may be enjoying the benefits of a free society for the first time in their lives. //

Because only a fascissistic dictatorial government would be shooting on it's own citizens, eh.

Who is using TikTok for something that's got any business or political sensitivity?

I'm surprised Trump doesn't just admit 'China is beating us on internet platforms, we're not going to let them win financially'. He could present it as 'leveling the playing field'. That sort of overtly authoritarian dictatorial xenophobic fascism seems to be lapped up by the USA public at the moment?

Or does anyone want to defend that some video of me dancing to music is somehow critical to keep private??

I can see there's a side effect of the USA administration not wanting any apps they don't have a backdoor to being used in USA.

They don't say which companies will be subject to the order, really open and free (presumably to allow maximum market manipulation [fluctuation on the speculated actions, then controlled movement according to which companies the order covers] and a month and a half to get relevant bribes).

Tl;dr depends if Grinding Gears pays Trump enough campaign funding I'd guess.

The entire western world should treat China exactly the same way China treats them.

Western companies have a difficult time operating in China, but Chinese companies have zero problems operating in western countries. It’s completely unfair and if we follow this to conclusion, the future will be one of only Chinese international corporations.

Would WeChat or TikTok even exist if the Chinese market were open to existing western chat and social media software?? Unlikely.

If China wants their companies to be able to access western markets then they must allow western companies to access their markets.

Quite frankly, the entire western world should be banding together to oppose this nonsense from China. We should outright ban any goods or technology that originates in China until China changes its behavior and opens its economy.

Why "the entire western world"? As an European, why should we align with the US in this?

The EU doesn't have any tech giant because, contrary to China, we have received US tech giants with open arms. So our economies bleed money and lose jobs to the likes of Amazon, because hey, "the free market". What do we stand to gain by siding with US companies in this US companies vs. China companies wars?

Perhaps it would be better for us to just imitate China, start being protectionistic and banning foreign tech companies so we can grow our own and prosper. It works. In the US you're pretty much telling us that it works - so well that you are doing the same.

Now that the US has shown it can ban foreign tech companies if it's in their own interest, and all the moralizing talk about the free market has been exposed as the self-serving propaganda it has always been, what reason do be exactly have to keep playing this game where we are the biggest losers?

All this is leading me to have a stronger belief in Nassim Taleb's "The Most Intolerant Wins" theory[1]. Though, in this case there is no minority as such. China was intolerant to the US's ideology and exploited its openness for its own benefit. Now, unfortunately, it has come to a point where even US has to be intolerant like China to be able to get back at it. Thoughts?

[1] https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/08/intolerant-wins-dictatorship...

Please excuse me for my semi-rant. I don't mean to be too critical, but I think framing every news about China in this "the West vs China" angle is really counterproductive.

First of all, "the West" is a very vague concept, quite unlike talking about China. Does it include all of Europe? Does it include Moscow then? Does it include parts of Latinamerica? Maybe you mean NATO (but then you should include Turkey too). Or maybe you only mean Five Eyes (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, United States). This isn't just nitpicking: your point might make sense if you mean Five Eyes, but it might not make sense at all if you include, say, Greece , Turkey and Israel.

Second, talking only about "the West" vs China marginalizes the rest of the world. Most of the people in this world live in neither the West nor in China and yet they never seem to matter according to most discussions I see here in Hacker News (I, for one, identify with neither).

This is specially bad when people implicitly say things like "the West values freedom and democracy, whereas China...". If democracy and human rights were something unique for "the West", then you shouldn't be surprised that China doesn't like those concepts (in fact, they oppose liberal value precisely because of this: "this only works in 西方, not here in China").

西方 = the West

> We should outright ban any goods or technology that originates in China

If we were to start that ban many of Walmart's non-grocery (and some groceries) shelves would be empty for considerable time.

I'm unsure there even are alternatives that can meet US demand for everything China provides.

Regardless if it’s justified or not I think this is a bad move by the US on the global stage.

The US just banned apps that didn’t break any law, for vague “national security” reasons. And due to the global reach of American tech companies it becomes effectively a global ban.

Now every country that’s not the US will need to 1) think twice about doing business in the US and 2) re-examine American control over the products and services their citizens can and cannot receive. Specifically Apple and google in this case.

Most countries and companies are already cautious when doing business in China because of the unpredictable and arbitrary nature of doing business in China. Now the US is headed towards the same direction.

So congratulations, the US is becoming more and more like China. Doesn’t sound like a win to me.

It's one thing to call for a system of fair regulations that provide a level playing field; it's another thing altogether to essentially expropriate a company through executive action because it was doing too well.

Your comment makes sense and I mostly agree with it, but not on this submission.

No thanks, while the US protects its digital economy from Chinese companies, it is also slapping tariffs (or is threatening) on European goods.

The US doesn’t have any friends any more because it acting like a shit to them all. Meanwhile every day it looks more like a dictatorship with no regard for its populace. Honestly it’s time the rest of the western world moved on. Relationship over.

But seen from Europe, your 'western world' = mainly USA ...

which "existing western chat and social media" aren't from the US ?

> The entire western world should treat China exactly the same way China treats them.

You could use "democratic nations" instead of western world. I agree with you otherwise.

What will a dictatorship do if it had hundreds of billions in trade surplus every year? Well, they are eventually going to spend it on weapons.

We are not China and we dont want our countries to behave or become like China.

The real loser of this battle will be Apple, not China; they may just lose all their Chinese users in the US to Android in a couple months.

The US is and will always be a free speech country, and they cannot go to the extent of imposing a firewall like China does. The extent to which they can take action is to require WeChat and TikTok off the app stores of the US. Which would leave Android users the option to install the app directly from an APK file, bypassing the Google store (no rooting required) while Apple users basically have no recourse without jailbreaking.

>Western companies have a difficult time operating in China, but Chinese companies have zero problems operating in western countries.

Ask Elon Musk about the first part, and ask Huawei guy about the latter.

Well, if there was truly a quid-pro-quo, then the United Kingdom should pay China reparations for its atrocious actions during the opium wars, similar to what Germany had to do to survivors of the holocaust.

If there were truly a quid-pro-quo, the West would be clamoring for statehood for Puerto Rico like they do for Taiwan.

If there were truly a quid-pro-quo, calls for the 'entire western world' to band against China would make as much sense as calls for 'the entire western world' to band against the United States, who did quite a bit to rig the global economy in its favor after WW2 and Bretton-Woods.

If China treated the Western world the way the Western world treated China, there would be hell to pay. And yet people like you just can't stand that they would act in their own self interest, and become a superpower without asking the permission of the West.

Countries will take whatever advantages are available to them to develop and benefit their people. China never tried to hide what they were doing. All of the world's economists were aware of their economic protectionist policies for the past 50 or so years. Let's call a spade a spade. This 'outrage' about China's policies in the year 2020 is nothing more than a frustration with the West's ruling classes for failing to respond to China's rise at all in the last 50 years. And there is clearly a sense of entitlement as well, as though those of use living in the West deserve to live in the hegemonic country despite not working as hard or valuing progress as much as those in other societies.

The Western world never cared about Chinese people or what was happening in China until it started to threaten their own global dominance. Now all of a sudden you have elite clamoring for civil rights and justice in China, while those same elites profited for decades off of cheap Chinese labor after the Great Leap Forward and Tiananmen Square.

Sure, you should advocate for your country to change its policies if its getting a bad deal from China. But turning this all into a "West v. China" thing is how we got here in the first place.

I think China already promised that one or two years ago during the trade war with US but nothing major has come of it. I doubt China would follow through because it can have potential consequence in their censorships rules.

I guess eventually all other countries would resort to having laws specific to handling Chinese companies and all laws common for companies of all other countries.

Are folks unaware of the history of westerners and trade in China, and how this kind of attitude could be interpreted by Chinese people not ignorant of their country's history?

In the late 19th century Great Britain fought two Opium Wars to force China to open up its markets to British opium. The British were forcing Indian farmers to grow opium and then taking it to sell to China. They wanted access to Chinese silver, but China had little reason to give it to them. So Britain's answer was to get Chinese people addicted to opium and get the silver through trade of opium for silver.

The Qing dynasty, for obvious reasons, didn't like this idea and forbid the British from importing their opium. So the British fought two wars to force them to accept their imports.

The Economist magazine was established in the mid 19th century as a pro-slavery, pro-imperialist magazine. Their arguments during the lead up to both opium wars sound a lot like yours. I want to make people aware of this, because it's important we understand how that kind of argument sounds to many Chinese people less ignorant of Chinese history than most westerners.

Meanwhile, American brands find their refuge in China:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-becomes-a-refuge-for-u-s-...

China has not forcefully seized foreign company's promising assets so good so it's impossible to consider for sale, by both a measly 'offer' of maybe 1/10, or less, of the market value and threatening from the leader, has it?

Quite frankly, the entire world can learn from China on how to protect its own economy from bullies. I'd hate to live in a world where the Microsofts buys all the Skypes and ruins all sorts of innovations you all claim comes from this freedom. You shareholders only have $ in your eyes, this means shit to the young people looking towards their future. I don't mind you all protecting your interests, you're human.. but it definitely adds too much taint to your 'genuine' perspectives.

so china won is what you're saying? their system is superior if the west has to switch to it

Lots of western companies are operating in China. If they feel it's too difficult they will pull it out, but please don't act like a representative to all of them as if you know everything.

BTW please stop purchasing anything that originates from China immediately if you want to follow your own words.

> the future will be one of only Chinese international corporations

A world ruled by corporations headquartered in a single country, with other countries having their politics and economy determined by the interests a single nation has been the rest of the worlds situation for 50+ years. It's somewhat ironic to see Americans suddenly getting concerned about this.

> Would WeChat or TikTok even exist if the Chinese market were open to existing western chat and social media software?? Unlikely.

The argument that if the Chinese market was fully open then their local companies would have been more quickly devoured by single, US based corporations doesn't do much to convince me that what the Chinese government is doing is wrong.

And don't fool yourself, this had nothing to do with what's 'fair' for America or Americans, all of this is so strong arm Chinese companies into surrendering to corporations that happen to be based in the US on favorable terms. This is the US government working as the goons to enforce Facebook, Google and in this case specifically Microsofts global dominance.

There is no political or economic will to embargo Chinese made goods. It didn't get this way overnight, it wouldn't be possible to end it overnight. It would translate into wholesale asset destruction of many businesses who depend on supply chains that would take years to recreate. It would make hundreds of millions of poor even more poor: here and in China. It would take away cheaper versions that make people feel just a little bit more in touch with people who can afford every day things. It would be an economic nuclear bomb just to prove a point.

And for ~40 years the U.S. at least has considered attacks on its economy as a national security threat - it is extremely likely an embargo leads to an actual war. Making everyone worse off in the short term is a fast track to violence.

Besides, the vast majority of consumers have voted with their wallet.

Tencent is a particularly interesting selection given their stake in Riot Games, Activision Blizzard, Epic Games, Supercell, and others. https://twitter.com/Slasher/status/1291565115670695936?s=19

What is his motivation for this right now? Is it just the distraction of the week or was there a specific incident recently that triggered this?

There’s likely a lot that is not and will never be covered in the news that the NSA and CIA know. I’m sure they look at our commentary on here, with 1% of the geopolitical information, and chuckle.

One factor is that China has had a Firewall blocking all foreign digital competitors and information sources for a long time.

Didn't Pompeo say something this week along the lines of banning China Mobile servicing telephone calls to the U.S.? That means if you carry a cell phone from China to the U.S. you can't get roaming service anymore?

I am surprised Lenovo hasn't been singled out yet. They supply enterprises throughout the U.S. a lot of corporations that hand out laptops to their employees all use Lenovo.

They ruined the ThinkPad line, please sell it to someone who can restore the brand.

They might be forced to sell too.

The ongoing anti China circus through executive orders is arbitrary and draconian to say the least... and while I've been mostly ignoring it so far, a lot of Americans live in China and have money on Wechat. Are they now violating this week's "law"?

The actual executive order: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-or...

It's quite short and just adds a lot of FUD

I just went to my Wechat to try to transfer my money left in there to a friend. Transfer isn't going through.

An important note that nobody seems to be reporting on: this is only possible because Apple and Google have control over which apps are permitted on your device.

The US government has no legal authority to ban publishing (including apps) in the US. They do, however, have the ability to regulate trade between the operators of the App Store (Apple) and the Play Store (Google), and app publishers, which is what they're doing here.

Ban the business relationship, and they've effectively banned the publishing. It's an end run around the US constitution, and everyone should be up in arms about it: not just at the US government, but also at Apple and Google for creating a legal chokepoint for mass censorship by the US federal government.

This would not be possible if end users actually exercised control over their own devices. This is how the web works, and it's how everything else on your device should work, too.

And this is why as a European I think that we should take a long and hard look at our dependency of US technology. Its becoming more and more clear that US is not a stable actor.

I think it would be prudent for us to force alternatives to apple and google app stores (and other software) that are housed and owned in Europe. I have no confidence that US intelligence is not accessing our data and setting up profiles on Europeans that could be used for nefarious purposes.

On the bright side banning Chinese apps doesn't have an impact on the intentional users. By that I mean is that there seems to be a lot more app stores than just Play Store, and it's even common for Chinese apps to offer an apk download off their website. People who are unknowingly using Chinese developed apps are probably going to be the most affected because they're not familiar with side-loading applications and are just going to switch to their nation's version of the application which is probably the intention. It is kinda fair because as soon as a major country starts to practice protectionism then the rest have to or else they'll get unfairly exploited.

That isn't my impression of how the web works. The second your bits leave your LAN, they begin traveling over infrastructure that is owned and operated by another private entity. They could rescind your access at any time, especially if the government orders it so.

What if the app publishers stop taking payments and ads from the US, in that case there may not be no longer cash transactions, so will the restrictions apply?.

> Apple and Google have control over which apps are permitted on your device

Has Google ever unilaterally removed sideloaded apps from Android?

> everyone should be up in arms about it

I feel the same way! I can’t understand why there aren’t bipartisan calls for Trump to knock it off. Is it that most people aren’t fully comprehending what’s going on, or are those of us upset about this being dramatic?

And how would we prevent the Chinese from simply subverting our democracy?

I agree 100% with this. I mean, there are other developing economies with serious tech sectors like India which operate according to the rules based open market system we have in place.

I think US being soft on China sets a bad precedent.

India has a lot of protectionism in place for their core industries as well.

Example is call centers. Foreign call centers, like in the Philippines, are not allowed to service any company that does has operations in India.

Wow this is huge if Tencent is out of the game in the US. What happens to their stakes in companies like Reddit and Riot Games?

Instagram Reels is launching at a "convenient" time.. . . ..

Especially right after Zuckerberg gets grilled in congress for being anticompetitive.

Meanwhile the president threatens to ban facebook's biggest competitor...

I do wonder if there's a deeper connection than Facebook simply having this feature ready to go and releasing it early. Was there cooperation of the sorts "you ban TikTok and we'll release Instagram Reels early to help distract upset users"?

AFAIK , tiktok's demographic (teenagers) is no way going to do the same things on facebook . It's probably going to be a new company (Franken-Vine maybe)

I've had a number of tik tok-ers tell me they don't care what app it is. They care about the community and creators, and they will find each other on whatever replaces TT.

I was intrigued by this sentiment, the idea that the conceptual social network is the thing of value, not the application one interacts with it through.

For WeChat, how much impact will this have on Americans? As an American, I tried signing up to communicate w/ someone in China, and I couldn't get through the verification process.

Obviously TikTok has a big USA presence.

> As an American, I tried signing up to communicate w/ someone in China, and I couldn't get through the verification process.

I signed up before there was a verification process. But my understanding is that you get vouched for by an existing account. Since you were signing up to communicate with someone, wouldn't that person have been a natural choice to verify you?

Rather than every nation deploying their own internal version of X, surely the sane endgame is open source software.

Ironically, Tencent is a major contributor to open source software.

https://opensource.tencent.com/en/about

Someone has to store the videos though.

Since TenCent is huge:

>Video game companies owned by Tencent will NOT be affected by this executive order!

>White House official confirmed to the LA Times that the EO only blocks transactions related to WeChat

>So Riot Games (League of Legends), Epic Games (Fortnite), et al are safe

https://twitter.com/samaugustdean/status/1291576813685108736

I guess Chinese users will resort to Chinese IP VPNs, there's already some to get around geofenced mainland content.

E: much downvote

I had no idea that Tencent had full ownership of Riot games. Same thing with 40% ownership of Epic Games. Wow!

Here's a diff between the two orders, if anyone else is curious about the specific changes. I used the TikTok/ByteDance order as the "original", so removals and additions are relative to changing that one into the WeChat/Tencent one: https://gist.github.com/Deimos/8fcb95ec4017cf1a28e32f6057a91...

So does this mean Apple will have to remove WeChat from the App Store everywhere in the world including China?

If Apple does this, what will it mean for their huge business in China?

Trump just neutered Iphone sales in China. Apple can't even get revenue from WeChat now since those are transactions.

Which workarounds you suggest around the Great Firewall of the United States of America?

Might be time to start a VPN service with exit points in China!

This. It was Cisco that originally helped build the GFW in China, this is like ironies to the power of ironies, exponential levels of irony.

The GFW of China is to prevent its people to see outside. The GFW of America, at least for now, is to prevent China from peeking in. One is implemented as an allow list, the other one is a deny list.

"Threat" aside, it does seem fair for the West to reciprocate bans on Google/Facebook etc, but not sure the best way to communicate with family in China now if the western messaging apps are banned there and vice versa

Email? I know that seems dismissive, but people got along just fine before Facebook, texting, WeChat, etc. I suspect in reality there will be an endless whack-a-mole game with messaging services where people use a different one fairly frequently.

Have u tried connecting via a vpn ?

The family in China should contact their representative and ask them to unblock Signal, Telegram, or any other method of communication. If they care about their citizens abroad they will surely do so.

This also potentially has many ramifications in different industries. Tencent (owner of WeChat) is a big investor in media and entertainment companies. One side effect, for example, is blocking financial payments to Riot Games, Epic Games, Fortnite, and half the gaming industry.

Has anyone seem any details on what exactly it will cover?

What a bizarre and interesting turn. I'd give a lot to be able to sit in on the meetings between TikTok and Microsoft right now.

I wonder if FB will come over the top with a bid.

FB would have too much scrutiny and chances for the deals to fail to pass regulators. If they are really looking for a quick and guaranteed deal, they’d look elsewhere.

> I wonder if FB will come over the top with a bid.

Doubt it, they already have a new competing product. As soon as TT engagement drops due to friction the user will switch.

This is how war festers. You lose the common communication mediums. It becomes easier and easier to see the other guy as BarBar-speaking barbarians.

Fuck the fuckers that would rather punch back than uphold their own integrity.

You can't call the other team an asshole for cheating, and then go right ahead and cheat in the exact same way. It makes you even worse than they ever were, because you ever presumed you were better.

How absolutely sad.

We deserve to choke on the toxic fruits these seeds may bear.

Are we witnessing the end of free markets? Or the growth of decentralization? These sorts of moves are making a very strong case for decentralized platforms.

More likely the end of one-sided free markets. There's no suggestion that the US is about to pull the same shit on countries that don't try and hobble US tech companies.

Also wonder if this affects wechat pay, it's gotten pretty huge in Canada in the last few years. But we have much more mainlanders. The knock on affects will be interesting.

And if wechat allows web only, will US ban the service from browsers GFC style? Seems like a different can of worms than blocking apps.

I don't see why the executive order can't simply be to compel Apple and Google to display warnings on the download page, or one when the app launches. They already do thisshould you dare to install something that originated outside of their walled garden.

Let the consumer make the choice whether to use it or not.

The case against Huawei at least has merit; protectionist policies against threats to strategically important industries (telecom infrastructure) has numerous precedents.

This just seems like a favour to Zuckerberg after he gave the all-clear to unfettered lying in political ads. Surely that would have no impact on "national security, foreign policy and the economy".

Every step they take to distance the population from Chinese products makes the next steps towards heightened conflict easier for the government. China isn't an enemy of the US people, only of our elites. Part of what they're doing is protectionism for US buisness, which is funny because when US business is strong they promote zero trade barriers so that the "free market" means total domination by US interests. Part of what they're doing is creating a foreign enemy so they can blame the grotesque failures of the government on external enemies in an election year (both Rs and Ds).

I haven't seen any discussion about how other non-China non-US countries feel about TikTok being forced under American ownership. For example, I understand that TikTok is quite popular in the middle east, and I imagine that some countries there might not be happy with American intelligence services having access to their citizens data, at least if they are also subscribing to the beliefs that short video clips are a national security matters. I suspect those countries wished that Bytedance sold just their US operations, but it appears they are instead selling _all_ non-China operations.

Wouldn't there be some value in decentralizing social media? Surely, countries where most of their users are communicating via Facebook puts them at extreme disadvantage, especially if they need FB to comply with some sort of subpoena. We don't really have global central news networks, so why would we ever think global social media platforms would ever work? Plus decentralizing social media could possibly help with bot/hatespeech/fakenews problems, or at least localize them a bit more to reduce the speed and scale problem.

I can understand the US decision of banning huawei reasoning for national security, but case against TikTok is not something I grasp understandable. Even India(where I live) banned Tiktok. At first I believed,its just temporary and will be lifted in few days but it didn't.

These types of actions will not benefit anyone, just toss name of china with other country in above scenario. It will be something like,

- EU banning Tesla because of its USA origin

- US banning Reliance/Tata because of its Indian Origin

- Russia banning google/facebook to favor their local companies

- etc.

This is something that should never happen,but sadly it is.

Only took a couple decades to do this. A messaging app that allows China to read everything but not other countries should be illegal to begin with. Entirely secure or not at all is the way.

Isn't this exactly what US companies do, and what the US government wants to do?

There's a lot of practices that China has that I disagree with.

There's a lot of practices that US has that I disagree with.

China has traditionally been very closed and is very slowly moving to be slightly more open to other countries.

The US used to be kinda open, but is shutting itself in like crazy.

This is way so many countries are pushing so hard to reduce their reliance on the US. This can only bode badly for the US, while the rest of the world continues slowly uniting. Not _against_ the US, just uniting to work together.

No one forced American corporations to do business with China. America's current lack of "greatness" is America's own fault. There is a nonzero chance that America is going to face serious economic distress in the coming decade. Those who made poor leadership decisions for America's economy are desperate to find a scapegoat. No one forced American corporations to do business with China.

Your scapegoat narrative is an unproductive one and apologist at worst. As usual, people are getting wrapped up in the "America bad" trope while ignoring the fact that there are real people being targeted and having their lives tracked and terrorized by the Chinese government. I don't know what country you're from but if someone was behaving badly in your house, I would be kicking them out too. You'd have to be stupid to let a burglar in your house and offer them a room.

No one seems to be asking the most illuminating remark about this situation:

The US should allow TikTok if China agrees to allow unrestricted use of Instagram in China. That should have been the deal that Trump could make to expose the assymmetry of "open market" that China keeps touting about.

Everything, all arguments in this thread fall apart if people are complaining, condemning US's move to block TikTok. I agree, the justification provided by President Trump hides behind national security, it would have been far better to make a case for free trade and unrestricted access to China's domestic market.

Imagine, the opportunity for Instagram to advertise to a country of 1.4 billion people. The opportunity cost is massive.

I feel like the underlying third variable in this whole thread rests in the question, "Have you or your company ever accepted or considered Chinese investment?"

I would absolutely love to know how many of these folks saying "We need to uphold Western open values and not reciprocally punish" have business entanglements with Chinese funds.

Does anyone know whether the ban on WeChat means WeChat will not be available on iOS in China?

If so, Hauwei must be very happy.

Wechat is used by a vast majority of overseas Chinese (and increasingly non-Chinese as well), and a lot of the employees would message each other about work matters over WeChat because of convenience. All these messages are routed through Tencent's Chinese servers.

Let's face it: it has nothing to do with "treat people the way they treat you." It's just Trump trying to win/secure the votes from his loyal supporters.

Does TikTok grab user data and analyze them for ads, recommendations, etc? Sure, so do Instagram. But does TikTok send those data back to Chinese government so that it would potentially threaten U.S. national security? We need proof, but so far none. Here's an article of French hacker Elliot Alderson (@fs0c131y) analyzing TikTok code: https://medium.com/@fs0c131y/tiktok-logs-logs-logs-e93e81626...

So IMHO the two real reasons Trumps banned TikTok and WeChat are: 1. His supporters are mad that everything is made in China. It violates some basic economics principles but that's fine. 2. What happened to that Oklahoma rally, Trump really took it personal.

This ban put hundreds of thousands of Chinese people (including those who are already U.S. citizens or green card holders) in the U.S. to a difficult position. They don't have other ways to communicate with there friends/families in China other than WeChat. But I guess, those people (including myself), are the least important factors Trump worries about, if he even cares at all.

> But does TikTok send those data back to Chinese government so that it would potentially threaten U.S. national security? We need proof, but so far none.

How about the No place to hide laws that mandate this? Proof enough for you?

Photos of the CCP community in these so called companies:

https://twitter.com/hnjhj/status/1291906465775509506/photo/1

This is just the start, introducing https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-the-clean-...

Can someone explain the motivation?

It's one of those American policies that has a triple motivation: it provides an opportunity for the GOP to look "tough" on foreigners, it provides the opportunity to protect the US tech sector's market position by outlawing a potential competitor, and it satisfies nationalist ("national security") factions in Washington that want to roll-back Chinese economic development.

Foreign policy initiatives that satisfy the needs of three or more power blocs in Washington DC tend to have extremely bad outcomes; the last major policy that had a triple motivation was the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

(final paragraph edited for clarity)

The stated motivation is to reduce misinformation from China in lead up to election. Pretty wild that Facebook which was 100% proven to have been used for Russian misinformation in the last, and this election, somehow dodged a bullet on this...

My (totally personal opinion guess) is that this is just another way to poke the bear as part of the tit-for-tat with China and maybe a minor contributing factor that someone has got in his ear and blamed TikTok for his low campaign event turnout after there was a TikTok meme to RSVP to his events to make them sound like they were going to be huge, then embarrass him with low numbers.

Cynical perspective is that one of his friends with a stake in Facebook got in his ear about China using TikTok to make fun of him or something, and now Instagram Reels is right there to pick up the slack. Nothing would surprise me with this govt anymore. I mean the news is all talking about TikTok now instead of COVID-19... troop bounties... so on...

I’ll be impressed when US says we’re not depending on China to manufacture and instead bringing the big dogs like Apple and the Fashion behemoths to US.

We want a net export to China instead of a net import. At-least a resilient manufacturing industry.

It is fair.

If both sides can be in ... but now only China can be in, influence the media, use $ to buy and work with USA firm in USA etc. etc. But not USA. It is so one sided that China will win only in the arrangement.

Time to restructure. It is time!

Although the focus of the discussion seems about TikTok, what really should get more attentions WeChat and Tencent - this is basically the only way one can communicate in modern fashion with people in China.

This is what Monero is for. Any cryptocurrency which hides the value and participants of transactions on its chain will always have value as long as asymmetric power exists in society.

This brings to mind the US auto industry where GM and Ford kept thinking that building cars their way would win and then lost to cars from Japan that were more attuned to customer needs.

If WeChat is taken off Samsung and Apple phones, it would drive more purchasers to replacing their existing with Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo, etc phones because digital payment is a way of life in China now. Overseas business users may buy 2nd phones to be able to access the China partners and markets.

BTW, Tencent is not going to cripple WeChat to not do transactions. They make too much money from it and can afford to ignore this autocratic request.

Theres an incredible amount of foreign propaganda in western social media anyway. Twitter took down like a million CCP accounts the other month (they made an announcement about it) and thats just the ones they know about. This is a step thats at least in spirit probably makes sense but there are more larger issues. Reddit literally has an API to comment...you think all those policial default subs are real comments? Not a chance. Reddit doesnt care because it drives engagement.

Almost every CCP-owned channel on Facebook has bought fake subscribers, it's so visible they don't even try to hide it. As an example, CGTN French has 20M subscribers, more than any local French newspapers despite being virtually unknown in the country. If you go by subscribers count, it would be the most popular news platform of the country...

A comment API makes sense as reddit originally had vibrant third-party app developers. It’s not like it can only be used for bots to post.

Political PACs were openly bragging about manipulating reddit's political subs in 2016 with thousands of accounts and reddit did absolutely nothing. [1] [2]

[1] https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/09/david-brock-hil...

[2] https://www.thedailybeast.com/hillary-pac-spends-dollar1-mil...

Every website effectively has an API to comment (or do any other action that's available through the site). You can just use HTTP requests.

yup they are all over popular websites with fake accounts, YT, FB etc

If Apple/Google are forced to take out the apps from their stores, would they have to take them out of the US only or worldwide?

Doesn’t this eviscerate Chinese investment in SV?

No because wealthy people care about making more money not principles or nationalism.

Seems pretty weak to be honest. Definitely not the "American Great Firewall" that some were predicting.

After 45 days, would anyone logging into a Wechat server in China be guilty of circumventing an embargo? Would they have to actually be sending money?

Can't have China influencing the election. That's Russia's job. It's not like these companies are new or doing things that every tech company in the world isn't doing. National security is clearly a pretense that's laughable. If that was the case, we'd see Facebook, etc. banned in many countries.

This should be taken to the WTO if it wasn't coopted by the US and allies

Won’t make a difference, Trump would sooner pull out of the WTO than have his decisions dictated by it.

This feels like the kind of thing that could make sense as part of a broad portfolio of carefully analyzed actions to thwart the rise of CCP soft and hard power, but instead is a one-off poorly considered fit of pique from a self-dealing bona fide moron right before an election.

Is he trying to get Microsoft a better deal? Like, right out in the open?

Good, the US should reciprocate the treatment it receives from China.

Is there nothing between turning the other cheek and stopping to their level?

Ugh.

Does anyone think Facebook is requesting for this to happen? Trump and Zuckerberg are friends (on friendly terms anyways). Trump needs Facebook for reelection purposes, Facebook is losing users to TikTok. Seems like a win-win for these two to team up like this? A little quid pro quo?

This is what happens when your app behaves like malware.

Seems arbitrary and capricious to me. USA is a democracy. If foreign apps are a threat laws should be passed to protect user data privacy and maintain data sovereignty and made equally applicable to all.

Conspiracy theory: this is being spun as an anti-US move despite being totally sensible with precedent.

We did literally the same thing with Grindr. Why would we not do the same on a platform full of CP?

China is going to declare war on the US dollar.

Time to ban AWS in Europe too. Maybe cut the transatlantic cables too. I mean we ve known for ten years we are definitely being spied on and did nothing

What is it mean to the future of ADRs?

would any company bother acquiring wechats american operations or are we just letting them disappear?

Is DJI on the pending list?

Time to buy a drone before they're sold out.

time for android phones. let's get to work community.

I wonder how the TikTok userbase in the US is going to react to this? This could galvanized teens to action against the Trump administration. On the other hand, they could just ignore it aswell.

So WeChat is likely to be banned by the US govt?

Trump doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.

China is creating a social credit system that exerts a ridiculous amount on control over its citizens, and spies on their every move. Who in their right mind doesn't think that they would force TikTok to do the same on global citizens - not to mention manipulate them with propaganda.

Not to mention that whole imprisonment, torture, enslavement, and sterilization of the entire Turkic Uighur population. The real question is why do we tolerate ANYTHING Chinese?

I wonder if he's actually followed the administrative procedures act; often a lot of Trump proclamations end up being stricken down by the court for not following the proper rules. That's exactly why DACA remains in place; while the president has a lot of power over this area, there are still rules and processes that have to be followed.

Finally some good news

Explanation of CFIUS and why and how Trump can use it: https://www.lawfareblog.com/tiktok-and-law-primer-case-you-n...

Our 70s-era national security regime needs desperate Congressional overhaul. I take particular peeve with the prohibitions on judicial review of CFIUS actions.

For once, I agree with Trump that governments shouldn't be spying on users data. But let's start by ending the NSA dragnet.

This is obviously just a tactic by the Trump administration to distract people from the US economy tanking because of the mishandling of covid-19. If you haven't noticed, the US has much bigger problems. How about covid-19, the economy, lack of universal healthcare, weak education system, huge deficits, etc?

I am not blaming the mishandling of covid-19 solely on the Trump administration. I am just pointing out their Wizard of Oz distraction tactic and how the vast majority of people fall for it.

There is an economic competition between the US and China but this move is pure silly. WeChat isn’t doing anything in the US. It’s for Chinese people to talk to family in China.

Stoking animosity towards outsiders is a time honored tactic of all bad regimes (including that of the PRC) to distract citizens from their own failings. Time honored because it works almost every time.

I think that negative votes on Hacker News are an indicator of people denying the truth. Bring it on.

Laws and law enforcement are the only sane ways to deal with espionage or whatever the accusation is. What Trump is doing here must be illegal, I hope it is challenged and defeated in court.

Great action, I fully support!

What's the motivation?

OK This is huge. Trump isn't just banning TikTok he's banning Tencent and it's holdings too from operating in the US. To put this is perspective Tencent owns Riot Games (League of Legends) and has stakes in Epic Games (Fortnite), Ubisoft (Assassin's Creed) and Activision Blizzard (Call of Duty). Overall Tencent owns 108 companies across media, entertainment, fintech and education. This is going to be a mess. (universal music and Spotify also owned partially)

Also how will impact companies of which Tencent owns less than 50%?

It's only WeChat. Reddit, Riot, Epic etc are unimpacted

White House has clarified that this will not affect the mentioned gaming companies and other holdings. Only WeChat itself.

I know much of western people agree with Trump's decision to ban ByteDance and Wechat, and it's fair to me when it's based on reciprocal. But actually, ByteDance and Wechat(Tencent Holding) was and is growing more like a US company then a company with China Communism background. A lot of employee of ByteDance/Wechat are engineers like the engineers in hackernews. Even the CEO of bytedance, Zhangyiming, is now cursed in China for earlier friendly voice to US and western world. I mean, why hurt the companies and engineers are or was friendly to US. The recently ban action is turning friend to enemy, why not put the punishment to other unfriendly subject or entity.

After seeing some of the comments here and seeing their half-baked "libertarian' views which are grounded in fantasy, I am speaking out and saying: Good job! It is about time! I fully support decisions like this.

There is no point in playing a "fair" game if the player (China) won't follow the rules.

I realize that this is completely speculative correlation buuuut...

Part of me wonders if Trump was briefed on the Russian law going into effect last month :

Nov 2019 - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50507849

> Russia has passed a law banning the sale of certain devices that are not pre-installed with Russian software.

> The law will come into force in July 2020 and cover smartphones, computers and smart televisions.

And is literally just aping Russian policy :

August 2020 - https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-the-clean-...

> Clean Store: To remove untrusted applications from U.S. mobile app stores. PRC apps threaten our privacy, proliferate

> viruses, and spread propaganda and disinformation. American’s most sensitive personal and business information must be

> protected on their mobile phones from exploitation and theft for the CCP’s benefit.

Under what authority can he issue this order?

The order says:

> By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,

I’m mixed about this. On one hand the US as the most powerful country should lead and be an example of the free world. On the other hand China is playing an asymmetric game with foreign companies and has banned many US companies from entering their market.

Now they’re still a developing country, so this would be fine by me, except that the Chinese government is committing crimes against humanity and getting more and more powerful at the same time. This is really dangerous, and the only thing I can think of is germany pre-WWII where Hitler had huge approval ratings. Chinese people are extremely pro-CCP even in the US, this is frightening imo. And most countries are doing nothing about the xinjiang and hongkong situations. So maybe this is a good move...

And China has a massive 5th column based here already, especially in tech.

To be clear, TikTok and WeChat are quite different 'threats', both real, but it's not clear how dangerous:

TikTok is aimed at a wide market, and it's a content app - there are two worries with it, data and influence. If they are installed on a significant number of devices in the US/the 'West', and their user data is stored in or available to Chinese networks, that data is available to the Chinese government on-demand. Secondly, if they have significant enough cultural influence, they can use that to promote/demote certain topics or specific content, for a variety of purposes.

WeChat seems to have no serious ambitions beyond China and the Chinese diaspora, nowadays. It's used by people all over the world to keep in touch with their friends and families, and to do business, with people in China, and it's widely-known that the content is actively monitored and censored by/on behalf of the Chinese government. Although VPNs etc are available, it's really the only significant communication and social media platform available in (and into) China. There's also pretty good evidence (although mostly anecdotal, AFAIK) that it's a channel for nationalistic propaganda, government-coordinated action and similar amongst the Chinese diaspora - actively so, beyond the passive effect of censored content.

None of these things are to say that billions of people can't happily use those platforms, every day, all over the world! But they also cannot be completely ignored...

And before anyone starts with "but the American government is just the same!", it's not, it's really not. The Chinese government is a literal totalitarian, authoritarian, one-man dictatorship. However much Trump cosplays as a dictator, and however much authoritarianism he demonstrates, there are huge qualitative differences.

At least the Chinese Communist Party has the decency to make policy that has the effect of banning foreign businesses from operating and kangaroo courts to keep up the charade.

I think this is going to be tossed out in court. The President does not have the power to unilaterally decide trade policy, and it's really hard to argue that a consumer software product has national security implications (even if I think it does, I don't think our courts have technically literate judges who would agree).

If you want to provide consumer privacy protections that would prevent the alleged (and very likely) malfeasance of nominally-private businesses from China, write some fucking policy instead of signing an EO with no weight.

Another day, more disillusionment from our federal government's ability to govern. Regardless of how much I want something like this to be in place, I want Congress to write a law that enshrines consumer privacy protection and recognizes that any business doing what they purport Chinese businesses to be doing is a national security threat ; be it from businesses foreign or domestic.

Forget I said anything. HN is infiltrated by propaganda without people even realising.

Can you point out some obvious propaganda? And not just some argument you disagree with?

Like...China?

This is a fantastic start.

More people need to become aware of what China is currently doing with their so-called "reeducation camps".

I would like to see other countries doing the same, and not just with fancy (but mostly useless) things like TikTok, but cut off Chinese involvement in anything critical where countries depend on them.

It has become clear they have total disregard for human rights.

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