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Comment by leptoniscool | Hacker News Reader

They found a higher bidder? Or did export restrictions from China hinder sale?

ByteDance announced they weren't going to hand over the recommendation algo for TikTok which seems like a bit of a dealbreaker.

~~https://twitter.com/verge/status/1305285085722292224~~

Right link: https://twitter.com/business/status/1305179144171421708

Your link has nothing to do with recommendation engines? Perhaps you pasted the wrong one?

Oh whoops, I picked the tweet next to this one: https://twitter.com/business/status/1305179144171421708.

This recommendation algo bit looks unnecessarily hyped up, it is not as if they have cracked a new superior recommendation method. From an article that was posted few days back, it seemed like collaborative filtering with more signals being collected about engagement. Didn't look like something which say FB or Snap won't be able to do.

It's looking like Oracle (of which Larry Ellison recently proclaimed his support of Trump) is now the front runner: https://twitter.com/jolingkent/status/1305290263632343040

Edit: "Oracle Wins Bidding for TikTok in U.S., After Microsoft Proposal Rejected" https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-drops-out-of-bidding-...

So can we now buy people's TikTok viewing data along with their credit card purchasing data that Oracle already sells?

Oracle? :)

It does look like it.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-drops-out-of-bidding-...

So stupid, really.

That's... disappointing. While Amazon may be the reigning modern incarnation of evil, Oracle has held that title for longer.

Is Oracle evil? I thought they were just shrewd business people and not stewards of OSS. I know they have a terrible history in open source but what are some of the evil act’s they’ve done?

Just genuinely curious. I’m a dev that’s only been around the last decade or so. Wasn’t around when they gained prominence.

Oracle is highly litigious. They also acquired and killed a number of products that had a cult following. Their consulting wing sucks, but honestly not much more than Accenture or the like.

That's so...odd. When I think Oracle, I think old suits selling boring old tech. Not 12 year olds twerking and/or pretending to be killed at Auschwitz(yes, a real trend).

yeah.. lots of head scratching when I saw that announcement.

Larry Ellison supports Trump and has raised funds in the past for him. Oracle also has hired lobbyists who were classmates of Pompeo or are related to advisors to Trump.

That may reduce the head scratching about how Oracle got its hand on TikTok. As to the other hand scratching of why, well, my guess is that it's selling for cheap enough that it doesn't matter and orcale wants to have a consumer product similar to the league of FAANG.

The reason for the purchase appears simple: They believe there is money to be made.

Of course that would rely on good execution.

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