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Comment by sharpshadow | Hacker News Reader

What’s the reason the US insists to own this company?

I can imagine they want to control the narrative with the mentioned algorithm. But are they afraid of it that much that they would ban it if they can’t get it? I mean 170 million Americans in the young demographic are quite important.

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Why would we allow a hostile foreign power with whom we may be at war in a few years to have total control over a major part of the information diet of millions of Americans? The Soviets wouldn't have been allowed to own NBC in the Cold War, and China shouldn't be allowed to own the modern-day equivalent.

The US won't own the company. Some non-Chinese private corporation will. The government won't be able to control the narrative on the app. If you disagree with that, just think about what would happen if Fox bought it: would a Democratic administration be able to have any influence whatsoever on the algorithm? No, of course not. It would be run by American citizens who are protected by the First Amendment.

(Also, I don't think it even has to be owned by an American company, just not a Chinese one.)

>a hostile foreign power with whom we may be at war in a few years

I'm flagging this because while I agree China is a hostile power, it's detrimental to stoke the flames of war like this.

Hey, they're the ones who keep talking about invading Taiwan. Authoritarian regimes tend to be surprisingly honest about their intentions. Believe them when they tell you what they're going to do.

They’re the ones who have been stoking it for decades. Stealing trade secrets, forcing Chinese ownership of operations on companies to continue operating in China or they’d be forced to sell/shutdown and a host of other documented economic policies that are far more damaging than this to foreign companies in China.

Honestly it’s shocking the US looked the other way for so long

The possibility of war between the US and China within our lifetime is a known and all-to-realistic possibility, which has been public knowledge for a number of years.

I don't agree that acknowledging that in any way stokes the flames of war. Having to tip-toe around the fact would be severely detrimental to the quality of discussion on HN, though.

China doesn’t have total control, they have 20%. And they’ve indicated they are completely unwilling to sell that 20%. And given how small the US install base is compared to the rest of the world, it’s not an unreasonable stance to take.

As long as the leadership of Bytedance is in China, the CCP will always have the power to do whatever they want. And come on, their objections have nothing to do with the economics of a sale.

The head office - leadership - is in Singapore, not China. Bytedance does have an office in China, but they also have one in the US (and most other countries they operate in).

That's not correct. Bytedance is headquartered in Beijing.[1] TikTok Ltd. has two HQs in Singapore and Los Angeles, but Bytedance is still the parent company. [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ByteDance

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok

>And given how small the US install base is compared to the rest of the world, it’s not an unreasonable stance to take.

US = 10% of users, but 50% of revenue.

True, but I don’t think it will matter. China is likely to take an ideological stance, just like the US is. It’s going to hurt the US more than China, especially with how close to the elections the ban will occur.

You said

>And given how small the US install base is compared to the rest of the world, it’s not an unreasonable stance to take.

Meaning that losing the US customer base wouldn't hurt TikTok too badly.

I said

>US = 10% of users, but 50% of revenue.

You can't now say

>True, but I don’t think it will matter.

You can't have it both ways. Would losing the US market seriously hurt TikTok? Yes, or no?

>China is likely to take an ideological stance, just like the US is.

I don't disagree, but that is orthogonal to your initial claim.

>It’s going to hurt the US more than China, especially with how close to the elections the ban will occur.

If TikTok is banned in the US, as opposed to being sold to some non-Chinese owner, Americans would just move to Instgram Reels and YouTube Shorts.

Any significant company in China has secret police involved in managing it. Why would you ever want to let them influence public debate in the US? At least make them work for it.

They are concerned that China will weaponize the algorithm to promote anti-Taiwan, anti-Ukraine, anti-Israel, pro-China narratives, and other socially divisive content (and other future issues)

*and anti American

And there's nothing wrong with any of that. Freedom of speech exists to protect offensive, controversial and heterodox speech, not just speech approved by the CIA, moderators and corporate sponsors. I don't know what the CCP could tell America's impressionable youths that's worse than the torrent of capitalist mind-control, propaganda, hate speech and psychosis they're already being flooded with.

Great, when are you moving to China?

That's an odd non-sequitur to make, why would I move to China?

Freedom of speech does not protect the CCP’s right to curate American conversations.

You as an individual are perfectly free to continue discussing anti American ideas if you wish.

Ah, so just like when the U.S. didn’t like the Soviets pointing out they were an apartheid state during the Civil Rights era. Truly a winning strategy!

One of the two states you mention still exists.

No, more like the things I just mentioned.

It doesn’t have to be owned by a US company, it just needs to not be owned by a CCP backed entity.

I think the idea is that a foreign-owned major media company might be directed by that foreign government to work against national interests. Which idea is not so far-fetched.

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