- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
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Oh no! Anyway…
It’s going to be to their advantage to claim that they’re shutting down, even if they actually want that $50B buyout. If they say they’re going to sell, they’re going to lose what little leverage they have left. The public that wants TikTok will get TikTok, and the public is going to stop pestering politicians about it.
I read it as a bluff too.
They’re between a rock and a hard place, their best position is to play hardball and rile up their users.
Yeah, it means nothing to us to leave. We’re losing money!
If that were really the case why are they in the US at all? Because they know they can make money and their market position is strong.
But they can’t continue to make money this way. It will be seen as control. So they’re stuck creating a competitor or just writing off the US market.
Yeah I think they’re angling for a reversal, if not they’ll sell and probably take some massive non voting share of the venture along with a bunch of billionaires.
They won’t sell lol, like why would they? If they truly are owned by the Chinese government why would they sell it to an American company?
The public [who] wants TikTok will get TikTok
In my family and peer group, the people who want to use tiktok and the people who could get and use a VPN to access a side-loaded tiktok app, has no intersect group. It’s just a bridge too far for all of them.
I’ll push them onto the fediverse yet.
Worst part about Lemmy being a tech heavy space is that so many users spout shit like “They’re not banning it, just deplatforming it” like yes, dipshit, that’s effectively a ban for something like 99% of people. You think 100,000,000 people are gonna fucking sideload the app? Love this place but it can be a bubble sometimes.
When you’re forced to participate in capitalism, your only option is to play the game. I agree, this is mostly just a bluff.
Why though? Why would they give up their trade secrets? They have a global market.
They could sell the user accounts and content and let another company clip that into their own recommendation algo.
I’ve been a part of a few tech acquisitions that have worked this way. They keep their secret sauce but hand over the community.
Yeah that’s certainly possible. I just don’t think it will go the way people are thinking.
Makes sense from a business point of view. Why sell to create a new competitor with the same technology and an impregnable market base in the USA?
Better to force US competition to start from scratch.
I mean the sale agreement could require the buyer to never expand outside the US.
YouTube/IG are hardly starting from scratch.
But they don’t have the international reach of TikTok.
Why don’t they just sell TikTok to a US Citizen who happens to believe TikTok should remain the same?
TikTok would remain exactly the same, with the exact same algorithms, but it would then be the free speech of a US Citizen so everyone would be happy. Maybe TikTok couldn’t send the data directly to China anymore, but they could certainly sell personal data on the shadowy data markets, just like every other US owned tech company does, and if that data happens to find its way to China then 🤷 .
Shell companies hide the true owner of companies all the time. Why can’t TikTok do the same?
The problem is they targeted TikTok specifically in the law and it will be easy to circumvent. “TikTok is banned, but check out this totally new website called TokTik with the exact same content but owned by a US Citizen”.
This is why they should have created regulations that apply to all companies. Because making regulations that depend on who owns the company will only cause TikTok to change the technicality of who owns the company. They can do so through all kinds of legal tricks without ever actually giving up control.
Why don’t they just sell TikTok to a US Citizen who happens to believe TikTok should remain the same?
They already did that. TikTok is incorporated in the Cayman Islands with headquarters in Los Angeles. The bill of attainder is post-that
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If ByteDance is a normal company they will seek profits and sell for as much as they can.
But if TikTok is a Chinese psyop, they’ll just use any of the many legal tricks we allow to change the “owner” while China still retains control. Companies do this all the time, look at shell companies and such. It’s super easy for China to mask the true owner if they decide to.
This is why we should make broadly applicable regulations instead of picking on one specific company.
If ByteDance is a normal company they will seek profits and sell for as much as they can.
If the sale is forced, the value of the property will be depressed. Why would they take pennies on the dollar to liquidate IP rather than fight it out in court and try to get the provision overturned?
This is why we should make broadly applicable regulations instead of picking on one specific company.
The law is not specific to TikTok. It is any company owned by a subsidiary of an “enemy” state, of which China is listed as such.
And selling the company to a non-Chinese holding company wouldn’t work, because the dispute is over Chinese IP law affecting how ByteDance does business. Move the company overseas and it would no longer be covered by the IP provisions (something the Chinese investors don’t want, because they benefit from the IP provisions).
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Why would the forced sale of a product have an impact on the value?
I have a shelf full of cupcakes. They each cost me $1 to make. I would like to generate a 20% profit, so I sell them for $1.20/ea.
Then the government passes the “UnderpantsWeevil Can’t Sell Cupcakes In the US Act of 2024”, effective in one minute. A financial tycoon from American Cupcake Corp comes by my shop and says “I’ll pay you $.10 for those cupcakes, which will be worthless to you in the next 59 seconds.” He intended to buy them from me and sell them at his store, across the street, for $1.30/ea.
He’s not under any time constraint, but I am. So if I can’t move the balance of my cupcakes in a minute, they become worthless to me.
Logically, I should sell any cupcakes I can’t move off the shelf in a minute to American Cupcake Corp, even at this depressed asking price.
If anything, the fact that it’s being forced to “sell” should make the existing social media companies froth at the mouth.
Why would any social media company bid the real value of the property when the real value falls to zero in nine months?
And - let us assume, hypothetically, that these American tech companies have a history of operating as a cartel - why would they not coordinate their bids to guarantee the smallest possible auction price?
Why would any social media company bid the real value of the property when the real value falls to zero in nine months?
I could see Google buying the brand even without the secret algorithm, and now the next app update will start showing YouTube Shorts. Or maybe they would just start showing “tiktoks” in the YouTube app, with no mention of yt shorts.
Meta seems like a possible choice too. Hell, maybe Elon Musk will waste billions of dollars ruining it and throwing away an extremely popular brand.
I could see Google buying the brand even without the secret algorithm
Not at the company’s pre-law market cap
He’s not under any time constraint
Remind me not to eat at your house.
Does selling from one hand to the other actually matter when it comes to value? If I own a company and sell it to myself via a shell corporation have I actually lost anything, except a tax write off?
Tiktok is used globally. Only American politicians seem concerned about the platform why would bytedance sell it when they can just continue operating in 180 other countries around the world?
It’s not available in China though interestingly
True story, Tiktok has never been available in mainland China.
https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-bytedance-ban-china-india-376f32d78861e14e65ec4bc78e808a0d
In mainland China it’s called Douyin, exactly the same app, same company, not the same content of course. It’s separate because Beijing wants a tighter control on social media in mainland China.
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Actually many governments are concerned about it. But only the US (so far) had pulled the nuclear option.
I feel like they’re threatening a shutdown in the hopes of getting them to reverse their decision because if they just quietly go along with it, other countries will likely quickly follow suit in short order.
The reality is that the lifespan of “most popular social media app” is incredibly short. In the space of a few short years, we’ve gone from MySpace to Facebook to twitter to vine to Snapchat and now to tiktok.
TikTok will soon enough be replaced by “the next cool thing” and BD knows that if they sell in the US, that new entity will quickly replace them globally because the US effectively IS the influencer market.
Viewers go where the content is, and that’s still overwhelmingly American (for better or worse). There is no successful social media app without including the US and BD knows it.
Good. Please proceed as quickly as possible.
They’d rather shut it down cause they dont want to sell it and let an American company see how they use and abuse it to gather information and manipulate behaviors.
They are free to sell to non American companies just fine as long as the new company is not ultimately controlled by the Chinese government.
LMAO, apt name. You do know that facebook, a known disinformation company, is american, right?
Yes, and they should be shut down too. though the difference is facebook is a private entity and tiktok is a tool owned and operated by the chinese government.
You’re point?
No, I’m not a point. Oh, you mean your point. Funny how you don’t know that, as an American.
Generally these days someone who uses grammer and spelling as an attack kinda automatically looses the argument.
Edit: yes I am actually 3 preschoolers in a trench coat.
Especially in the era of autobutcher that thinks you should have typed something different and decides to change it a third of a second before you hit enter.
I’m just gonna leave the false-correction up now, though. Who the fuck cares. Certainly no one with anything actually valuable to contribute.
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Burn them all.
I don’t recall the previous commenter mentioning anything about Facebook. Making a comment that is anti something doesn’t automatically mean they’re pro something else.
Step 1: Feel like getting into a comment section argument
Step 2: Put words in the other guy’s mouth and argue against those
Step 3: Make yourself look like a bit of a tool
Is this the best use of your time?
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Good, that’ll decrease the amount of stupidity in the platform for the international audiences to enjoy
Don’t threaten us with a good time!
So be it. The vaccuum it will leave will get filled by another platform.
This the goal of this bill.
'Notha one Bytes the Dance
Extremely hostile business takeover by the government.
U.S. wouldn’t be taking over… it could be a New Zealand company for all the u.s. cares.
Great news for Loops!
Bye Felicia
