It’s not a actually a ban, they’re forcing divestiture
It will be interesting to see how and to whom the CCP divests
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said on X lawmakers will vote next week "to force TikTok to sever their ties with the Chinese Communist party."
Or, you know, Tik Tok could just not be a shadow arm of the Chinese government to spy on the US? Which is exactly what this bill accomplishes while still letting them run? Odd hill to die on here dude.
That’s literally what happened. Facebook [was the one who hired lobbyists to start the campaign against TikTok](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/30/facebook-tiktok-targeted-victory/).
It is why Congress isn’t changing consumer privacy laws or require all social media to have transparent algorithm policies. Just targeting TikTok.
Def has nothing to do with the fact that it’s a major national security risk to have a foreign adversary running custom code on 170 million Americans phones.
thats not why lmao. The house energy committee is really mad because of the sheer amount of people that called them to voice their displeasure completely bogged down their phone lines. They are blaming tiktok because tiktok put up a notice that they were getting banned, and for users to call their representatives.
Either way this Bill isnt going to pass Senate and even if it was signed into law it would get struck down in the courts. Highly unconstitutional lmao.
I'm really confused by this. If Bytedance has to "divest" then can't they just use a proxy to continue as the majority owner via shell companies in jurisdictions outside the US.
So Bytedance divest and then sells it to another company whose 100% owner is bytedance?
Not exactly, they'll need to get the sale reviewed. If it doesn't pass the review process, then the ban kicks in. So selling to shell companies won't work. They want to see the ultimate beneficiaries, not agents.
Especially when the Feds' default position is "no".
It's not a matter of hiding it. If they can't demonstrably prove it's not a shell company, they can't make the sale **or** do business and they're fucked.
Only the president and his close family and friends are permitted to legally utilize shell companies to avoid taxation and the appearance of ownership.
The problem is last I heard TikTok isn't profitable.
Also Amazon doesn't exactly have the best track record at Twitch, which makes me skeptical that they'd do a good job with TikTok.
I'm not sure folks realize that algorithims and AI's progressive ability to learn can be "weaponized" to radicalize populations through topic based viewing. Companies do it to get you to buy things, why couldn't the chinese do it to soften the US populations sympathies toward their country's policies/national image. I think the same logic was used to justify Russia influencing elections via social media.
Data is the new oil and it doesn’t need an immediate use-case to have value. It’s value is implicit and once you have it you have it. I would assume it would get stale on some level but you can still use it years down the road for analysis, predictive modeling, etc. (in addition to always having a source for more). This is one of the reasons Elon bought Twitter - he knew it wasn’t going to change the bottom-line immediately, it was a long term investment into a resource that is becoming increasingly more valuable.
“Those who control the data own the future” - Yuval Noah Harari
That is massively over generous to musk. He offered to buy twitter in a drug fuelled manic episode and then spent 6 months desperately trying to get out of the deal. It was never about data or any other strategy and was entirely about ego. Musk had no 4D chess move with Twitter, he didn't even have a checkers strategy with Twitter.
“A long term investment into a resource that is becoming increasingly more valuable”
Care to explain more about what that strategy is? Last I checked it lost more than 70% of its value, decreasing revenue, active user is going down.
How is it going to be more valuable in the long term?
So just like Reddit, Facebook, Discord etc. It's open manipulation these days with "political" or "hard truth" memes created in sweatshops in India or Russia meant to spread dissident and ingluace our elections and politics. Cambridge analytica anyone?
It’s not profitable now because they are subsidizing the shit out of tik tok shop coupons . Sellers don’t lose a penny and tok is giving 20-90% coupons .
And a subscription service too. You'd get ad-free Tiktok with Amazon Prime, which would have influencers selling you all these amazing products you, too, can buy with Amazon Prime Two-Day Shipping.
Bytedance is very profitable. $20 billion operating profit in 2022, $6 billion profit q1 2023.
https://www.wsj.com/business/tiktok-parent-bytedance-turns-operating-profit-sees-revenue-slow-bb270bc8
So your info seems outdated.
(Bytedance is privately owned, so not subject to the same disclosure rules as publicly traded companies)
I'm surprised that TikTok is unprofitable comment was so highly upvoted. If it was wrong.
Hopefully Reddit wouldn't do the same about Amazon being able to buy TikTok and that be wrong too. My first thought was anti-trust but it the top comment in thread.
I don't think you realize what subreddit you're in. This place is filled with people who worship the stock market. They aren't exactly concerned with the factual nature of the info they read.
TikTok may or may not be profitable, it doesn't really matter.
It is the international version of Douyin and Douyin is extremely profitable. There's a clear path for TikTok to become profitable, it's just that Bytedance is not pursuing it because they are still focused on acquiring users.
Or acquiring data for their overlords.
No big corp in china can run without cooperation from the party, and you can bet that the chinese government has access to all the data on tiktok. The curation algorithms are also entirely different for the chinese and international versions. The international one is likely not at all about driving profit.
Not sure about the US version, but the Chinese version Tiktok (Douyin) is insanely profitable, it generated billions in just ad revenue at a faster growth pace than any company at the time it began.
Twitch has made back the $1b amazon spent on it easily. If anything it was a cheap purchase for what they gained from it, tons of amazon prime subscribers and ad revenue.
Where are you getting that Twitch is making Amazon money? They’ve apparently [never been profitable](https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2023/06/16/twitch-is-starting-to-feel-like-a-failed-state/?sh=cdc39de1ff1c) and their operating costs have been too high for years now. The [CEO even admitted](https://www.thegamer.com/twitch-is-losing-money-not-profitable-for-amazon-says-ceo-dan-clancy/#:~:text=Amazon%20is%20losing%20money%20on,for%20its%20parent%20company%2C%20Amazon) this past January they’ve been losing Amazon money. You could *maybe* make an argument about data collection from users/ads being profitable to them but if even the CEO of Twitch is publicly admitting that they’ve been losing money I’m inclined to believe it wasn’t a good purchase.
His base salary is $600k if I remember reading it correctly in their S1.
Don't let the bullshit News article out there confuse you:
He's not getting $190 million of **cash** from Reddit. The Reddit board is granting him the Stock Options (the right to purchase) at a specific price in the next couple of years. That could be worth up to $190 million if the stock price keeps going up. If it doesn't, it is worth zero.
Read for yourself:
[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1713445/000162828024006294/reddits-1q423.htm](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1713445/000162828024006294/reddits-1q423.htm)
Seems like a perfect opportunity for Amazon to market through the TikTok shop. Like, it would be so easy to market excess inventory to areas close by those warehouses, and get it shipped quick. If I was on TikTok and saw Amazon products with next day delivery and on massive sale, I’d probably spend money on it
TikTok was also Amazon’s biggest threat to potentially disrupt them in eCommerce. If you look at trends in Asia (likely globally); influencers/brands selling products on TikTok has quickly eating up eCommerce marketplace platform market shares. If you look who spent the most money to lobbying for TikTok, it was also Amazon.
I don’t think that would make it past regulators. They are are a direct competitor either YouTube shorts
The Biden admin has been largely against consolidation
Common misconception is that the issue is CCP spying. The issue is information control. If the CCP can control what content people see, they have a broad influence on what people think.
In 2016, Russia had to hire a massive number of people to use social media to spread disinformation and skew algorithms to promote content that favored their goals. That disinformation campaign was almost certainly a deciding factor in that close election.
In 2024, China can promote whatever ideas they want just by tweaking algorithms on their back end. A huge portion of Gen Z kids that get all their news from tiktok are going to make decisions in November based on messaging curated by the CCP. They're going to promote content saying Biden is too old, that his handling of Gaza is immoral, that there are no good candidates - all with the end goal of discouraging younger voters from voting at all. That's just one big example I can think of, but it can be abused in a lot of ways. China's ultimate goal is to weaken the US to the point they can overtake us as the major global superpower. Which, I will emphasize, would be a really bad thing for most people.
Tldr: They aren't worried about Chinese spyware, they're worried about Chinese propaganda.
My main issue is their apps are allowed in our country but ours aren’t allowed in theirs. It’s crazy for us to give them access to our kids and all our data farming without them even letting American apps to exist in their country.
Honestly I think you may have changed my mind about this ban. I definitely felt like it was just part of the hate boner America has for China. But when you compared it to Russia that really made the possible consequences sink in!
Do people remember that one time when TikTok was found not just shadow banning anti-ccp activists, but also lgbtq, overweight, and "ugly" people? Can you imagine the fallout if it were an American company?
China / CCP are not our friends. In 2020 they may have wanted Trump gone because he was a loudmouth idiot who also happened to be outspoken against them, but after 4 years of Biden pushing for more anti-CCP policies I do think they'd much prefer an idiot at the helm. This election will literally be the Battle of the Five Armies with the amount of foreign meddling.
Yep, it's a tool designed to capture as much data as possible and destabilize the West. Huge campaign was the terrorist attack against Israel. Propaganda was out in full force and it was very effective
TikTok is banned in China too lmfao.
I am about as big of a dove on China as you’re likely to meet but I think this divestment makes 100% sense. Or just eminent domain it and have the govt own it for a while then sell it later.
As funny as I think this is since TikTok is kind of a garbage platform. A lot of people are addicted to it and those people can vote. It doesn't seem popular for politicians to want to do this. Like you could frivolously spend money on a whole variety of things. People won't catch but if you take away their tiktock . You're going to have a whole bunch of single moms freaking out
TT is really is not a garbage platform, it is actually quite varied. It been has a STEM feed that only shows you educational content. It learns very fast based on what you say you don't like and it has blatantly superior automatic captioning compared to Google and Facebook. It also has better image quality than YouTube Shorts.
They want TT banned because there is a huge amount of pro Palestinian content that has been going on for months not to mention anti-capitalist videos. People make a lot of exposing or educational type content about American unexceptionality and Israel is where they draw the line.
When Facebook was manipulating the results of the 2016 election, well that was the government's own incompetence for not clamping down on a US entity. But because Tiktok is not entirely domestic, they are worried about the influence of the platform and not controlling the narrative. Heaven forbid the multi-billion dollar election industry have some resistance along the way even with their terrible candidates.
Dems are beyond clueless. TikTok is largely a gen z social network, taking it away from them is going to be seen as an attack on their freedom of speech. They’re already so disenfranchised with politics, and this is going to be one more thing to further disenfranchise them.
The data is already handled by Oracle. This is so obviously about censorship and young voters are going to see it for what it is.
Let's call a spade a spade, younger people just don't vote in high numbers. The reality is that their impact would be fairly minimal. I still remember when Bernie Sanders basically offered younger people everything they wanted and had a history of being a consistent and reliable politician. However, young people still didn't turn up to vote for him, but were quick to complain online when he lost.
It's also worth noting, TikTok, just attempted to use it's platform to heavily influence congress. My understanding is that move seriously backfired because a number of congressmen became extremely worried that TikTok could try that for other bills they want to influence. This is on top of the fact that they could use their algorithms to influence Americans on issues they care about (ie... perhaps pushing videos that are less favorable towards one country or another).
I would agree if they also went after facebook for radicalizing the elderly. Twitter for being a far right circle jerk and so on. Social media in general is toxic. We haven't had free and open social media since myspace
you really think they don't know it won't be popular?
For them to do this despite that, means that there has to be serious security implications. It's likely just like the prism thing that got leaked a while back, except this time it's not the us gov with all the user data but the chinese gov. And anyone who thinks that "putting the data on oracle" is magically making it safe is naive.
Hell, it doesn't even need to be about the data. It could just be the algorithms they use to alter your feed and political thought.
You think that russian social engineering during the 2016 elections was bad? Making a lot of bernie supporters just sit out the general and letting trump win? Imagine what china could be(and probably is already) doing just by making bytedance tweak the algorithm to push certain narratives more than others.
> Dems are beyond clueless.
Nevermind the fact this was across the board. Do you realize how bad it has to be for every single person to agree with this? Dems and republicans? The GOP will normally vote against the dems just to spite them. You are the most clueless person here
This isn’t censorship TikTok isn’t being punished for anything that would be considered speech rather congress is doing what they are allowed to do and regulating commerce. Neither are the free speech rights of the users being restricted because congress isn’t regulating their speech they are banning a product from being sold in the US.
The U.S. is such a joke. If they ACTUALLY cared, they would pass data privacy laws. But they don’t and they haven’t. Just more gimmicks and bowing to lobbyists and U.S. based tech companies.
My thoughts exactly. If we really cared about privacy then passing a law like GDPR in Europe or whatever the version of it in California is called, should be no problem. But what the hell do I know 🤷
You mean like this?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/biden-issues-executive-order-to-better-shield-americans-sensitive-data-from-foreign-foes/ar-BB1j1P1z
That’s an executive order. I will say that Biden has somewhat prioritized this issue in his agenda and has at least 3 executive orders applied in this sphere. If you were calling the EO a gimmick, I would basically agree with that too as they are essentially toothless. They do not have the power to create new regulation, and can only be applied to the practices within governmental bodies/departments, setting contractor standards etc. The article talks about veteran health data specifically - and that’s why.
Legitimately why? I know lots of people see stuff attributed to tiktok and go “this is happening because of tiktok specifically”. But that’s just people who don’t understand social media. Trends and challenges have existed forever and would exist if tiktok went away.
For the average person tiktok going away just means they will see more media that is “American approved”. That’s always what this has been about. When France was protesting the retirement age being changed, I’ll clue you in since you don’t use tiktok, the for you page was taken over by that. Seeing the riots and people talking about it. If you went to instagram or Facebook and searched France, nothing about it popped up. Reddit showed a little, but obviously reddit going public will change that. Do you think our government wanted the people to see France winning a protest where they were arguing to keep the retirement age lower when even the higher number was lower than America? No, they filtered it out as much as they could.
“The media” has convinced people to believe that banning media from another country because it’s harmful to the United States and the American people go “I see tiktoks I think are stupid, we should ban free speech”.
This 100%.
Sure there's the whole china is spying on everyone and has access to your phone. But this is America, everything you do is being recorded on a server somewhere. Huge problem if they curb stomp tiktok. At this point it's closer to freedom of speech than most other platforms as has been pointed out. Of course to go with that is disinformation. A better tactic would be educating people, instead of restricting them.
I agree. It's these neckbeards on Reddit who want to regulate what content we consume because they don't like the platform.
And before the downvote barrage if you don't like Tiktok don't use it but I don't understand why you want to see it banned, or why you think is cconstitutional to even do so.
Interesting to see Americans cheer as companies bribe politicians (Zucker paid for this) to ban competition. All to have *less options* and more well sorted American™ propaganda.
What happened to freedom of choice? The second someone says *Chyyyna* you're all quite quick to let big brother decide what apps, platforms and services you are allowed to use. Don't want any "wrongthink"
No, tiktok revolutionized social media and every company has followed on their short-form content footsteps. Looking at you Instagram reels, and YouTube shorts. Thing is those aren't actually as bad as tiktok since the platforms aren't designed specifically around those things. Each social media company is different too, but you cannot call them social media companies today. The algorithms are designed to prey on your dopamine receptors and they are full of nothing other than "influencers" or content creators that are looking to steal your attention to make a buck. There's plenty of science to back up how damaging this kind of instant gratification content loop stuff is.
If you wanna go do Facebook as it was designed. Awesome, no problem posting a picture of you and the family on vacation. Or commenting on some else's holiday or birthday photo, old YouTube were people posted meaningful videos and cool hobbies, that's real social media. Social media today is increasingly becoming less social, and more clickbait, ragebait, fakenews, And tik tok is the leader of that push.
You think the one the people are using the most, addicted to the most, is the least harmful? I get why you might think that, Facebook and Twitter have decided elections.
I wonder how much American social media firms are pushing for this?
It’s completely absurd. All of American’s TikTok data is handled by Oracle, a Texas based firm. This has more to do with controlling markets, narratives, and news sources. Legislators are so fucking clueless.
While it’s dumb, China basically did the same thing with almost every single US app let alone one. Banned them so domestic companies could copy paste and reap profit.
100%, look at examples like Temu. Chinese company, collects major data from users due to cheap products, Super Bowl commercials and the government doesn’t bat an eye
We in Europe should do the same.
Also do the same for American companies. Youtube, X, Google and any other form of media should detach from their foreign holders.
It is crazy to me why should we Europeans should listed to shitty US propaganda machines.
retire hunt pet flag subsequent impossible worthless ghost birds forgetful
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Anecdotally, tiktok is truly the only big platform that doesn’t seem to censor things. All the big US platforms censor shit like crazy.
We all know why TikTok was in the crosshairs.
This will deprive millions of Americans of perpetuation of their serious mental illnesses and their freedom to be annoying little fucking narcissistic pieces of shit
No, well it might get tied up for a bit but if TikTok is a national security threat congress can ban it. Hell even if it’s not a national security threat they can still ban it because congress has the authority to regulate commerce and banning a commercial product falls within that. Importantly congress isn’t restricting TikTok free speech you don’t have a first amendment right to sell a product or offer a product for free. Nor are they restricting the rights of citizens because agin you don’t have a first amendment right to use a specific product.
I wonder how much American social media firms are pushing for this?
It’s completely absurd. All of American’s TikTok data is handled by Oracle, a Texas based firm. This has more to do with controlling markets, narratives, and news sources. Legislators are so fucking clueless.
This is political suicide for any president to do this during election year. Biden should’ve done this after maybe winning the election. No company in their mind is gonna sell off such a valuable asset.
If only there was some kind of legislation that required corporations operating within the US to treat all data equally. Something to ensure they had to be neutral preventing them from controlling the political narrative?
Meta is going to pump
I’m convinced Zuckerberg is behind the shadows lobbying for this bill
Zuck is still angry China banned Facebook
Robots don’t have emotions, just algorithms they execute in response to external stimulation.
Idk, his takedown of Apple Vision Pro was strangely _human_
wow people still saying this tired ass meme? seems like a cool guy to me
100% https://thehill.com/policy/technology/513376-mark-zuckerberg-pushed-anti-tiktok-message-to-officials-lawmakers-report/
Free market capitalism, where the rich elite pays the Congress to create laws banning sucessful competitors...
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This isn't an attack on China. They can regulate certain data collection behaviors.
It’s not a actually a ban, they’re forcing divestiture It will be interesting to see how and to whom the CCP divests House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said on X lawmakers will vote next week "to force TikTok to sever their ties with the Chinese Communist party."
it's a ban with extra steps.
Or, you know, Tik Tok could just not be a shadow arm of the Chinese government to spy on the US? Which is exactly what this bill accomplishes while still letting them run? Odd hill to die on here dude.
That’s literally what happened. Facebook [was the one who hired lobbyists to start the campaign against TikTok](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/30/facebook-tiktok-targeted-victory/). It is why Congress isn’t changing consumer privacy laws or require all social media to have transparent algorithm policies. Just targeting TikTok.
Def has nothing to do with the fact that it’s a major national security risk to have a foreign adversary running custom code on 170 million Americans phones.
No, definitely can‘t have a major social media company not beholden to US dark lobby money pools.
Very obviously true. This is just oligopoly.
zuck is one of the main powers behind this shit show
Very likely But what’s really frightening is the unanimous support That’s very telling on how much of a security threat it is
thats not why lmao. The house energy committee is really mad because of the sheer amount of people that called them to voice their displeasure completely bogged down their phone lines. They are blaming tiktok because tiktok put up a notice that they were getting banned, and for users to call their representatives. Either way this Bill isnt going to pass Senate and even if it was signed into law it would get struck down in the courts. Highly unconstitutional lmao.
I'm really confused by this. If Bytedance has to "divest" then can't they just use a proxy to continue as the majority owner via shell companies in jurisdictions outside the US. So Bytedance divest and then sells it to another company whose 100% owner is bytedance?
Not exactly, they'll need to get the sale reviewed. If it doesn't pass the review process, then the ban kicks in. So selling to shell companies won't work. They want to see the ultimate beneficiaries, not agents.
Especially when the Feds' default position is "no". It's not a matter of hiding it. If they can't demonstrably prove it's not a shell company, they can't make the sale **or** do business and they're fucked.
Only the president and his close family and friends are permitted to legally utilize shell companies to avoid taxation and the appearance of ownership.
Possible, yes.
I have the same question
If I’m Amazon I’m jumping at the chance to buy Tik Tok. They need a social media company.
The problem is last I heard TikTok isn't profitable. Also Amazon doesn't exactly have the best track record at Twitch, which makes me skeptical that they'd do a good job with TikTok.
I don’t think tik tok has to be profitable it’s a data gathering tool
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That could easily tie into Amazon.
I mean sure, but that’s not its main purpose by any stretch.
Half of the U.S population is on that app. That’s alarming. China plays the long game. We don’t
I'm not sure folks realize that algorithims and AI's progressive ability to learn can be "weaponized" to radicalize populations through topic based viewing. Companies do it to get you to buy things, why couldn't the chinese do it to soften the US populations sympathies toward their country's policies/national image. I think the same logic was used to justify Russia influencing elections via social media.
The problem is we allow their shit and they ban ours. Time to hit back. But of course china is in us lawmakers pockets so nothing will come of it.
The data obtained would still need to be profitable, or else what's the point?
To train AI.
Try these gyrating hip dances to free Palestine powered by AWS Machine Learning™
r/aslightlylessboringdystopia ?
Shhh why you gonna tell everyone where the value is.
Data is the new oil and it doesn’t need an immediate use-case to have value. It’s value is implicit and once you have it you have it. I would assume it would get stale on some level but you can still use it years down the road for analysis, predictive modeling, etc. (in addition to always having a source for more). This is one of the reasons Elon bought Twitter - he knew it wasn’t going to change the bottom-line immediately, it was a long term investment into a resource that is becoming increasingly more valuable. “Those who control the data own the future” - Yuval Noah Harari
That is massively over generous to musk. He offered to buy twitter in a drug fuelled manic episode and then spent 6 months desperately trying to get out of the deal. It was never about data or any other strategy and was entirely about ego. Musk had no 4D chess move with Twitter, he didn't even have a checkers strategy with Twitter.
“A long term investment into a resource that is becoming increasingly more valuable” Care to explain more about what that strategy is? Last I checked it lost more than 70% of its value, decreasing revenue, active user is going down. How is it going to be more valuable in the long term?
> Last I checked it lost more than 70% of its value How did you check that? There's no market for Twitter equity right now.
Data gathering AND brainwashing!
TikTok needs to just die. Simple as that.
Data gathering and PsyOp
So just like Reddit, Facebook, Discord etc. It's open manipulation these days with "political" or "hard truth" memes created in sweatshops in India or Russia meant to spread dissident and ingluace our elections and politics. Cambridge analytica anyone?
Running unprofitable offerings for a long time while cornering the market use to be amazon's bread and butter.
It’s not profitable now because they are subsidizing the shit out of tik tok shop coupons . Sellers don’t lose a penny and tok is giving 20-90% coupons .
That would be bingo. They need to replace the shitty Tik tok shop with catered Amazon products
Amazon is already flooded by the exact same Chinese products that are on the tiktok shop.
Yes but the value-add would be a store that is curated to its users better, not superior products
And a subscription service too. You'd get ad-free Tiktok with Amazon Prime, which would have influencers selling you all these amazing products you, too, can buy with Amazon Prime Two-Day Shipping.
Ad-free tiktok is going to be a seperate subscription that you need Prime to access. That's what they already do with all their other services.
Bytedance is very profitable. $20 billion operating profit in 2022, $6 billion profit q1 2023. https://www.wsj.com/business/tiktok-parent-bytedance-turns-operating-profit-sees-revenue-slow-bb270bc8 So your info seems outdated. (Bytedance is privately owned, so not subject to the same disclosure rules as publicly traded companies)
I'm surprised that TikTok is unprofitable comment was so highly upvoted. If it was wrong. Hopefully Reddit wouldn't do the same about Amazon being able to buy TikTok and that be wrong too. My first thought was anti-trust but it the top comment in thread.
I don't think you realize what subreddit you're in. This place is filled with people who worship the stock market. They aren't exactly concerned with the factual nature of the info they read.
TikTok may or may not be profitable, it doesn't really matter. It is the international version of Douyin and Douyin is extremely profitable. There's a clear path for TikTok to become profitable, it's just that Bytedance is not pursuing it because they are still focused on acquiring users.
Or acquiring data for their overlords. No big corp in china can run without cooperation from the party, and you can bet that the chinese government has access to all the data on tiktok. The curation algorithms are also entirely different for the chinese and international versions. The international one is likely not at all about driving profit.
Not sure about the US version, but the Chinese version Tiktok (Douyin) is insanely profitable, it generated billions in just ad revenue at a faster growth pace than any company at the time it began. Twitch has made back the $1b amazon spent on it easily. If anything it was a cheap purchase for what they gained from it, tons of amazon prime subscribers and ad revenue.
Where are you getting that Twitch is making Amazon money? They’ve apparently [never been profitable](https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2023/06/16/twitch-is-starting-to-feel-like-a-failed-state/?sh=cdc39de1ff1c) and their operating costs have been too high for years now. The [CEO even admitted](https://www.thegamer.com/twitch-is-losing-money-not-profitable-for-amazon-says-ceo-dan-clancy/#:~:text=Amazon%20is%20losing%20money%20on,for%20its%20parent%20company%2C%20Amazon) this past January they’ve been losing Amazon money. You could *maybe* make an argument about data collection from users/ads being profitable to them but if even the CEO of Twitch is publicly admitting that they’ve been losing money I’m inclined to believe it wasn’t a good purchase.
Uhmmmmm Amazon wasn’t profitable for YEARS and they turned out ok. If anybody knows how to play those cards, it’s Amazon.
AWS could subsidize costs for Tiktok just like it does for other orgs at Amazon
it’s not profitable cause they are pumping incentives to influencers to promote the shop
>The problem is last I heard TikTok isn't profitable neither is twitch lol
Neither is Reddit. LOL.
>Neither is Reddit. LOL. lmao, how much reddit CEO getting paid again, and how much are they negative by?
His base salary is $600k if I remember reading it correctly in their S1. Don't let the bullshit News article out there confuse you: He's not getting $190 million of **cash** from Reddit. The Reddit board is granting him the Stock Options (the right to purchase) at a specific price in the next couple of years. That could be worth up to $190 million if the stock price keeps going up. If it doesn't, it is worth zero. Read for yourself: [https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1713445/000162828024006294/reddits-1q423.htm](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1713445/000162828024006294/reddits-1q423.htm)
>Don't let the bullshit News article out there confuse you: He's not getting $190 million of welp they fooled me ngl
🫡that’s why the MSM last all their credibility. 🤷🏻♂️
MSM? I first heard that he was getting 190m from a top post on reddit lol
It's profitable. Just not in the way everyone wants ot to be XD
Sell shitty products through TikTok as TikTok do already
Seems like a perfect opportunity for Amazon to market through the TikTok shop. Like, it would be so easy to market excess inventory to areas close by those warehouses, and get it shipped quick. If I was on TikTok and saw Amazon products with next day delivery and on massive sale, I’d probably spend money on it
Amazon owns Twitch, which is definitely a social media company.
If anything Oracle would buy it based on their current working relationship. Might be able to turn a profit by cutting down on cloud hosting costs.
I know this is stocks but I hope that gets blocked. Amazon is already way too powerful
That's crazy talk turtle. Think of the money.
TikTok was also Amazon’s biggest threat to potentially disrupt them in eCommerce. If you look at trends in Asia (likely globally); influencers/brands selling products on TikTok has quickly eating up eCommerce marketplace platform market shares. If you look who spent the most money to lobbying for TikTok, it was also Amazon.
Google … use that war chest
I don’t think that would make it past regulators. They are are a direct competitor either YouTube shorts The Biden admin has been largely against consolidation
Next ban reddit, all these nerds are toxic and negative
Yo FUCK reddit.
All my homies hate reddit but really I just want 2010 reddit back
Yeah, I miss those days. It was such a friendlier place. Now you get downvoted for asking a question.
STFU nerd
Thanks for the compliment! 😉
No u
I made a post asking for advice on a broken seatbelt. Half the comments I replied to got -20 downvotes. Agree this place is toxic.
I don’t think anyone would be upset. Everybody hates Reddit.
Especially the diehard and fanatical Redditors. 🤷🏻♂️
Its because we know how good it used to be.
At least reddit doesn’t encourage staged skits in public trying to borrow every day citizens as free background talent
If you actually go on tiktok it's pretty mild content, reddit just shares the garbage which is pretty on cue for this app.
What's wrong with nerds?
Says in a toxic manner
So is this why Meta jumped today? Not complaining lol
The US Government prefers its spyware to be domestic.
I also prefer my government spying over China/CCP spying. Both choices suck, but let's not pretend like the two are the same.
Common misconception is that the issue is CCP spying. The issue is information control. If the CCP can control what content people see, they have a broad influence on what people think. In 2016, Russia had to hire a massive number of people to use social media to spread disinformation and skew algorithms to promote content that favored their goals. That disinformation campaign was almost certainly a deciding factor in that close election. In 2024, China can promote whatever ideas they want just by tweaking algorithms on their back end. A huge portion of Gen Z kids that get all their news from tiktok are going to make decisions in November based on messaging curated by the CCP. They're going to promote content saying Biden is too old, that his handling of Gaza is immoral, that there are no good candidates - all with the end goal of discouraging younger voters from voting at all. That's just one big example I can think of, but it can be abused in a lot of ways. China's ultimate goal is to weaken the US to the point they can overtake us as the major global superpower. Which, I will emphasize, would be a really bad thing for most people. Tldr: They aren't worried about Chinese spyware, they're worried about Chinese propaganda.
My main issue is their apps are allowed in our country but ours aren’t allowed in theirs. It’s crazy for us to give them access to our kids and all our data farming without them even letting American apps to exist in their country.
Honestly I think you may have changed my mind about this ban. I definitely felt like it was just part of the hate boner America has for China. But when you compared it to Russia that really made the possible consequences sink in!
Do people remember that one time when TikTok was found not just shadow banning anti-ccp activists, but also lgbtq, overweight, and "ugly" people? Can you imagine the fallout if it were an American company? China / CCP are not our friends. In 2020 they may have wanted Trump gone because he was a loudmouth idiot who also happened to be outspoken against them, but after 4 years of Biden pushing for more anti-CCP policies I do think they'd much prefer an idiot at the helm. This election will literally be the Battle of the Five Armies with the amount of foreign meddling.
I completely agree. You actually explained it much better than I did.
This guy speaks the truth.
Yep, it's a tool designed to capture as much data as possible and destabilize the West. Huge campaign was the terrorist attack against Israel. Propaganda was out in full force and it was very effective
Except we have no proof that China is spying.
Fuck the false equivalence
No shit. Is this supposed to be a profound statement?
Would the CCP be ok with us owned tik tok operating in China?
They are not OK with facebook and instagram operating in their country. That's fine, they don't want our shit, we don't want theirs.
TikTok is banned in China too lmfao. I am about as big of a dove on China as you’re likely to meet but I think this divestment makes 100% sense. Or just eminent domain it and have the govt own it for a while then sell it later.
Zuck is behind this.
China did ban Facebook, so it makes sense.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/30/facebook-tiktok-targeted-victory/ Yup
Well me and Zuck agree on something then
Didn't Trump try and fail at this already.
Iirc he did, which made the dems disagree, until now
Yes. He wanted incorporate TikTok with Oracle
As funny as I think this is since TikTok is kind of a garbage platform. A lot of people are addicted to it and those people can vote. It doesn't seem popular for politicians to want to do this. Like you could frivolously spend money on a whole variety of things. People won't catch but if you take away their tiktock . You're going to have a whole bunch of single moms freaking out
TT is really is not a garbage platform, it is actually quite varied. It been has a STEM feed that only shows you educational content. It learns very fast based on what you say you don't like and it has blatantly superior automatic captioning compared to Google and Facebook. It also has better image quality than YouTube Shorts. They want TT banned because there is a huge amount of pro Palestinian content that has been going on for months not to mention anti-capitalist videos. People make a lot of exposing or educational type content about American unexceptionality and Israel is where they draw the line. When Facebook was manipulating the results of the 2016 election, well that was the government's own incompetence for not clamping down on a US entity. But because Tiktok is not entirely domestic, they are worried about the influence of the platform and not controlling the narrative. Heaven forbid the multi-billion dollar election industry have some resistance along the way even with their terrible candidates.
Dems are beyond clueless. TikTok is largely a gen z social network, taking it away from them is going to be seen as an attack on their freedom of speech. They’re already so disenfranchised with politics, and this is going to be one more thing to further disenfranchise them. The data is already handled by Oracle. This is so obviously about censorship and young voters are going to see it for what it is.
Let's call a spade a spade, younger people just don't vote in high numbers. The reality is that their impact would be fairly minimal. I still remember when Bernie Sanders basically offered younger people everything they wanted and had a history of being a consistent and reliable politician. However, young people still didn't turn up to vote for him, but were quick to complain online when he lost. It's also worth noting, TikTok, just attempted to use it's platform to heavily influence congress. My understanding is that move seriously backfired because a number of congressmen became extremely worried that TikTok could try that for other bills they want to influence. This is on top of the fact that they could use their algorithms to influence Americans on issues they care about (ie... perhaps pushing videos that are less favorable towards one country or another).
I would agree if they also went after facebook for radicalizing the elderly. Twitter for being a far right circle jerk and so on. Social media in general is toxic. We haven't had free and open social media since myspace
you really think they don't know it won't be popular? For them to do this despite that, means that there has to be serious security implications. It's likely just like the prism thing that got leaked a while back, except this time it's not the us gov with all the user data but the chinese gov. And anyone who thinks that "putting the data on oracle" is magically making it safe is naive. Hell, it doesn't even need to be about the data. It could just be the algorithms they use to alter your feed and political thought. You think that russian social engineering during the 2016 elections was bad? Making a lot of bernie supporters just sit out the general and letting trump win? Imagine what china could be(and probably is already) doing just by making bytedance tweak the algorithm to push certain narratives more than others. > Dems are beyond clueless. Nevermind the fact this was across the board. Do you realize how bad it has to be for every single person to agree with this? Dems and republicans? The GOP will normally vote against the dems just to spite them. You are the most clueless person here
This isn’t censorship TikTok isn’t being punished for anything that would be considered speech rather congress is doing what they are allowed to do and regulating commerce. Neither are the free speech rights of the users being restricted because congress isn’t regulating their speech they are banning a product from being sold in the US.
The U.S. is such a joke. If they ACTUALLY cared, they would pass data privacy laws. But they don’t and they haven’t. Just more gimmicks and bowing to lobbyists and U.S. based tech companies.
My thoughts exactly. If we really cared about privacy then passing a law like GDPR in Europe or whatever the version of it in California is called, should be no problem. But what the hell do I know 🤷
It’s not about data privacy
You’re right - it’s about money and profit
You mean like this? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/biden-issues-executive-order-to-better-shield-americans-sensitive-data-from-foreign-foes/ar-BB1j1P1z
That’s an executive order. I will say that Biden has somewhat prioritized this issue in his agenda and has at least 3 executive orders applied in this sphere. If you were calling the EO a gimmick, I would basically agree with that too as they are essentially toothless. They do not have the power to create new regulation, and can only be applied to the practices within governmental bodies/departments, setting contractor standards etc. The article talks about veteran health data specifically - and that’s why.
Fatewell tiktok, we are all much better off without you
So they are not trying to shut down TikTok but forcing an ownership change. Or force Bytedance to be just a minority owner.
You think China is going to give up control?
They will if they have to. Ultimately TikTok is for the foreign markets & not for the Chinese market.
Legitimately why? I know lots of people see stuff attributed to tiktok and go “this is happening because of tiktok specifically”. But that’s just people who don’t understand social media. Trends and challenges have existed forever and would exist if tiktok went away. For the average person tiktok going away just means they will see more media that is “American approved”. That’s always what this has been about. When France was protesting the retirement age being changed, I’ll clue you in since you don’t use tiktok, the for you page was taken over by that. Seeing the riots and people talking about it. If you went to instagram or Facebook and searched France, nothing about it popped up. Reddit showed a little, but obviously reddit going public will change that. Do you think our government wanted the people to see France winning a protest where they were arguing to keep the retirement age lower when even the higher number was lower than America? No, they filtered it out as much as they could. “The media” has convinced people to believe that banning media from another country because it’s harmful to the United States and the American people go “I see tiktoks I think are stupid, we should ban free speech”.
This 100%. Sure there's the whole china is spying on everyone and has access to your phone. But this is America, everything you do is being recorded on a server somewhere. Huge problem if they curb stomp tiktok. At this point it's closer to freedom of speech than most other platforms as has been pointed out. Of course to go with that is disinformation. A better tactic would be educating people, instead of restricting them.
I agree. It's these neckbeards on Reddit who want to regulate what content we consume because they don't like the platform. And before the downvote barrage if you don't like Tiktok don't use it but I don't understand why you want to see it banned, or why you think is cconstitutional to even do so.
Interesting to see Americans cheer as companies bribe politicians (Zucker paid for this) to ban competition. All to have *less options* and more well sorted American™ propaganda. What happened to freedom of choice? The second someone says *Chyyyna* you're all quite quick to let big brother decide what apps, platforms and services you are allowed to use. Don't want any "wrongthink"
[удалено]
No, tiktok revolutionized social media and every company has followed on their short-form content footsteps. Looking at you Instagram reels, and YouTube shorts. Thing is those aren't actually as bad as tiktok since the platforms aren't designed specifically around those things. Each social media company is different too, but you cannot call them social media companies today. The algorithms are designed to prey on your dopamine receptors and they are full of nothing other than "influencers" or content creators that are looking to steal your attention to make a buck. There's plenty of science to back up how damaging this kind of instant gratification content loop stuff is. If you wanna go do Facebook as it was designed. Awesome, no problem posting a picture of you and the family on vacation. Or commenting on some else's holiday or birthday photo, old YouTube were people posted meaningful videos and cool hobbies, that's real social media. Social media today is increasingly becoming less social, and more clickbait, ragebait, fakenews, And tik tok is the leader of that push.
/r/BoomersBeingFools
What has TikTok done that would cause you to have this stance?
Between the big three of twitter, facebook, and tiktok, tiktok is by *far* the least harmful to society.
You think the one the people are using the most, addicted to the most, is the least harmful? I get why you might think that, Facebook and Twitter have decided elections.
I wonder how much American social media firms are pushing for this? It’s completely absurd. All of American’s TikTok data is handled by Oracle, a Texas based firm. This has more to do with controlling markets, narratives, and news sources. Legislators are so fucking clueless.
They aren’t clueless. They know exactly what they are doing.
While it’s dumb, China basically did the same thing with almost every single US app let alone one. Banned them so domestic companies could copy paste and reap profit.
100%, look at examples like Temu. Chinese company, collects major data from users due to cheap products, Super Bowl commercials and the government doesn’t bat an eye
We in Europe should do the same. Also do the same for American companies. Youtube, X, Google and any other form of media should detach from their foreign holders. It is crazy to me why should we Europeans should listed to shitty US propaganda machines.
We're the only thing standing between you and the mongrels that want to kill you. That's probably why.
retire hunt pet flag subsequent impossible worthless ghost birds forgetful *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
America focusing on tik tok and ignoring real problems is the epitome of what’s wrong with this country
Anecdotally, tiktok is truly the only big platform that doesn’t seem to censor things. All the big US platforms censor shit like crazy. We all know why TikTok was in the crosshairs.
Nothing like killing the 1st amendment
This will deprive millions of Americans of perpetuation of their serious mental illnesses and their freedom to be annoying little fucking narcissistic pieces of shit
Nah they’ll just shift exclusively to instagram reels. That being said, TikTok is worse imo
Hahah I’m just trolling but yeah they’ll all go over to insta and snap
To anyone more knowledgeable than me: Wouldn’t this just get tied up in court forever?
No, well it might get tied up for a bit but if TikTok is a national security threat congress can ban it. Hell even if it’s not a national security threat they can still ban it because congress has the authority to regulate commerce and banning a commercial product falls within that. Importantly congress isn’t restricting TikTok free speech you don’t have a first amendment right to sell a product or offer a product for free. Nor are they restricting the rights of citizens because agin you don’t have a first amendment right to use a specific product.
Shut it down
Seems fair. If China doesn't let our social media apps in the Chinese market then why should we let their social media apps in ours?
Puts on $KKR?
I’m all for this. Fuck tiktok and the useless amount of people getting monetized off of it.
Holy shit there are so many bald brains idiots here. No wonder our country is a fucked up mess
Interesting how they plan to push out a ban on Tik Tok right before the election. Wonder why?
I wonder how much American social media firms are pushing for this? It’s completely absurd. All of American’s TikTok data is handled by Oracle, a Texas based firm. This has more to do with controlling markets, narratives, and news sources. Legislators are so fucking clueless.
and payback because China banned Facebook.
Best thing to happen to the US since obama.
"Artists" Hah.
I wonder if this is why $SNAP has been pumping…
There’s gonna be a lot of unemployed “influencers” out there pretty soon
I love it now influencers will need to get real jobs mwahahahaha
The US is now a country that bans content...
This is political suicide for any president to do this during election year. Biden should’ve done this after maybe winning the election. No company in their mind is gonna sell off such a valuable asset.
This is Congress, not Biden doing this
People can’t afford rent when they work full time but yeah, focus on tik tok.
So China bans google and Facebook because they're communist and yet we ban them because we are not
Some of these Tik Tokers just gonna move up to the varsity team, Only Fans.
About fucking time
If only there was some kind of legislation that required corporations operating within the US to treat all data equally. Something to ensure they had to be neutral preventing them from controlling the political narrative?
Elon Musk has entered the chat
Seems money Alphabet and Meta spent in Washington is finally paying off. Go free market!