Would you prefer TikTok to be owned by Byte Dance, a Chinese company, or Elon Musk?

[speak easy]

Not an entirely hypothetical question. Congress and the Biden Administration are moving towards an enforced sale of TikTok to an American company, or closing it down. This is what it's all about, money - not national security. The likes of Microsoft, Walmart, Oracle are very interested in owning TikTok. Facebook and Google would prefer a ban; And Trump, if he got the opportunity, would like to hear from Musk.

Byte Dance, the current owner, would like to keep its revenue stream, thank you very much. It has proposed keeping American data in America.

TikTok’s New Defense in Washington: Going on the Offense

For two years, TikTok has been in confidential talks with the administration’s review panel, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, to address questions about ByteDance’s relationship with the Chinese government and whether that link could put the sensitive data of 100 million U.S. users into the hands of Beijing officials. The company assumed that those talks would reach a resolution soon after it submitted a 90-page proposal to the administration in August.
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Under the proposal, called Project Texas, TikTok would remain owned by ByteDance. But it would take a number of steps that it said would prevent the Chinese government from having access to data on U.S. users and offer the U.S. government oversight of the platform. Some of those steps have been put in place since October.

The company has proposed putting all U.S. user data into domestic servers owned and operated by Oracle, the American software giant. The data would not be allowed to be transferred outside the United States, nor would it be accessible to ByteDance or TikTok employees outside the country.

The program proposes having CFIUS conduct regular audits of the new data system and creating a new unit, TikTok U.S. Data Security, with 2,500 engineers, security experts, and trust and safety officials, all based in the United States, who have access to TikTok’s U.S. user data for business functions. The unit would report to a three-member board assigned by CFIUS. In addition, TikTok’s source code, which offers insight into why certain videos are shown in users’ feeds, would be reviewed by Oracle and a third-party inspector.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/26/technology/tiktok-bytedance-data-security.html

The case against TikTok is that Byte Dance is a Chinese company. That's it. Not misconduct; Not meddling; Not disinformation; Not Cambridge Analytical style scams - bare nationality. There is a risk - a hypothetical risk - that the CCP could demand information on Americans for reasons of 'National Security'. Not that the Chinese Communists have done so (yet), only that that a Chinese company would be powerless to resist such a request. OK. You might as well ban Chinese companies doing business in America. All of them.

American data could be isolated on American servers overseen by the NSA if necessary. But that it not what this is about. Follow the money. All sorts of U.S. companies would love to get their paws on the revenue and influence that TiKTok could buy them. Would I like to see TikTok owned by Walmart? The hell I would.

[themaguffin]

1. I'm 100% of a forced sale, or ban. Here's why

I work in digital marketing. For years, in search engine marketing. Our campaigns in Google in China (our ad campaigns targeting Chinese users) were useless because of China's stranglehold on Google. So we had campaigns with Baidu, the China owned "Google."

As always, there's a China version... a combination of IP theft and authoritarian action on outside companies.

On this, I saw fuck China. Fuck Tiktok as it currently exists.

The concerns over security are legitimate. This author can go fuck him or herself with the arrogant quotation marks.
Comparing these concerns to traditional "misconduct" to then say "what misconduct" is disingenuous at best.

On a side note, in recent years, I would get a message from my son's schools of the issues at school due to TikTok challenges.
How many of these challenges occur in China?

Now, many times people bring up the issues with American owned social media or other companies. Yep, there are tons of issues. Tons.

With that out of the way, none of that changes the dynamics of TikTok and China.

[speak easy]

3. "Our campaigns in Google in China (our ad campaigns targeting Chinese users) were useless.

Yes. It's all about $$$.

[themaguffin]

9. I wasn't referencing for money reasons, but because of the other reasons I stated.

[Autumn]

2. They need to work something out. Banning TikTok is going to piss off a lot of people.

[speak easy]

7. TikTok won't be banned -

It will be sold to an American company looking for big bucks and clout.

TikTok is a money machine. U.S. companies, including RW U.S. companies, want in. That is what this is all about. Can anyone seriously suggest that everyone would be talking National Security if TikTok was losing money?

[womanofthehills]

21. China doesn't want to sell it

As far as I can tell. The kids will revolt if it’s taken down.

[malaise]

4. Someone told me that Western special interests are very worried since

TicToc is superior and young folks love it. That is the big problem as I understand it.

[Igel]

5. There's an additional claim.

The claim is that it could use information to track people and monitor their online and on-ground behavior.

"No, we couldn't!"

Then there was the claim that it did just that. Journalists that were hostile to TikTok.

"No, we can't do that. And we wouldn't do that!"

Except that when push came to shove and they had no choice but to fess up, they said that a few bad apples had done precisely that.

"But we'd *never* do that for anybody else. It's against policy." Until it isn't; the data's collected and allegedly kept off of PRC territory. But it's data in a company that's easily controlled by the CCP. We're expected to accept that data can't be transferred with a straight face; and that a CEO or all lower-down employees would defy the CCP's authority and militia and say "no" if asked to transfer or analyze data. Or even not admit the truth--not that ByteDance would ever dissemble when it came to their abilities to track and monitor somebody, say, journalists.

Ah, and follow the money. Please, lets have money flow to the CCP. They can use it to reinforce security in Hong Kong and among the Uighurs, or maybe beef up their military or social credit system.

[speak easy]

8. "Ah, and follow the money. Please, lets have money flow to the CCP"

And there you have it. Would anyone be talking National Security if TikTok was losing money?

[themaguffin]

10. Yes.

[speak easy]

12. So why haven't we banned bilibili.tv?

Or WeChat for that matter? If it is not because TikTok is a popular pot of gold, what is it?

[themaguffin]

13. Concerns over tiktok aren't new and precede its place now in social media.

[speak easy]

15. The CCP is fully embedded in WeChat

why hasn't that been banned? A: Because there is no way to sell if off to an American buyer.

[themaguffin]

20. No doubt.

[themaguffin]

11. And these concerns aren't new. This was even before the app was as big as it is now.

[Initech]

6. Literally anyone else?

We've seen what a fine mess Elon created with Twitter.

[Oneironaut]

14. Elon, even though he sucks in every way.

China is evil and autocratic. If they control social media, they do things like banning Muslims and LGBT people in all countries.

[speak easy]

17. DeSantis is evil and autocratic.

Yeah I know this is a whatabout - but he bans the things he cannot easily control.

[Wounded Bear]

16. Six of one, half a dozen of the other...nt

[speak easy]

18. We have RW social media meddling.

That's not hypothetical, it's not half a dozen, it's the full monty.

[Wounded Bear]

19. Just sayin'...Musk ain't much of an improvement over the Chinese...

he's a dyed in the wool RWer.