TikTok Users Gleefully Embrace Even More Chinese App To Spite US TikTok Ban
Great job, US government. You went so overboard with your “TikTok is an evil Chinese app” and deciding to ban it that you’re pushing kids to go even deeper into the Chinese app ecosystem. The US go…
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Im just gonna say that Bytedance reluctance to sell their brainrot inducing app tells me everything about their intentions. They could sell it for stock and still benefit from its growth. But they won’t do it, I wonder why?
Fuck the CCP.
This is from my former coworker who's father was approached as an investor for Bytedance, so grain of salt.
But apparently the current CEO of Bytedance, Shou Zi Chew, interned at Meta and offered Zuckerberg a chance to invest into Bytedance in 2013 when he was gathering investors (assuming they'd be the American arm of the multinational). Zuck refused, saying that he didn't think short form video is going to go anywhere, and basically laughed Zi Chew out of the room.
Fast forward to 2024, and Meta is spending the most money lobbying to get Tiktok to sell to a US company, with Meta trying to argue that they have the best infrastructure to "manage the technology" and data from Tiktok, Capcut, Lemon8, etc.
If all of this is true, I would also say "Fuck You" to Mark Cuckerberg and shut down the servers too. I mean, why the hell else am I on Lemmy if not for a CEO saying I can't have my app?
edit: Oh how did I forget, Zuck was trying to buy Musical.ly in 2016, learned Mandarin, went to China to kiss CPC ass, and still got blocked on the buy by Bytedance.. It's 100% personal for everyone involved here.
I hate to defend Zuckerberg but if true he turned down investing and claimed short form wasn't going anywhere it's because he had some proof of that. Vine wasn't doing well and eventually shut down, as did WWE backed short form video app Tout. At the time it looked like it wasn't worth it.
Even if this were true they could still sell to anyone else. I’m still not convinced that the CCP doesn’t sees TikTok being more valuable as a cultural weapon than as a simple social media. Hell getting it banned is probably as good in their eyes as it staying because it creates more tension between citizens and the government and they’re all about creating instability.
