9mo ago

ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in U.S. if legal options fail, Reuters sources say

www.ctvnews.ca ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in U.S. if legal options fail, Reuters sources say

TikTok owner ByteDance would prefer to shut down its loss-making app rather than sell it if the Chinese company exhausts all legal options to fight legislation to ban the platform from app stores in the U.S., four sources said.

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65 comments

Please, PLEASE, let this be the case.
- I think there's a zero chance China would allow the sale. Imagine the precedent giving into such mob tactics would set. US could just go after any successful Chinese company doing business in US and demand that it's sold off to American oligarchs.
  
  Exactly, this asset is worth nothing to the CPP if sold.
  If it was a fully private company which is supposed to make money, they would sell it and move on to invest their money somewhere else.
  Regulating the market is important and is not done enough in the US, last time was decades ago with AT&T and Standard Oil. Today they should have broken up Apple, Google, Amazon, etc. To prevent monopolies but they don't.
  But yeah, politically it's much easier to go after a Chinese company.
  
  Exactly, this asset is worth nothing to the CPP if sold.
  TikTok is worth approximately nothing to the CPC either way. It’s not like the Chinese state is hurting for money. They have a surplus of US dollars that they’re busy unloading, and they have fiat monetary sovereignty of their own currency. The app is banned in China, so nobody there is going to miss it. Who is invested in ByteDance that might care? American private equity: ByteDance’s US investors weigh options as bill to ban TikTok advances
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  fiat monetary sovereignty of their own currency
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
  
  I think j was talking about spying
  (From today on, I aim to not say the fifthglyph for all days to promote !avoid5@sh.itjust.works)
  
  The national security angle is a farce because ByteDance was already forced to move their service to the US on an American-owned hosting provider, and they have already put people with a history of aligning with “American interests” into executive positions, like CEO Shou Zi Chew and vice president Michael Beckerman, and American oligarchs are invested in it. I think the US “intelligence community” already has everything it needs to monitor and control TikTok.
  
  I never understood what it would help to have the data on a US server. It's not that difficult to access it there from China. I access my server in Germany via SSH from Korea.
  
  Because American hosting providers like Oracle are constituent parts of the military-intelligence-industrial complex, as are American ISPs.
  Room 641A » NSA Leak Vindicates AT&T Whistleblower
  Edward Snowden Says Use Cloud Services at Your Own Peril
  
  What can ByteDance access that China couldn't just buy from Alphabet or Meta or some other tech company?
  
  Just one small example: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/22/tiktok-bytedance-workers-fired-data-access-journalists
  
  Uh huh, and do you think Alphabet and Meta don't do that? Do you think if China offered to buy that data they wouldn't be able to get it? Grow up.
  My point is that we should be taking internet privacy seriously, not just going after foreign companies.
  It's not okay when the spies are American. Until I see serious action taken against the worst offenders I'll know this is all theater.
  
  I feel like the US would ban selling vital data to big enemies, and getting info from ByteDance is free.
  
  The US doesn't ban selling data, though. China can buy whatever it wants just as easily as harvesting it from ByteDance.
  And I'd hardly call running an entire social media enterprise "free". If it's a torjan horse, it's an entirely unnecessary one.
  
  Internet coverage of that topic is surprisingly limited for what seems to be an easily-thought-of national security risk...
  ByteDance's capitalist entrepreneurs run the enterprise for them, and they can extort data out, yes, for free.
  
  After a ton of alternating search queries, apparently both of these avenues are being used, and Biden announced working on such a ban in late February.
  
  China can't buy data from US companies. That's illegal. 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️
  
  Not yet. There was an executive order to ban selling data to "enemies" that would include China but it hasn't been implemented.
  Also I'm highly skeptical it'll work. China can just work through proxies and not buy directly.
  
  You're missing my point that it's not money the CCP is after but influence and power abroad. They already have absolute power at home.
  
  This is silly. It’s an exaggeration to even call it a Chinese company.
  [Singaporean CEO Shou] Chew added that 60% of ByteDance is owned by global institutional investors such as the Carlyle Group, General Atlantic and Susquehanna International Group, while 20% of the firm is owned by Zhang and 20% owned by employees around the world. Three of the company’s five board members are Americans, he said.
  
  ByteDance's owners include investors outside of China (60%), its founders and Chinese investors (20%), and employees (20%).[35] In 2021, the state-owned China Internet Investment Fund purchased a 1% stake in ByteDance's main Chinese subsidiary, Beijing ByteDance Technology (formerly Beijing Douyin Information Service), as a golden share investment[36][37][38] and seated Wu Shugang, a government official with a background in government propaganda, as one of the subsidiary's board members.[39][40][41]
  —Wikipedia, check article for sources
  In business and finance, a golden share is a nominal share which is able to outvote all other shares in certain specified circumstances
  From the article you linked:
  Is ByteDance Chinese?
  Definitely.
  Does the Chinese government own or control ByteDance or TikTok?
  Chew has emphatically told Congress that ByteDance is not owned or controlled by the Chinese government.
  However, like most other Chinese companies, ByteDance is legally compelled to establish an in-house Communist Party committee composed of employees who are party members.
  Analysts have said the “golden shares” provide a way for the Chinese government to get more directly involved with the day-to-day businesses of tech companies, including in the content they provide to the public.
  Chew has admitted that the “golden share” exists. But he said it was for the purpose of internet licensing for the Chinese business.
  In 2018, China amended its National Intelligence Law, which requires any organization or citizen to support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence work.
  That means ByteDance is legally bound to help with gathering intelligence.
  In 2021, China introduced a new data security law, which applies to data processing activities conducted outside of the country that may “harm the national security or public interests.”
  There is also a cybersecurity law in China, which says the state will take measures to monitor, prevent and handle cybersecurity risks and threats “arising both within and outside the PRC’s territory.”
  These vague and broad laws apply to technology companies and may be used to regulate them.
  
  Is ByteDance Chinese?
  Definitely.
  
  Whelp if corporate American media says that then it must be true 😆
  
  Cite a better reasoning than what the article uses to arrive at that conclusion then.
  
  I think the article speaks for itself. It says ByteDance definitely is a Chinese company and then goes on to explain the ways in which it isn’t, including majority ownership. If the US government has the power to kill the company, one might argue that it’s more an American one than Chinese.
  
  The definition of a golden share is effective control. Tell me how that and the following is going "on to explain the ways in which it isn't".
  ByteDance was founded in 2012 in Beijing by Zhang Yiming and Liang Rubo, who were college roommates at Tianjin’s Nankai University, according to company information and Zhang’s public speeches.
  It has been based in the Chinese capital since then. In 2021, Zhang announced he would step down as CEO of ByteDance and handed the reins to Liang.
  The US government has the power to kill Huawei if they wanted to; it's their territory and they can do whatever the heck they want, of course. That doesn't mean Huawei is US-owned.
  
  Your ghost is silly.
  
  China is not keeping tiktok for money.
  
  That's what I'm saying.

65 comments

Is ByteDance Chinese?

Does the Chinese government own or control ByteDance or TikTok?

Is ByteDance Chinese?