Trump Says ByteDance Can't Keep Control of TikTok in Oracle Deal (bloomberg.com) 93
President Donald Trump said he might rescind his tentative blessing for a deal between Oracle and ByteDance to create a new U.S.-based TikTok service, casting doubt on the agreement as Chinese state media signaled reluctance in Beijing. From a report: Speaking in an interview on Fox News on Monday, Trump said he wouldn't approve the deal if the Chinese company retains control of TikTok. However, he also indicated that he expected Chinese influence to be diluted by a future public offering of the new company. "They will have nothing to do with it, and if they do, we just won't make the deal," Trump said, referring to ByteDance, which owns TikTok. "It's going to be controlled, totally controlled by Oracle, and I guess they're going public and they're buying out the rest of it -- they're buying out a lot, and if we find that they don't have total control then we're not going to approve the deal." Shortly after Trump's comments, Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the China state-affiliated Global Times, tweeted that Beijing would likely reject the deal "because the agreement would endanger China's national security, interests and dignity."
No difference between US and China. (Score:5, Insightful)
Completely arbitrary "deals", brokered by government officials.
"Free market" is only "free" when it suits the ruling class, but the propaganda is deafening.
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Everybody? You and your crackpot friends you mean?
Re:No difference between US and China. (Score:4)
TikTok is a chinese propaganda platform? From what I've heard about it, 99.999% of the videos are kids and/or pets doing cute and/or stupid things.
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Facebook, Google and Twitter all do that too, I don't see how it's related to Chinese propaganda.
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Facebook, Google, and Twitter aren't owned by the Chinese government (or an entity that exists at the pleasure of said government).
Do you see how a Chinese-owned company is related to Chinese propaganda in a way that American-owned companies are not, now?
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And you know for a fact Tik Tok is owned by a Chinese government and one by some of the many Chinese private investors? Hell even Americans have 40% in the company.
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Don't they have ads yet? Then, take into account, in comparison to one app, whole app stores of Apple, Google, Microsoft, looming with initiatives to reach out for you and your data. To me, it is obvious, that this one select app is targeted because its advanced position on market. Here you have state, which formerly advocated on freedoms and beauty of businesses, to display all ugliness of power abuse and FUD, to contain slightly advanced market figurines, in the benefit of behemoths, namely, the first bei
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Well, to conservative Republicans, kids and/or pets doing cute and/or stupid things is part of national security.
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Well, to conservative Republicans, kids and/or pets doing cute and/or stupid things is part of national security.
Exactly. I don't believe TikTok as a platform is free from Chinese espionage, but the overwhelming usage of it - kids doing silly dances - how the fuck did that become a NatSec issue?
If only this presidency acted with the same rigour and vitality against the pandemic...
Re:No difference between US and China. (Score:5, Interesting)
everybody knows it's just a chinese propaganda platform just like the China controlled sites within china itself.
No. Everyone knows it is a very successful video platform, which frightened US internet businesslizards like Cuckerberg so much, that he's been trying to buy it, and when that didn't work, to convince the US government to squash it.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/a... [buzzfeednews.com]
And everyone knows why Trump wants to beat TikTok - he became a laughingstock after US teenagers used the platform to screw his political events.
and yes you can have a free market without it being a complete international market.
Yes, we saw how it works - you build a successful business, and then somebody tries to take it over without paying, and out of spite.
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And everyone knows why Trump wants to beat TikTok - he became a laughingstock after US teenagers used the platform to screw his political events.
Trump wants to gain control of TikTok because it's giving China a taste of they own medicine. China makes it almost impossible for a foreigners to do business in China unless China essentially owns the China-based operations, including access to all of the personal data gathered.
It's fun to think this is Trump fighting with teenagers. It's bigger than that.
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You make it sound as if TikTok was some critical infrastructure. It's a damned short format video app for bored teenagers to do bored teenage things. If only most of Trump's base actually understood he was sticking it to China by threatening to take away what is essentially the digital equivalent of a child's toy.
Just about every inexpensive smart lightbulb connects to servers in China. The most popular consumer drone company in the USA is Chinese. The barn door is open and the horses may as well be dea
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You make it sound as if TikTok was some critical infrastructure.
If I did, I didn't mean that.
It's a damned short format video app for bored teenagers to do bored teenage things
I don't think you understood what I was trying to say. It isn't about protecting critical infrastructure, it's just tit-for-tat business practices. If China won't let US companies run independently in China, the US is applying the same rule to Chinese business in the US.
This isn't something that can be fixed in a few weeks leading up to an election, during a pandemic, by dear glorious leader signing some toilet paper that bans an app.
What's your point. If we can't fix anything in a month, better to do nothing? You have to start somewhere.
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What's your point. If we can't fix anything in a month, better to do nothing? You have to start somewhere.
Except this isn't a "fix", it's a knee-jerk reaction intended to achieve nothing more than improve Trump's political posturing prior to an election. It's entirely likely the courts will find this entire TikTok shakedown to be unconstitutional, but by that time the election will be over.
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Except this isn't a "fix"
Seems like starting the process of equalizing the rules is a good thing. If it makes you feel any better, while yes, T is president, I seriously doubt he had much to do with the nuts and bolts of this plan.
Elections motivate officials to take action. That's the way it's supposed to work.
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I vote for people who will do their job in an ethical humane manner rather than simply swaying to every reactionary cry.
That's exactly what I said. Vote for people who take actions you agree with.
The current admin has been tough on China from the start. Doesn't really feel like this is "swaying to a reactionary cry" (WTF ever that means anyway).
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Trump wants to gain control of TikTok because it's giving China a taste of they own medicine
That's all fine and dandy until the bastard decides what apps an American citizen can download. Fuck that noise. That's censorship no matter how we cut it.
Plus it is such a waste of oxygen. There's a damned pandemic out there and we are on our way to lose a quarter million people. Yet, this is is the dumb hill we American social media consumers are supposed to fight and die on?
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That's all fine and dandy until the bastard decides what apps an American citizen can download
I'm going to stick to worrying about real things. When this happens, I'm right there with you buddy.
Plus it is such a waste of oxygen. There's a damned pandemic out there and we are on our way to lose a quarter million people.
There are many people working in the federal government. They can do two things at once.
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China makes it almost impossible for a foreigners to do business in China unless China essentially owns the China-based operations, including access to all of the personal data gathered.
This isn't really true. If the US really wanted to give China "a taste of their own medicine", it should have used the legitimate legal resources that international law (championed by the very same US) provides for that purpose.
The most important one is the WTO framework of rules and dispute procedures.
China has been a member of WTO since the beginning of the century. To get there, it accepted to open its markets to a larger extent than its important trading partners (like US, EU, Japan...) did to China - y
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There is no long-term, strategic policy thinking behind what Trump's doing, just damage.
You sure about that?
“I think there is a broad recognition in the Democratic Party that Trump was largely accurate in diagnosing China’s predatory practices,” Biden campaign advisor Kurt Campbell, a former Asia official in the State Department during the Obama administration, told the Journal.
https://fortune.com/2020/09/10... [fortune.com]
And some more,
https://thediplomat.com/2020/0... [thediplomat.com]
https://www.marketwatch.com/st... [marketwatch.com]
Behind Trump is an army of advisors an economists. It's naive to think that this is one person's vendetta. The policy he's following started w/ Obama, and lots of folks on both sides agree with it. And it's likely to continue if Biden takes over.
It's okay not to agree with it, a lot of folks don't, but acting like it's the actions of a raving lunatic is dishonest.
Sadly, the "bigger" part is him giving nice presents to his rich friends.
Uh, no that'
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You sure about that?
Quite.
The Trump administration engineered the destruction of a bunch of anti-nuclear treaties that have kept the most dangerous parts of the nuclear arsenal of the world more or less under strict control, largely dismantled or sabotaged to a significant degree important international organizations like the WTO, WHO, etc. and has been working consistently against the EU, which basically means against democracy and for the despotic governments of the likes of Putin for the most of its mandate.
Trump, by openly
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The Trump administration engineered the destruction of a bunch of anti-nuclear treaties
I didn't say anything about anything other than China policy. If you want me to sit here and listen to your every grievance about the president, that's $120 / 50 minutes.
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You haven't been paying too much attention then, because these are also a part of the China "strategy" that isn't. Like leader, like follower, uninformed, unread, and opinionated.
At least you're cheap.
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You haven't been paying too much attention then
I see clearly. You lost your first argument. Then tried to switch the topic to save face. But I do see your point, this is all part of the "president bad" topic. I've heard that one, so you don't need to repeat it.
I don't disagree with you about the NATO stuff.
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No. Everyone knows it is a very successful video platform, which frightened US internet businesslizards like Cuckerberg so much, that he's been trying to buy it, and when that didn't work, to convince the US government to squash it.
Oh please. The US government wasn't interested in squashing it. They outright want America to profit from it, that's not the kind of thing that benefits the like of Facebook. It's a silly conspiracy theory, but not even remotely as silly as reality:
Trump first heard about TikTok when his own #trumpisms became a popular trending thing, that's the first mention of any kind of TikTok regulation. Then came the Tulsa rally and the K-pop led protest action to register for the rally and not show up. Fox News decid
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You're seriously misinformed. The attack of some competitors on TikTok in Washington has been going on for over a year.
https://nypost.com/2020/08/24/... [nypost.com]
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I didn't say the attack wasn't going on. I said the US government isn't doing it's current action to squash it. And all actions being undertaken by the USA even now would make no difference to Facebook or Youtube. Notice they are specifically attempting to get TikTok into USA hands, not kill it.
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they are specifically attempting to get TikTok into USA hands, not kill it.
They are attempting to get TikTok into the hands of one of several Trump cronies OR kill it.
Re:No difference between US and China. (Score:5, Funny)
Oh come off it... everybody knows it's just a chinese propaganda platform just like the China controlled sites within china itself.
So true. My wife watches TikTok every night, and I've noticed her speaking more and more Chinese, refuse to refer to Taiwan as an independent state, complain about the protests in Hong Kong, and shown a marked increase in interest for man-made islands in the South China Sea. Why, just last night I even caught her reading out of a little red book!.
Oh, wait, none of that has happened. It's just full of stupid little videos, essentially a reincarnation of Vine.
Re:No difference between US and China. (Score:4, Funny)
Oh come off it... everybody knows it's just a chinese propaganda platform just like the China controlled sites within china itself.
So true. My wife watches TikTok every night, and I've noticed her speaking more and more Chinese, refuse to refer to Taiwan as an independent state, complain about the protests in Hong Kong, and shown a marked increase in interest for man-made islands in the South China Sea. Why, just last night I even caught her reading out of a little red book!.
Oh, wait, none of that has happened. It's just full of stupid little videos, essentially a reincarnation of Vine.
Awwww, all of us Trumpkins were hoping she eventually morphed into an angry Chinese woman in a Mao suit and a Lenin cap, brandishing an AK-47 with a fixed bayonet and shouted war cries from the communist manifesto while she tossed frag grenades at the local church thus confirming everything Q said about the dangers of TikTok.
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Oh come off it... everybody knows it's just a chinese propaganda platform just like the China controlled sites within china itself. They have no bussiness participating in our free market, and yes you can have a free market without it being a complete international market.
Makes you wish the Trump Administration didn't bungle it by making it a First Amendment issue, huh.
And the gaslighting continues (Score:3, Insightful)
Go ahead. Keep repeating that false equivalence between the U.S. and China.
China is ruled by a cruel, violent, murderous, genocidal totalitarian regime. People there have no choice but to suffer and die.
The U.S. is a democracy. A highly disfunctional one, but a democracy nonetheless. If it happens that a ruthless psychopath manages to rise to power, at least there is a chance that he'll get kicked out four years later. No such chance in China.
I used to make excuses for people like you who kept defending the
Re:And the gaslighting continues (Score:5, Insightful)
False equivalence? LOL.
China is ruled by a cruel, violent, murderous, genocidal totalitarian regime.
So is the US. You can count just the number of victims of the illegal wars US fought in the 21st century and compare it to that of China. It will be fairly close.
The U.S. is a democracy.
No. The US is an oligarchy. The driver of the US politics is big business. The manipulation of the populace that happens in the US is on par with that in China, if not worse.
If China is in some ways like 1984, the US is not too far from the Brave New world.
who kept defending the Chinese regime
I don't defend the Chinese regime. I think your country is no less evil than China.
And you're a little bootlicking enabler of that evil, so fuck off with your pretense of moral high ground.
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I can't disagree with you because we have no value for life here, not any more than china we just candy coat it better than they do.
Yep here in the US we have laws that tell people how many children they can have, and which church they can attend, and we outlaw independent media, in fact we outlaw all political dissent, instantly throwing such people in prison without trial. Yes, we do all of that just like China. Exactly the same.
We put kids in cages and neuter women against their will. We incarcerate POCs at a higher percentage and give them harsher sentences compared to other groups *for the same crimes*, etc.
"We are not as bad as China" is where we at, and that's a damned pretty fucking low moral standard to live by.
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I can't disagree with you because we have no value for life here, not any more than china we just candy coat it better than they do.
Blah blah. We have kids in cages and just now there's an ICE detention center in GA where, apparently, someone was too happy cutting uteruses off women in detention.
Sorry, we don't have a soapbox anymore from where to bitch about China's ugly record. #wearethebaddies
And forget that we are a democracy. Turtle Mitch is rushing to replace the vacancy left by RBG's passing despite his own precedent circa 2016 and that most people would prefer to wait for whoever gets elected to replace her.
That doesn't h
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Re: And the gaslighting continues (Score:1, Flamebait)
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Prior to 2016, I would say you are correct, now.. No.. sorry, that is the majority (at least among the voting public).
I'm an immigrant to America and also live abroad (spent most of my life traveling around the world , living mostly in various parts of Asia and Europe). Yes the credit score system can help.. but it can also hurt because its been reduced to a somewhat arbitrary number that does a lot more control over people's lives than most realize. Come on, Inquires (hard and soft both effect the number
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You can count just the number of victims of the illegal wars US fought in the 21st century and compare it to that of China.
So... what's your thinking here. Everyone gets their chance at genocide? The world should sit back and let China exterminate Uyghurs, because it's happened in the past? China still has their "Commit genocide for free!" card?
History is important because it helps you avoid repeating mistakes, not because it excuses them today.
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No, don't be an idiot. The point isn't that nothing should be done about China. The point is that when Trump starts talking about about China (where his hats and suits are made, where Ivanka's clothing is made, etc.) he's engaging in empty posturing from a position which definitely does not coincide with the moral high ground. Trump doesn't give one fuck about human rights abuses in China, and neither does the US government. We put children in concentration camps, we force-sterilize prisoners, we gaslight o
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No, don't be an idiot.
How's that working for you in life? Winning a lot of folks over to your ideas?
The point is that when Trump starts talking about about China
Got it. What Trump is doing is good, but since he has motives, it makes it bad.
We put children in concentration camps
Oh please. I think you'd better report back to your handler Mr. Wang you current efforts to divide the capitalist pig Americans have failed. I'm actually glad you wrote this. Now I know I'm either dealing with a nutjob or a paid troll and I can quit trying to make sense of you.
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No, don't be an idiot.
How's that working for you in life? Winning a lot of folks over to your ideas?
There's no winning with idiots.
The point is that when Trump starts talking about about China
Got it. What Trump is doing is good, but since he has motives, it makes it bad.
Wrong. What Trump is doing is not good. He's doing it in a way that shits all over the whole notion of law and trade agreements. If I had meant what Trump was doing was good, I'd have said that. But I'd have to be a staggering dumbfuck to believe it.
We put children in concentration camps
[...] Now I know I'm either dealing with a nutjob or a paid troll and I can quit trying to make sense of you.
As stated before, you're a fucking idiot. What does an idiot like you think that we should call it when we take children away from their parents and keep them in cages with emergency blankets to keep them warm? Why do you think the
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No. The US is an oligarchy. The driver of the US politics is big business.
Our democracy is given an air of legitimacy by the fact that it's technically possible to ascend to the ruling class if you beat the odds. When you start interpreting America's principles as designed to make citizens more accepting of their places in the social hierarchy, rather than trying to remedy some of the more grievous inequalities inherent to a social hierarchy, it all starts making a lot more sense.
Or, to use that quote from Harry Potter, "you're gonna suffer, but you're gonna be happy about it."
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But when the US overthrows democratically elected governments they are doing it with good intentions? Who's swallowed the propaganda now? This isn't an either/or situation, you can dislike the actions of both the US AND China.
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> China is ruled by a cruel, violent, murderous, genocidal totalitarian regime. People there have no choice but to suffer and die.
No, it is not. It has a government made up 90 million Chinese people. It has several aspects of democracy built into it.
The US government is dysfunctional, and its democracy useless and ineffective, if it is a democracy at all. It's basically controlled by big business and the power of the people is negligible.
The chance of a ruthless psychopath rising to power in the Chinese
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No difference between US and China.
There is large difference. CCP China is really just Nazi Germany with Stalinist USSR flair.
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No difference between US and China.
There is large difference. CCP China is really just Nazi Germany with Stalinist USSR flair.
Not really, what matters is the level of authoritarianism and the US is rapidly catching up with China on that point. On the bright side, the US has pretty much left China in the dust when it comes to 'dear leader' worship.
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https://www.theguardian.com/te... [theguardian.com]
Politics or not, the US has drawn a line. Some rail against Trump and shout politics, others rip into Facebook for lobbying. Regardless of what is done, people like you will scream bloody murder anytime something isn't allowed in a "free" society.
I do think the optics would have been better with an outright ban, but then some subset of the populace would be screaming about how TikTok lost profi
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That was supposed to be propaganda coming from his mouth? It was so incoherent, I wasn't sure what to make of it.
Hey guys, look at the subdomain! (Score:2)
Developers! Developers! Developers!
Has there ever, in US history.... (Score:3)
Honest question.
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Honest question.
James Buchanan?
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When did Hillary Clinton serve the US as president?
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Irrelevant. Any of her decisions she might have wanted to enact asi she were in the executive position would have ultimately needed to go through the elected president in order to have been effective, so any policy changes she might have otherwise been waffling on were of no effect (or else they would have mirrored by Bill Clinton's publicly apparent waffling on the same issues).
The opening question remains.
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I think the waffle is on the prompter...and he reads it verbatim :)
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Based on how long it takes him to form sentences when reading of a card I think the one thing which is truly certain is that Trump is unable to read from a prompter. It goes waay to fast for him.
My gosh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:My gosh (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, he doesn't want to cause panic by reminding people he's let over 200K people die on his watch because he failed not only to take action, but actively went out of his way to impede action.
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One would think that that man would have more important things to think about
He's got a lot of things on his mind.
Such as the $5 billion education fund [latimes.com] he claims will be part of the TikTok deal - money which will be used to teach American children their country's "real history".
I'm really curious to know what this "real history" is... maybe the Founding Fathers actually founded QAnon.
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The most important thing is his re-election campaign and acting like the strong man with a Chinese company is part of it.
Life Expectancy Goes Down 1 Year (Score:2)
Not just yet, but even with games being played to lower the death toll, we'll hit the approximately 250,000 deaths needed to lower the average by the end of this year.
Maybe we'll hit it before the election and see if that fact gets reported...
If you ever wondered how a Casino can go broke (Score:5, Insightful)
Companies that track users should be shut down (Score:2)
These nefarious companies that track user data and even make shadow profiles about people who are not yet users, and endanger national security should be shut down.
Wait? What? Trump isn't talking about Facebook?
every one? (Score:1)
It's a Trump deal (Score:1)
So it's normal that it sucks, they all do.
Will it require IE 8 (Score:2)
And java 7 update 128 as a plugin. Not 127, not 129 but 128. The applet will load and but require you to take an Oracle training course and a consultant come to your home for only $999 and an additional $250,000 if you want to host content with more consulting fees and a project manager for your Tik Tock videos.
Imagine if.. (Score:1)
China decided to steal Facebook from the US like this.
Then again, they would do everyone a favor, but still, this is some new level of abuse of power.
The sad part is, we the plebs are the ones that will go first, when the nukes start landing on all places.