Last week, the bill that Tiktok will be banned in the US within the next 9 months has became law.
Given the US market size for TikTok, how do you think this will impact ByteDance’s business ?
Is the soft power of the US or of China that is more impacted by this decision in your opinion ?
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I think they’ll sell and the world will move on.
Or a Tiktok killer will emerge and the world will move on.
I’m curious, will the app be banned in the official app stores? or will internet providers in the US actually ban any data related to tiktok servers?
i mean, with android you can sideload whatever app you want, no matter where it’s from. so it would be impossible to ban it, also people could just use a VPN, which is like 20 bucks a year, thats basically nothing. people addicted to tiktok would easily jump through a couple of hoops to use it.
All I’ll say is that its funny that PRC finally got a taste of their own medicine.
CCP banned Google, Youtube, Instagram, Netflix, etc. for almost the same reason. Where there is effectively a “Chinese” internet. China doesn’t get the luxury of playing “fair” when they don’t reciprocate it. Going through mainland China, my phone might as well be bricked unless I have a VPN.
Either Tiktok wins the inevitable lawsuits, or they do not
If they do not, I suspect Tiktok will shrug their shoulders and tell the US to enjoy implementing the ban. VPNs aren’t exactly rocket science, and while the US is the largest user base, it’s not even close to the majority. The loss of ad revenue will doubtlessly sting, but not enough to make a fire sale interesting
I highly doubt there will be a impact other than to its user base; who will inevitably just move to the next thing. The problem with Tiktok is that the CCP has weaponized it and is using it not only to influence and harm the American youth but also to spy and to collect secrets. There is nothing Bytedance provides that another non-ccp affiliated provider cannot step up and provide. Either someone is going to buy it or someone will replace it with something.
TikTok isn’t going to sell. If they sell, they’d be creating their own worst competitor.
US will move to Reels, the world will move on with TikTok.
If any other American company could create a similar algorithm, they would have instead of lobbying for this ban. That’s just the hard truth.
Once Tik Tok got caught sending user’s entire clipboard history to its servers every three keystrokes then it was time to ban it.
The CCP knowing the precise geo location and activity of 1/2 of all Americans at all times is troubling to say the least. And since Tik Tok had found a way around app permissions and was sending your clipboard history to China every three keystrokes, imagine what viruses, backdoors, and other malware they’ve installed into user’s phones.
This goes far beyond the CCP giving you a social credit score.
The biggest effect will be that a large number of lawyers will make a large amount of money fighting on both sides of the impending lawsuits regarding this.
I think TikTok will ultimately be sold, but it won’t negatively affect ByteDance all that negatively as they will get a high price for it.
In terms of USA/China soft power, this is little more than a blip. China will continue trying to influence US elections through other avenues. The USA and China will find plenty of other topics to squabble over after this is settled.
A different platform modeled after tiktok will take advantage of the gap. Other platforms will emerge. Life will go on.
Every content creator cross posts on Instagram and YouTube so even if they get cut off the only question is where will the viewers go? That’s why ByteDance will sell. They know that they are absolutely dispensable.
Tictok will just switch its US based clients to another offshore server farm.
The app will still work. Nothing will stop.
I will once again point out that there is no “ban” of Tik Tok. Tik Tok wasn’t banned by this law.
It’s a requirement that the company not be majority owned by a literal hostile foreign government. Any normal company would simply sell off enough stock to get below 50% ownership in their US division and reallocate the money they made doing that to other operations.
That Tik Tok won’t do that proves that they’re not a normal company - they’re a propaganda and data harvesting project of the Chinese government.
The world will move on. If it gets sold then that shows TikTok is only worth money to Bytedance, they will make a huge profit and then move on with their lives. If it doesn’t get sold that shows that TikTok is a much more powerful tool to the CCP/Bytedance and they are unwilling to relinquish control and the tool of being able to free influence and push false narratives to the American public. Either way the world will move on and people won’t care in a year
I think in time, people will realize this had little to do with national safety and everything to do with keeping control over the naratives on mainstream media and wanting control over the youth.
I do worry something like this could impact other US applications. I know China already blocks most American apps, but would other countries try this since there is now a bigger precedent.
I thought the bill gave them a year to sell. Is the US going to try to block TikTok or just block acquiring the app?
They will likely sell the business. Several Western countries are evaluating similar restrictions, given the increased risk and threat posed by TikTok over other social media platforms.
The problem is that most politicians don’t understand the tech or the threats, so they are all fumbling with this, and it will be messy to find a resolution that makes everyone happy. The main issue is that the Chinese government purposefully blurs the line between business and state, so even with TikTok being a US based company today with some autonomy, there have been several examples of the Chinese government altering the algorithm and/or censoring some content. So even if there was a solution where ByteDance could still own it, there’d be know way to guarantee the autonomy that most western governments would want.
It’s never just “going away”. There’s too much money at stake for shareholders, China, etc. They’ll sell it or figure it out. People don’t just walk away from billions.