China slams President Trump's TikTok banned-or-be-bought plan in the US China has accused the US of abusing its national security laws to target Chinese companies after Washington threatened to ban video-sharing app TikTok from its shores last week. On Saturday, the Trump administration vowed to "close down" the Chinese-owned video-sharing app unless it is bought by a "very American" company …
why allow Chinese companies to get rich off Americans?
Because Americans want cheap stuff produced in a country that can make stuff for a fraction of the (p)rice that American production would take. So much difference indeed that the American companies can make a very decent profit by selling the cheap Chinese stuff to the American consumers.
Americans love capitalism, don't they? Or is that only if they are on the positive/winning side of the balance? And surely, the Americans have always played a fair game (just like with all the south American countries).
... ... Made in China ??
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Microsoft need their heads examined for showing any interest in TikTok. Another $20bn+ of shareholder value down the toilet if it goes through.
They’d be better loaning any spare cash to Rishi Sunak and banking 2% interest on a 10 year bond for doing fuck all.. or investing the money in Amazon or Apple ;-)
US companies can't get into China...
There is a VERY long list of American companies active in China at http://jiesworld.com/international_corporations_in_china.htm It seems likely that if Donald the Useless continues his rather poorly thought out assault on Chinese companies in the US, the list of US companies operating in China will abruptly get shorter.
One problem with trade wars is that the enemy gets to shoot back.
I myself have a very low, to say the least, opinion of the Donald, who is so much a farce in himself he is even present in video games, like Hitman 2016, in Bangkok, front of the hotel, where he's talking garbage as usual !
But one (only) thing he did right was to stop China from doing asymmetrical business and taking the piss to every single country out there. A good kick in the balls stopped them eventually.
All well and good except the way the TikTok deal is going down at the moment is completely unlike what happens to foreign companies in China. Companies aren't forced to sell or get banned. They are given a choice right up front to either partner up to participate or not enter the market at all.
What's happening for this deal is pretty much extortion.
to stop China from doing asymmetrical business
To be fair China's never forced us (US/Europe) to off best-shore our entire production of goods (or services) there (or India, Vietnam, ...), it's not as if there was ever a deal like "OK guys, we're giving you large chunks of our manufacturing, but behave, let's play fair, right ?".
I've heard a not-too-PC joke the other day from an Asian stand-upper, it was like : "Rumor has it that we Chinese have a very small d|ck. That's true : we've been fcking you in the arse for some time and you didn't feel a thing".
"I wish the UK would have shown more protectionism, way too many businesses have been sold off left and right."
It's short-term profit for the Management and Shareholders over long-term viability and reduced profits over much longer timescales - and if the Tories had not sold off a lot of nationalised industries then it would be the people running the unions or on state benefits who would be living the high life while the actual workers still got screwed.
Plus ce change
To me this smells more like one of Trump's buddies decided he/she wanted a slice of that profitable pie (Microsoft, for instance, because they're forever unsuccessfully chasing profit of ideas others have had, but usually years too late) and used/bought Trump to force the sale.
I suspect that the Chinese have also been told not to ask too much for that slice or expect a ban instead.
It stinks, like practically anything that Trump is involved in.
Microsoft has promised a "complete security review” of the company and to implement a “world-class security, privacy, and digital safety protections” if the deal goes through.
I guess this statement is, privately behind the scenes, augmented by the promise that, just like the other side, the new "very American" company will also ensure that the US' three letter agencies will have full access to the data.
I do not trust either country to do the Right ThingTM.
I'm willing to bet he brought that up with his staff, only to be told that even the weak willed republicans in congress would have spoke out against him for directly asking for a monetary bribe.
This will come out eventually, first he'll deny it, then he'll say "I could have done that if I wanted, it would have been perfectly all right" in his usual patern of deny first, then tacitly admit it but say there's nothing wrong with it.
Sounds to me like Trump is demanding a bribe. Isn't there a law against this in the States
There are plenty of laws against this. But this is, after all, Donald "Teflon" Trump. He can say anything, do anything, and still get away with it.
Remember, this is the same Donald Trump who firmly believes that as long as he is still the PotUS he has automatic immunity for anything.
Trump makes the Sicilian mafioso amateurish.
Y'call that a shakedown? That's not a shakedown. Now, this. This is a shakedown. Watch and learn.
He really doesn't make them look amateurish. They have to avoid being caught when there are people who can catch them, he just has to say 'I'm the president' and the people mostly go away.
This is one of the reasons he's so scared of the election of course: if he loses then he's no longer president and he's utterly screwed. He either runs (to Russia probably) or he's in gaol for a long time.
he's utterly screwed
If he loses, he can turn Trump Tower and his golf courses into a Russian Embassy (or an extension of).
Win-Win scenario.
If he loses the November 2020 election, it will be fun to watch him go into a meltdown. I am definitely going to say his meltdown would be so catastrophic it will give TV stations rating a boost. Worldwide.
As a matter of fact, I've gone to Costco and bought heaps of popcorn.
Let the games BEGIN!
Sounds to me like Trump is demanding a bribe. Isn't there a law against this in the States?
There used to be. Then the governor of Kentucky did it, and it was deemed OK by the Republican SCOTUS. Then Barr took over the DoJ, and removed all pretense.
Trumps statement that is has to be a American company that Bytedance sells its operations to, to stop them getting blocked in the US is pure for the US own financial gains and so the US 3 letter agencies can slurp the data themselves rather than it going to China
Considering how the US is supposed to be a model of free market capitalism why couldn't a non china based company purchase it? I would much rather have a European owned social media platform than another one operating from the US. As apart from a few smaller localised social networks like VK in Russia, all the big social media platforms are already owned by US companies.
"all the big social media platforms are already owned by US companies."
..or have been/will be bought up by cash rich US tech giants. We've already seen Google and Facebook buy up competitors putatively to operate them, then shutting them down because "we wanted the IP and technology" making it harder to even begin to compete and knowing you'll get stamped on if it looks like you might succeed. And now we have Bezos admitting that Amazon staff get to see ALL the data for sales through their site so they can decide what to sell, and for how much, in direct competition with their own sellers/marketplace shops, the very people who made Amazon what it is.
This is the downside of free market capitalism with little to no regulation or oversight. Monopolistic behaviour and abuse.
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Apparently Microsoft intends to buy TikTok's operations in the US, Canada, NZ and Australia. What happens to the UK in this scenario? Will UK users be able to access US TikTok or will they be cut off? It will be a pretty thin experience with most English-language content removed. I'm not clear why MS wouldn't buy the UK operations too, not least given UK is the fifth Eye. Can anyone explain?
Oh I'm sure the Orange One will offer to include the UK in their purchase of TikTok if it gets BloJo to agree to sell off the NHS or allow unsanitary foods to be sold in the UK. After all, isn't he the man who does the deals, or so he keeps on telling everyone.
China have always been very restrictive of letting foreign companies into their market, and even those that jump the hurdles and submit to the restrictions find themselves in a biased market. Very much a case of what goes around comes around and TikTok looks likely to go down the plughole because of that. First one to create a "competitor" could make a fortune.
"China have always been very restrictive of letting foreign companies into their market, and even those that jump the hurdles and submit to the restrictions find themselves in a biased market."
The Chinese ruling elite have long memories and long term plans. The remember The Opium Wars. That's a big reason to distrust outside powers aside from politics and dogma.
You have a point, but the US is accusing TikTok of funnelling valuable data to the Chinese Communist Party rather than justifying this ban on trade grounds. This seems a bit thin to me. How useful is a database of publicly available cat videos and paramedics doing dance routines?
One might speculate that bashing China is a convenient campaign strategy. Handily there is very little crossover between the TikTok and Fox News audiences.
Why would the US ban a Chinese program that tracks locations and recovers images of military bases, who does what job, and every bit of personal information on their phone?
That should all be public information, where you go, what you do, who you talk to. There is no reason to hide this information for the Chinese government. They only want to monitor you to improve the world like they do in their own country. This is a global world, and you are part of it. A part that needs constant behavior analysis to prevent you becoming a risk to the PRC.
Don't you want to be on the winning side?
(End Sarcasm)
You'd be better off looking at Strava than TikTok for information on military bases and the such. The idea that there is a wealth of intelligence to be gleaned from videos of dancing teens and Kim Kardashian lookalikes is laughable and surely only the dimmest of the population would bite on that one.
"So China bans FaceBook, Google and Twitter but the USA banning TikTok is unfair and goes against market transparency."
Correct. Hypocricy on both sides. But China have laws on censorship which Google et al were unable to follow properly with filtering and take downs, so got told to follow the law or get out. The USA is being far more blatant. TokTok are not apparently breaking any laws but are being threatened spuriously anyway.
As people often say when defending Amazon, Google et al tax payments, if you want things to change, make the laws that you need to get the change.
TikTok users band together a month ago to snag tickets from his disastrous rally in Tulsa and low and behold a few weeks later TikToc is a national security threat. This is the most petty, corrupt president ever seen. He even referred to the payment he wants as 'Key Money', a term for an illegal payment corrupt landlords used to demand... well he would know all about that! He should get back to dealing with the TrumpVirus but his comment was 'It is what it is!', after almost 150,000 of his citizens lie dead!
That astounding suggestion that the President of the United States is just having a petulant toddler tantrum...looks to be right on the money. Props.
What's the betting he only wants control of TikTok so that his Blueshirts can track down the perps if there's a repeat of the Tulsa prank?
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But anecdotally from people I know who are Tik Tok users, there are a lot of memes going around among the college aged set in the US about waking up to how politics can negatively affect them. This started when Trump was talking about banning Tik Tok, if he forces a sale I don't think they will necessarily forgive him just because it ends up sticking around.
Sure, voting against Trump because he's messing with your favorite social network isn't exactly the most noble purpose you could hope for that gets young people to exercise their right. But if it works, it works.
US has lots of info on EU people which is why the EU wants the data for EU people in EU. EU believes that if they tell US companies to move the data over that it will be done eventually. No one trusts China which means EU like solutions won’t work.
This situation could have been averted by taking India’s approach. Just ban the app. It sounds like what was going to happen until Microsoft stepped in.
Has anyone actually looked at the technical breakdown/decompilation of the TikTok app?
Yes, it slurps data but it is actually one of more "tame" Android apps I've ever seen.
Meanwhile, Android apps that have been proven to be malicious and whos developers have ties to the Chinese state not only get a pass, they are flourishing on the Google Play store.
Google of course knows all about this and quietly removes these apps only after multiple complaints but then allows these same developers and their apps back on the Play Store within a few weeks after getting a slap on the wrist.
So, it appears to me that banning Huawei and TikTok without any evidence of wrongdoing while at the same time continuing to allow TCL/Alcatel to push devices with known malware unabated seems to be just a political stunt and/or trade bullying.
I'm looking at an app now that was created by TCL's Shenzhen Hawk group that uses a shared library to run Facebook and Google related apps inside a virtual onclave that steals the users authentication tokens to use Google sync to capture the users contacts and installed apps, run advertising fraud with Facebook ads hidden from the user and harvests the users credit card data and session cookies from WebView and stores it in an SQLite data base before sending the data off encryted with AES. Yet TikTok is the problem?
Give me a break.
https://www.gadgetguy.com.au/tcl-and-alcatel-direct-links-to-massive-spyware-operation/
https://vpnpro.com/blog/chinese-company-secretly-behind-popular-apps-seeking-dangerous-permissions/
As a side note, Mark Zuckerberg, through his "trusted partners" program, allowed TCL/Alcatel to have low-level access to users social media data regardless of any "privacy" settings the user may have set:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/05/technology/facebook-device-partnerships-china.html
So when America's infrastructure is taken down by a massive DDoS from a million+ strong botnet of cheap Android-based tat and we are all siiting in our re-education camps wondering "WTF just happened?" you can thank Google and Facebook for selling us out for an advertising dollar, not because your kid watches short video clips on TikTok.
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