News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Trump gives nod to Oracle buyout of TikTok in US. Parent comment

Re:Trump gives nod to Oracle buyout of TikTok in US by krick on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @06:44AM (#24208983)
I'm not quite sure what to explain, since it is basically indistinguishable from the way any other racketeer operates. This is pretty much the same thing as asking somebody at gunpoint to sell his Rolex to you for $20, or else you take it by force. The victim is at loss anyway, but when choosing between $20 and nothing, they may as well choose $20.

US market makes up a large portion of TikTok's revenue, some say 50%. So it can threaten to destroy that market completely, for nothing, forbidding TikTok and causing the loss of what is currently 50% of its revenue. Or it can offer some money (an amount, which normally wouldn't be enough to sell) to take it, or at least a part of it. Time will tell if TikTok will find the risk worth the trouble.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Trump gives nod to Oracle buyout of TikTok in US by UncleOxidant on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @10:54AM (#24210989)
> forbidding TikTok

I'm still not sure how that would work. Sure, they could forbid people from downloading new versions of the app, but the existing app is already out there on phones - would they be able to force removal of the app?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Trump gives nod to Oracle buyout of TikTok in US by kube-system on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @11:16AM (#24211224)
This is not what is proposed, nor is what would happen. Speech protections are very strong in the US and direct censorship of an otherwise legal application is not likely to be a legal possibility.

What the executive does have the authority to do is regulate commerce. The proposal is that ByteDance would be embargoed from doing business in the US. This means, they can't pay for app store developer licenses, sell ads in the US, buy local CDN/cloud infrastructure etc.

You could have the app, but it's not likely that ByteDance would be able to operate it in the US.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Trump gives nod to Oracle buyout of TikTok in US by krick on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @11:21AM (#24211280)
Well, I won't suggest any scenarios of how it would work right now, even though I don't think it's totally inconceivable... I'll just point out that I don't actually need a loaded gun to make you sell your Rolex for $20. I only need you to believe it's loaded.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Trump gives nod to Oracle buyout of TikTok in US by asdfthvaa2 on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @11:22AM (#24211300)
that doesnt really matter too much. US advertisers won't be able to pay tiktok. Basically 0 money for bytedance, while plenty of trafic expenses if they keep servicing.

And ofc, apple and google can simply remove the app from your phone.

[ Parent | on HN ]