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Re:Biden signs TikTok 'ban' bill into law, starting clock fo... by pakyr on Wednesday April 24, 2024 @05:10PM (#40149687)
> So to put it bluntly, if the CCP bought 20% of reddit, reddit can't be distributed, maintained or updated by any US company.

Provided they have more than 1 million MAU (which they do, obviously). The president would also have to affirmatively ban it and report to Congress about the specific threat that company poses, and what assets need to be divested. TikTok is the only company written into the bill by Congress that doesn't require affirmative action by the president, or the report.

> the law very likely could be weaponized by the CCP to get things banned that they don't even own yet

Only if the president believes they should be banned.

Re:Biden signs TikTok 'ban' bill into law, starting clock fo... by jquery on Wednesday April 24, 2024 @05:16PM (#40149773)
1 million MAU is nothing. Throw up AdSense on something that gets 1m MAU and that pays for a single developer. Also, I don't like the President getting this kind of power over businesses. It's bad enough when they can make angry Twitter threats... now they can give them a corporate death penalty.
Re:Biden signs TikTok 'ban' bill into law, starting clock fo... by pakyr on Wednesday April 24, 2024 @05:20PM (#40149830)
Sure, that's a valid concern to have, and I'm not saying the bill is a great idea. I'm just pointing out that there's nothing automatic about the process and the clock to divestment wouldn't immediately start ticking the moment a company crosses 20% Chinese ownership. The person I was responding to said the bill could get weaponized by the CCP to ban things via the threat of them acquiring more than 20% ownership, but that's not how the bill works.
Re:Biden signs TikTok 'ban' bill into law, starting clock fo... by xvector on Thursday April 25, 2024 @04:37AM (#40154982)
The fact that it's not automatic is even worse. It means that the president can just target whoever they don't like.