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A comment on ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in US if legal options fail. Parent comment

Re:ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in US if legal options ... by somenameforme on Thursday April 25, 2024 @01:25PM (#40160486)
In India users that had it installed could continue to use it. And downloading it in India is trivial. On iPhone it's as simple as changing your region, on Android you just need to install the APK (installer) - which TikTok makes conveniently available on their website. I learned this from a quick search of 'how to install TikTok in India' which is apparently quite the common search in India. [1] I tried to dig up some data on how many Indian TikTok users there are. Probably unsurprisingly, that's not available. It seems fairly safe to say it's going to be quite a hefty number though!

So it was a toothless ban. By contrast, US wanted to have their cake and eat it too - keep TikTok and gain complete control over it. And while I know basically nothing about Indian law I'm fairly certain they have a much better legal argument in the US as well. So I don't think the situations have much in common.

[1] - https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=IN&q=H...

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Re:ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in US if legal options ... by dlachausse on Thursday April 25, 2024 @02:46PM (#40161459)
Doesn’t China also demand complete control of foreign apps in their country? Correct me if I’m wrong but my understanding is that the CCP demands specific changes to or outright removal of apps all the time.
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Re:ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in US if legal options ... by somenameforme on Thursday April 25, 2024 @03:09PM (#40161721)
In general, yes. This [1] is the first paragraph of the first article of their constitution: "The People’s Republic of China is a socialist state under the people’s democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants. The socialist system is the basic system of the People’s Republic of China. Disruption of the socialist system by any organization or individual is prohibited."

They are a self described democratic dictatorship with a system that openly and voluntarily chooses to sacrifice individual liberty and freedom for what they see as the collective good. That is their right as a sovereign power, but it is not a system I would like to live under. And any movement in this sort of direction is something that I think should be actively opposed.

[1] - http://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/englishnpc/Constitution/node_282...

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Re:ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in US if legal options ... by glimshe on Friday April 26, 2024 @09:44AM (#40169324)
North Korea also declares itself "democratic", just to add to the parent.
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Re:ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in US if legal options ... by somenameforme on Friday April 26, 2024 @11:27AM (#40170638)
It's a bit different with China. China has a mandated one party system, but as for individuals they do have normal and fair elections that I think even the US could learn something from. Basically at the smallest segment of society you have groups of something like 2000 people who have a local elected representative who has significant power to actually get things done. Those representatives then elect representatives at a higher tier, and so on up until you have the Politburo Standing Committee electing the President/Secretary of the CCP.

I think this system is pretty nice in lots of ways because it lets local representatives focus on local things, while high level representatives can focus on broad national interests. It also means peoples votes are always extremely important and you're going to be quite 'close' (literally and figuratively) to your representative. Of course the obvious downside is that in China you don't even get to directly vote for the President, but on the other hand - that is similar to many parliamentary systems used throughout Europe. Anyhow, it's an interesting system! Our first past the post district based system is completely broken and dysfunctional, but the people most benefited from it are the only ones who could fix it, so it's not going anywhere anytime soon. But it's fun to at least consider alternatives!

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Re:ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in US if legal options ... by seanmcdirmid on Friday April 26, 2024 @06:17PM (#40174929)
The funny part is that they give you something like 31 names and tell you to pick 30 of them that you want to be elected (so one person gets left out). Early in his career, Xi Jinping actually lost his only direct election this way (they ignored the results and gave him the post anyways). Even at the lowest level, there are definitely never any one on one elections where two people can campaign for the same office, the system doesn't allow for that.
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Re:ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in US if legal options ... by seanmcdirmid on Friday April 26, 2024 @06:15PM (#40174913)
> This [1] is the first paragraph of the first article of their constitution: "The People’s Republic of China is a socialist state under the people’s democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants.

Technically, freedom of speech, religion, press is guaranteed in the Chinese constitution. But China is not a rule of law country so these rights are not enforced in any manner beyond how the government sees fit.

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Re:ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in US if legal options ... by seanmcdirmid on Friday April 26, 2024 @06:13PM (#40174895)
> So it was a toothless ban.

The ban just doesn't apply to end users, but also to advertisers and content producers in the USA. That would have some impact, what is the point of distributing your app if you can't make any money on it.

> By contrast, US wanted to have their cake and eat it too - keep TikTok and gain complete control over it.

The law just specifies that it can't be owned by Chinese. A german company could buy it instead.

> And while I know basically nothing about Indian law I'm fairly certain they have a much better legal argument in the US as well.

That is making a lot of assumptions (I don't why they banned it, but I'm sure their reason must be better than the USA's...because they are India and the USA is worse?).

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