Whether you agree with the move or not, the storylines being pushed in hundreds of comments here don’t even reflect the reality of the law, let alone the reasoning behind it.
It’s also ironic to read all of the commenters that don’t realize that China already controls social media use within their own country to a degree far more strict than this. The amount of control that China exerts over everything from Facebook to Google within their country was a well known topic for years online. Here on HN people were disgusted that FB and others were giving in to government censorship in those countries. Now it all seems to be forgotten? It’s weird to me to see all of the narratives in this comment section being built on top of imagined realities with no regard for how other countries have been operating for decades.
That’s a thoroughly disingenuous spin on the reasoning.
There is no movement to prevent foreign companies from having popular apps in general. The law is narrowly targeted. TikTok could continue to be foreign-held as long as they separated from the government of a specific foreign country.
I’m amazed at how many commenters are twisting themselves into pretzels to try to make this some generic imperialist move or use whataboutism to downplay the reasoning behind this move.
A decade ago it was common knowledge on the internet that China heavily controlled and shaped internet discourse within their reach, to push government agendas in an extreme way. There is no parallel to their cultural control in the US. Did everyone suddenly forget this, or are they just ignoring it for the sake of argument?