One of Susquehanna’s richest bets was purchasing a 15 percent stake in TikTok’s parent company, #ByteDance, in 2012;
according to the Wall Street Journal, Yass’ personal stake in the company is about seven percent.
The bill that could ban TikTok in the US looks set to be fast-tracked in Congress, with its inclusion in a package of foreign aid bills.
A similar bill already passed the House in a lopsided, bipartisan 352-65 vote in March, but as @NBC reports, it has since been stalled in the Senate.
Now, the House plans to package a slightly revised TikTok bill with billions in foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, making it somewhat harder to ignore, and all but guaranteeing the potential ban will be signed into law.
We could witness billions of users joining the #Fediverse soon, which means instance admins on #Mastodon, #Misskey, #Lemmy & #Pixelfed will need to brace themselves & raise funds to handle the pending traffic.
U.S. lawmakers were flooded with calls from TikTok users yesterday ahead of a decision that saw House committee members vote unanimously on a bill that would force ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, to relinquish ownership of the app within 165 days. https://flip.it/4MfgE9
Mimo sprzeciwu Trumpa ustawa zmuszająca chińską firmę ByteDance do sprzedaży TikTok pod karą zakazu w USA przeszła w Izbie Reprezentantów. Nie wiadomo kiedy i jak zagłosuje Senat. Co ciekawe, Biden obiecał podpisać ustawę, jeśli zostanie przyjęta. To kreuje ciekawą dynamikę wyborczą.
I think it's very telling the #US gov't added a way for TikTok/#ByteDance to weasel out of the ban if they decide to sell. Yeah, as if!
But OK. Assuming their "plan" works and #TikTok is sold. Now what?
Would they turn TikTok into a #privacy-respecting #FreeSoftware, fixing all the issues they like to complain about? Or would it just remain the same shitty #proprietary app with the only difference being your data is collected by a different country?
House approves sell-or-be-banned TikTok measure, attaching it to foreign aid bill
The House on Saturday passed legislation that could trigger a nationwide ban of TikTok.
It would mark the first time ever the U.S. government has passed a law that could shut down an entire social media platform, setting the stage for what is expected to be a protracted legal battle.
Wie ist es denn nun mit #TikTok und #ByteDance: Wie gefährlich ist der Einfluss von #China wirklich – und für wen? Die Antworten sind ambivalent und teils überraschend. Im Interview mit @ckoever dröselt Rebecca Arcesati von @merics sie auf.
Truly disturbing information. You certainly should not trust any large tech companies, but #ByteDance makers of #TikTok is emerging as just about a worst-case scenario. Support #decentralization
Abgesehen davon, dass ich TikTok nicht mag weil ich deren Zweck nicht einsehe, nutzen es sehr viele und vor allem sehr junge Menschen und dies auch kommerziell. Wie eben YouTube & Co. und eigentlich nicht viel anders aber auch als politische Propaganda eine Konkurenz zusätzlich.
🧵 …nun ja, dies war nur eine Frage der Zeit. Es war mehr als vorhersehbar, dass TikTok sich wehrt um den Markt abzugeben und dabei zu verlieren. Meine Meinung und Kritik diesbezüglich, siehst du in den Toots oben.
»Netzpolitik: Tiktok-Mutter Bytedance will mit Klage drohendes US-Verbot abwenden.
Geforderter Verkauf "weder kommerziell, noch technologisch, noch rechtlich" möglich.«
The Biden administration reportedly rejected an offer from TikTok’s parent company ByteDance in 2022, that would have given it extraordinary influence over the world’s most popular app.
The proposal would have allowed federal officials to pick TikTok’s U.S. operation’s board of directors, given the government veto power over each new hire and seen TikTok pay an American company that contracts with the Defense Department to monitor its source code.
It even offered to give federal officials a “kill switch” that would shut the app down in the United States, if it was determined to be a threat. So why was it declined? The Washington Post has more (may require subscription).
The hashtag #BanTikTok has started to gain momentum in the #Philippines because of the recent muting/silencing of a renowned journalist's coverage of the West Philippine Sea issue. Which in turn also revealed that a music video / campaign of a local celebrity regarding WPS was also muted earlier.
Hopefully, this is the spark we are waiting for to get this Communist China-controlled service banned in the country.
Unfortunately, one user shared a photo of a news report on how the DICT (Department of Information and Communications Technology) said that we should be careful with banning apps as these are simply technologies, and small businesses are using it.
> ANC: The DICT asserts it needs to be careful in supporting a ban on social media apps, esp. since they benefit small businesses.
>
> DICT: Let's not single out a particular app. This is just tech. There are evils in it, but there are also good things in it.
It was a poor attempt to deflect the question. Why? The topic was not about the technology, it was about banning [highly questionable] social media apps. There is a huge difference between technologies and services.
The public is not asking to ban the technologies behind “short form videos”. The people of the Philippines are demanding to ban a service.