Everything I've seen says that TikTok could stay open to creators who have already downloaded it but they're going to choose to go 100% black on Sunday and I am having uncharitable thoughts about why they are deciding to do it that way.
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They're holding the US government to what they claimed they want. "We're a risk and you want us banned? Done, we'll ban ourselves." Got what you voted for.
I dunno. I feel like targeting one social media company and more or less demanding they sell to a U.S. billionaire makes it a perfectly reasonable response. Musk and Elon have both abused their platforms, not a whisper of concern from the government. I’d shut it down too.
There's a clear difference, that being the national security threat that it poses to have so much data available to our adversaries regarding the American public.
Not saying that Meta or Musk are cool, just saying that the issues aren't the same
Ppl gotta separate the actual tech issue from the "forced to sell to oligarchs". The security issue is genuine. Did the oligarchs use it as a way to kill the competition, yes.
A really simple solution would be for the government to be transparent about their concerns. They’ve made it the big bad boogeyman, but haven’t bothered to say why. Someone is being protected in that, or, it’s a BS lobbying issue
I don't care what tiktok collects. The US has been on this anti communism crusade for a century now. The threat is at home not overseas. Who do you think has the most power over you?
🤦♀️ "i don't care what they collects" and immediately turns a tech/security issue into a political one. That's what ur fyp has done to u. Promoted the "its political, censorship, they do it too" so that actual issue is not discussed by ppl.
Why do h think china blocks all Western social media? Google?
Sadly,I heard from a very reliable meme that they both passed recently. Within minutes of each other, lying peacefully together in bed, holding each other's penis.
Agree. I think it’s bananas to assume a company that’s being trashed by our country would be charitable to the users here. Sending the message ‘ok, you wanted us gone’ is not inappropriate
I mean they're doing it that way specifically to punish the feckless legislators who just assumed Bytedance would roll over and sell when instructed to, even though it was obvious from the start that Beijing would never allow the sale of the Tiktok algo to a western company
They are choosing to comply with the law. They don't want their offices raided by the FBI. Seems reasonable to me. It's not their fault, it's Congress's fault for rushing into this decision with zero evidence.
They don't trust them to maintain the Stochastic Firewall. TioTok sat at the table with Big Tech and implied they too wanted to prevent any dissent against American hegemony, but everyone else saw the obvious contradiction in leaving that up to foreign control
I would even go so far as to say it's not about China specifically (although that's obviously a big factor)-- TikTok is unique in its reach and they're uncomfortable having a platform with that much leverage over American opinion governed by people outside of the reach of the state apparatus
BeCaUsE chInA will KiLL uS aLL /s
On a more serious note: i believe that the surveillence that is possible with this law plays a big part...but it could also be that they're simply uneducated on digital stuff...I'll just remind you of "sir im singaporean"
I agree, however im not sure how much of it is their fault. Its quite difficult to understand just how manipulative media can be if you grew up without all of these things...Not an excuse but maybe a reason.
To cause more outrage? To lead people to lash out at their government? That’s all I can come up with. If they go dark on Sunday then the outrage could mount a comeback if TikTok users are loud enough.
Exactly. People don't realise how quickly these apps must've and how soon they become incompatible with the servers and break. There are good technical reasons to block old apps.
I thought so too, but in their oral arguments to the Supreme Court they seemed to indicate that oracle their host provider may also shut down access. It is less clear if they can handle that.
Wait like voluntarily? V said that they won’t have to go black bc Biden admin are working on a fix to push back the timeline until Supreme Court releases an opinion.
Yes its voluntary until the supreme court makes an offical ruling. This back and fourth shit would pmo too so itll either make the decision for them or force them to make a decision. Govt does not like people on Xiaohongshu. Meta lobbied for us to come back to their apps. Not happening.
US govt forced TikTok to store all US user data (think essential data like usernames, identifiers, passwords, etc) on US-based Sysco servers. The ban specifically prohibits maintenance of this data on US soil. Without your credentials, how will you log in?
For the same reason that union strikes are intended to be disruptive. Nobody is going to raise a fuss and call their local representatives if tiktok just trails off slowly. It has to be drastic to make an impact.
It’s not up to TikTok. They will still will be active because they’re international. It’s up to the android and Apple stores to block downloads, and Internet service providers to block access to TikTok. If they don’t, they face fines.
Trump did say he’s interested in an executive order to keep it around. Letting it go black could be by design at this point to be viewed as the “savior” of TikTok.
I’m not confident that users will lose access, more likely it just gets removed from app store for liability reasons if anything imo.
Exactly! I there is the question of why he's decided to flip his view. Is it the success he claims he had on TikTok with this election or is it that he now has a buddy who has a vested interest? Maybe both? Definitely not because we're upset about it.
Seems straight forward to me. Make the userbase angry, and they will respond in kind by contacting their elected officials.
Bad press is absolutely good press.
Open to creators and the US government… basically “rights for me not for thee”. It’s all a power play. Get us comfortable with loosing our right of free speech and expression because that’s what our oligarchs are after.
Our government has gotten too comfortable with making our lives miserable.
Yup we did. I blame every republican and every Neo-liberal who pushed for unpopular policies and capitulated to the right.
Like no reason for Kamala to support Israel, no reason for her to say she will appoint republicans into her cabinet. No mention of popular policies like UBI or seizing assets
If we ever want to see Dems win again they need to run on popular leftist policies, debt forgiveness, senate term limits, UBI, investment into trains, opening up of markets like electric car markets. So many leftist ideas are pop. But they don’t serve $
Agreed 👍 but we knew the right will always vote for him.
We needed the left to come out and vote for her, you don’t motivate the left with neoliberal policies that just causes infighting that sabotages a movement. Like we saw with Hilary in 2016 and Kamala in 2024.
If I owned an app and had a chance to fuck with America - I would do it. The money lost and bullshit hoops they put the company through, yeah I’m getting that lick back too 😭
Everything that I've seen has said that the servers will go offline. TikTok US servers are separated from international TikTok servers, and Byte Dance has said that they will shut them down.
Lemon8 runs on another set of servers, which is why users are being encouraged to move their videos.
Two things are true at the same time. The fact your critical post is still up illustrates the difference between the two governments. Mainland censorship is very real. I do not want that (or connected to that) here. https://freedomhouse.org/country/china/freedom-net/2021
Someone give me a reason why TikTok would do this that isn't, "We want to make this as disruptive and divisive as possible and that is way more important to us than our creators or our users or our employees."
There is a world where the app remains active and breaks slowly since it can’t be updated to match server changes. That kind of slow breaking is a really bad user experience and can create a bunch of support ticket traffic you have to manage. A full shut down is simple and creates clarity.
To be clear, I think you’re right. They could easily keep testing the old version of the app against changes and delay a shutdown until problems occur. This is just an argument I could see being made internally if you wanted to be charitable.
Leaving it up, but unsupported or updated is a good way to get non-technical people dupped into downloading and installing malicious apps pretending to be the tiktok app. There would be scams and fraud immediately.
I don't see the problem. This whole situation *should* be disruptive. We should feel the effects of our government meddling in what we can and can't do online, what apps we can use and can't. Maybe it'll get people more involved.
There isn't another reason. Congress was reckless and Beijing can't allow the sale of the algorithm to a western company. This path is designed to punish US legislators for being as subtle as a brick in the small of the back.
An inability to provide security updates to the app means that at some point the company will be knowingly operating a vector for malware/hacks. I honestly have to wonder if one of their lawyers told them to play it safe and not take on any liability.
pornhub stopped being available in states where it requires you uploading your ID to access 18+ content, not because they had to but because they believed it was more important to make a statement against the law itself. i don’t really see how this is much different from that
This is exactly what they are doing, and I am happy they are doing it. If they sell to an America oligarch I will be leaving the platform anyway might as well go dark as a last f-u. They already said they would continue paying employees for the foreseeable future: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/15/business/tiktok-bytedance-ban-jobs.html
The employees thing is actually probably because they can't legally get rid of their staff that fast after the ban legally. They need to keep their staff in case it isn't banned, But that means under Cali's layoff rules, they need to give TT employees 60 days notice under the WARN act
If TT gets banned on the 19th, they'll probably attempt to transfer some of their staff abroad, but also likely send out a warn act notice on the 20th. Meaning TT employees will keep their jobs till March 21st.
They'll also probably need those employees, since they will likely wipe Oracles servers before the last day of the month to get out of their contract, but this will likely cause unpredictable stability issues for TikTok elsewhere.
Well, you see! They want to make this as disruptive and divisive as possible and that is way more important to them then their creators, users, or employees!
(As a note: this is ironic. I’m not totally sure I agree with this take, I am simply doing the funnies. Not super informed on the topic)
“We saw the errors in in our way and decided that we are useless and acted to the detriment of everybody. This is why we will no longer be bothering you, spy on you or destroy your democracy.”
I'm not defending tiktok, they are a company and therefore are generally going to be making choices that are shitty. But they are not the ones to blame here.
The disruption is the point. If it's minimally-disruptive, no one will care. It's the same reason workers go on strike and protestors march in the streets.
I actually think that under the law, TikTok US which is an American company, would not be allowed to do business with ByteDance, their parent company. So they can stay open, as long as they don't use the algorithm which is still owned by ByteDance, and TikTok US pays to use it. So if they could 1/2
Just listened to TWiG video where Cathy Gellis, who was in the SCOTUS courtroom, said its because of the potential liability of breaking the law. The unknown liability to the TikTok parent company. At least that was my under standing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xHJsVRy800
That’s exactly why. They’ve been activating their users for a year to try to stop this ban, so now that it’s going forward, they’re going to make it disruptive to try to motivate people even more.
From that perspective I don't think that's even an uncharitable take. If the service can't continue and may run into hurdle after remaining hurdle until it's not able to be used in the US, they could take a big gamble and hope that the pain of an outright blackout will make users act.
They may have existing infrastructure to support the system that will no longer be available to use (North American data centers, CDNs, etc) which would be cost prohibitive to reimplement in another region without the ability to recoup those significant costs.
Because just like Walter's Car Wash, TikTok was merely a front for the real business. And Apparently, selling your front, even for big bucks, is no bueno!
Once the apps aren't in the stores, they are constant security risks for everyone that aren't getting patched. They patch these apps to fix security holes all the time and now they can't.
That's probably not THE reason, but it's A reason.
Who’s being disruptive? The legislators that banned it. Of course company would want to make a show of how it’s without its app by complying completely with what is being asked. People will be mad and those legislators will hear about it. TikTok is playing smart
This could just as easily be "we have a weak hand and if we don't shut it down we won't generate enough leverage to save it compared to just slowly atrophying"
Simple. Sell the entire vlogbrothers brand. I give you no choice. Sell to the person I want you to sell to. Make sure it's an American oligarch, please.
As a relationship, this wasn't a neutral thing ever, our country's governments are big mad at each other...well one much more than the other, and that causes stress, and then big stress with where servers were, now another big stress with soft shut down. Is it worth the stress for them?
One more thing, A lot of creators are having issues withdrawing their money all of the sudden as well. That could be another factor to include as well.
If making the ban as disruptive as possible helps keep the publicity up, and therefore makes it more likely to survive, then why not? It's not TikTok's fault they're forced to go dark, and Americans should place the blame on Congress rather than Tiktok management
Considering what our congressmen did I don’t blame them at all. You know it was in a spending bill that gave 14 Billion to Israel in arms sales? Or about 40 billion to Ukraine in arms sales. Palestinians only got 0.3 Billion.
Every congress member who voted yes need to be removed from office.
As someone who works in tech, they don’t want to run into something they can’t send an update to fix and all the sudden they’re at fault for bad experiences. It makes sense to take the hard break honestly. I would hate to run an infrastructure I can’t control. Even something like a cert expiration
Allowing users to keep the application running when they can't support it with security updates means millions of American users are vulnerable to any unpatched security vulnerabilities that are discovered.
I think that disruption is good in an unfortunately accelerationist way. It would be a last hurrah to truly save the platform which would help the creators in the long run rather than letting them milk it as it dies.
I don't know if the payment systems that run the TT store and ad receivables will operate past the ban. They could probably fund it themselves, but that's a huge ask especially with how they're being treated.
This whole situation is wild to me because people seem to really don't seem to be understand that "tiktok is bad" and "tiktok shouldn't be banned" aren't mutually exclusive thoughts
Seems pretty obvious that that is their aim. It's the same reason they've refused the option of selling even though it would make more business sense to sell and make a final profit rather than just losing the value for nothing. But they want it to be disruptive, like payback or something.
Because all of the American data is currently on Oracle's servers, and there are already restrictions in place on moving that data, say, back to Chinese servers. Moreso, TikTok is paying rent to keep those data centers open, and will soon not be making revenue from those users.
TL:DR; keeping a bunch of American video data that you aren't legally allowed to touch, use, or keep, is an extremely expensive thing to do for charity. The data might be sold to the highest bidding data broker. But realistically, since it's video, and that is expensive to keep, they're keen to wipe
You say that like it's their responsibility to protect the United States from the negative consequences of our own actions. To hide from us the harm to ourselves that we have caused in an attempt to spite them.
I'm not completely sure, but I think it's because the "behind the scenes" code is extremely valuable, like a secret recipe. It's bigger than just the US. And it would basically be ruined if it got out, not special anymore.
Plus there's still a chance this isn't the end for them here in the US.
Tech is already unprofitable on it's own, see:Uber, Twitter, craigslist. The real money lies in the data collected and ads shown. If they can't collect data or show ads in the US, Why would they continue to accrue operating costs for US users?
not sure that it’s a hundred percent relevant, but when Russia started prosecuting people because of social media posts a lot after the invasion of ukraine, TikTok just restricted russian accounts from posting or viewing new content, just to be safe.
So as a user you could watch any video that was posted before they prohibited posting, but nothing more. and they did it fully by their own decision, without any orders from the state
That's the reason. And hope that Trump will reverse his own opinion and keep TikTok open in the USA because Bidon agreed with Trump that TimTok is a secuirity threat.
From purely a business perspective, that's asking them to run servers for a huge number of accounts that they can't make money from, cause US advertisers would say "but it's banned!" and "how are we gonna see growth if no one can sign up?" and "we can't access the site to create content."
In all fairness, the govt brought the fight to them and made them a scapegoat for a larger issue. Why wouldn't they go black out of spite? It's not about their creators it's an existential threat to their company.
If you want to incite your customer base to feel a loss and then make a vocal fuss about that loss to the people responsible, you won’t do it by a slow, eventual inconvenience that many users would ignore/grow to live with. You do it with a full stop that they can’t get around.
I would question that scenario, in the first place. It doesn't make much sense for the order to allow TikTok to operate in any fashion. The liability of keeping it up when they legally can't is likely extreme.
Why continue to invest in a market that isn't going to continue to make money. With the apps removed from the app stores the US user base will only shrink and advertisers outside the US aren't going to pay to advertise to a US audience, probably best in the short term to just rip the bandaid off.
As a law student, I think this move makes sense. In order to the American people to understand what Congress has chosen to do, they must be made to feel the consequences of our government's actions. Only that way will we be able to respond adequately in future elections.
I keep getting notifications that I’m eligible for “work with artists” and stuff and it’s… difficult not to see that as trying to get free work out of people and then not have to pay them once they lose access to the app.
I think they are saying that to make the January 19th deadline seem more dire than it is according to terms of the bill that was passed (TT must be removed from app stores). I don't think they will actually go dark on Sunday.
TikTok moved US accounts to US based servers managed by a third party (Oracle) to alleviate data access concerns. Oracle will no longer be allowed to host TikTok the same way the app stores aren't allowed to list TikTok. TikTok could move those accounts again but that's probably not trivial
It feels like "I want to break up with you but keep you on a leash" relationship. The US Gov is breaking up and TT says "ok, bet" and just leaves. Honestly more respect for them this way.
You're probably right, but the charitable explanation is that their US data is on Oracle's servers, and it may be a legal liability to continue to serve that data
It is possible that installed apps would still work (until a mandatory update doesn't appear in the app store that matches your platform account) if you VPNed outside the US (not India obviously), but your VPN needs to trigger the DNS lookups from that country in addition to egressing from there.
I do wonder how that will square with Biden admin announcing that they will not collect the penalties from companies like Apple for having the app in the app store or Oracle for hosting the US servers. Supposedly kicking the can on enforcement to the Trump admin, but will the parties take the risk?
The existing CDNs that ByteDance uses for TikTok are fairly publicly known, and while Oracle may still house the bulk of their US data, that's not where the majority of traffic is being served from. https://www.netify.ai/resources/applications/tiktok
That's almost certainly the reason to do it and if I was running that app, I'd do the same thing. Make this as disruptive as possible to piss off American users.
The best chance TikTok has IMO is to create as big a disruption as they can. If they leave any amount of the service on, they lose that opportunity for a large disruption by splitting the ban into two smaller events. That disruption needs to turn to pressure on politicians or it's over.
Because no one (or few) would blame TikTok for stopping work. The blame will shift to the government.
I know those a lot of users potentially could continue using the platform but it feels like they are the dozen players who stayed on Halo 2 for weeks after Xbox shut the game down.
I think this is the exact reason and I think it's the obvious thing for them to do. They're being banned by the government of a supposedly free country for questionable reasons. Why would they go quietly?
Why wouldn’t they Hank? the US government is indirectly responsible for these job loses and they have no duty to said government. Might as well use all the leverage they have.
The charitable read is that they are doing this to be as disruptive as possible to force the system to reverse course, thus entirely saving their creators, kinda like a strike. They should be collaborating with their creators on it though to make it effective.
"if the market is hostile, we will cease attempting to provide service to the market."
maximising disruption is probably the goal, but I don't wholly hate it. the US has indicated that this is now an adversarial situation and they are responding in kind.
Not sure if the pervasive lack of understanding of how the internet works or a pervasive lack of having read the (v short, v straightforward) bill is causing the misunderstanding.
Maybe the people who stand to make money from a sale of TikTok already have more money than they could spend in 1000 lifetimes and are taking a moral stand against what looks a lot like a shakedown by the US. I know our Ferengi culture can’t comprehend a morality above profit, but it exists
Its really just about trying to rile people up so they pressure lawmakers to bring it back. Thats the only long term goal. If they succeed its technically good for users, creators, & employees - not withstanding any reasons why it could be good for TikTok to not be owned by the Chinese government.
I'm the least serious social media person ever, so take what I'm about to say with an entire salt mine's worth of salt:
I think the disruption is to make a statement to the US for trying to bully Bytedance into selling when US companies do exactly (or more of) what we're accusing them of doing.
This. They’ve made it clear that they have no intent to sell (and honestly good for them), and going dark is their way of standing by that. Maybe they could’ve given more notice for creators to prepare, but I don’t think the move itself is a bad one.
Like, if I watch 0.01 seconds more than usual of some right-wing Tiktoker, I'll get ads for weeks about erection meds. But I've never had TikTok show me an ad for something I was talking about with a person IRL because it was listening to my mic like Meta
OK, my best argument is that if they want US creators to have a long term future on the platform they need to show the US administration how unpopular losing TikTok would be and that they won’t just be strong armed into selling something they spent years creating.
Letting the app lose users slowly guarantees it dies with a whimper. Shutting down suddenly creates an explosion of anger. I'm not sure if it's "good" but it's smart.
I think they want to make Americans feel the impact of their leaders actions, so as to put extra pressure on them to allow the app once again. In the meantime, they don’t have to worry about getting security updates to users that can’t receive them.
I think it’s because TikTok has been a hub for liberals and leftists to express our views, learn, and come together (yes, there are conservatives on TikTok, but I only have experience with the left). they want to destroy any chance of us fighting back
I think the logic is that making it as noticeable and disruptive as possible will make a reversal happen faster. Same thing as every TV channel carriage dispute where the channels go dark with a message to "tell DirecTV how much you want ESPN back" or whatever.
In some sense, they could, but they’d have to do some amount of work to do so, which would include moving all data out of the country, and not using any US providers for certain things. I can understand why the parent company might not want to do the work.
I'm a creator, not a big one, but tiktok has given me a real outlet for my creativity. Shame on our greedy and controlling government for banning a tool of the people.
They're more interested in business than in being a creative community, and the US just made it impossible for them to do business within this country.
And if they also want customers INSIDE the US, and similarly concerned countries, they can't be subject to acting as an arm of the Chinese Communist Party.
If they were so interested in being a profitable business, they should try to penetrate the Chinese market, that TikTok is not available in.
It’s possible that without a path for continued growth in the US fewer advertisers will buy ads on Tik Tok and make it less and less profitable to operate the service here.
Afaik TT implemented an auto-download, no watermark option for creators to have from now until the app goes dark to support this process and most of my FYP seems to support this disruption, as it'll have the most impact.
I don't have strong feelings on TikTok one way or another as I never really gotten into it. But why I am against the ban is it feels like the us wants to control info and they can't with TikTok. And for that alone i am against the ban. But personal feelings towards the app none. Might be wrong dk
US companies are barred from providing services to bytedance, including payment processors, server hosting, etc. Operating within the US may open them up to more legal trouble.
Not that they're not also trying to be divisive, but I don't think it's 100% that.
It's a third most populous country in the world streaming videos 24/7. There are heavy costs to streaming resources. Why invest it into country with no way of future revenue growth?
This is what drives people to third-party App play stores and sketchy VPN providers. The average person needs to get smart about some fundamental internet technologies before we create an even bigger security nightmare.
Ngl, I would be spiteful do it too if an entire government banned together to try and force me to sell something I made. Sucks for creators, but this ban has been in the works for a year. They should have moved their source of income a long time ago.
Literally this entire situation deserves uncharitable thoughts. Nothing they've decided or how they've decided to go about the thing has been smart good or necessary. It all has to do with a bunch of stupid rich men arguing about who's stocks are more important. Fuck em.
Exactly. It's a tactic that many social media companies have already used here in Europe whenever the EU applies any extra regulation to the industry. Over here it doesn't really seem to work; hopefully US lawmakers will be just as resilient. 🤞
I’m not sure the app would even work if they left it alone.
ISPs are likely not even allowed to resolve traffic to TikTok’s IP addresses. So it’s possible even if the app was untouched, no content would ever be delivered.
Any user connected to a US phone number will open the app on the 19th to a blank screen and a link to a website explaining the law. No videos. No scrolling. No profile. Gone.
Oh jesus, that's TikTok implementing that themselves? Honestly, the US government is giving them a free pass to culturally shock their citizens against the US.
If i was tiktok, I won't wait for the government to make the decision. I would pull the plug now on America. Go dark now.😈 and watch the chaos🍿🍿 i call them on their bluff.
I feel like it's a bluff. They want to make it as scary for the public so creators and users will be as loud as possible (as if we haven't already been) to try pushing the government.
Although I think it's going to fail, people have already been loud, the government won't listen. Only money talks.
Several replies talk about how TikTok probably doesn't want to support a client they can't update. Meanwhile there are dozens of working YouTube clients for game consoles and smart TVs that haven't received updates in years. It is definitely a choice.
He definitely has been lobbying for it.
I truly believe Trump tried to get an extension so that he could "negotiate" the sale to Musk. Musk would pretend he's not interested, but will step in to save the poor Americans.
Going dark before it can happen is a good thing as long as it's reversible.
Started to use "RedNote" but the onboarding was so awful I kind of gave up setting anything up and probably won't post there. Still, I'll view others' posts from time to time there.
Yeah, and to make matters worse, the language isn't easily translated using the most popular English translators. Even my Meta smartglasses only support English-like languages when translating text it sees.
The keyboard on your phone should have a translation option, mine does. Plus most Internet browsers can automatically translate anything on a webpage now.
Tbf, they were NOT expecting a sudden influx of 700k English speaking users. But most Chinese users are captioning their videos in English now.
"The keyboard on your phone should have a translation option, mine does."
My phone's Chrome browser has a page translation tool, but it breaks some functionality and doesn't work on the app. The app doesn't even let me copy text to translate it elsewhere.
They have to live in this world and have to see a way to keep existing and not be a target- or- have enough legitimate authority to keep being a target and be worth weathering that. The US government will go harder than Luigi after them- not just one CEO- the us gov ALREADY did a law for one app.
TikTok updates their app pretty regularly. If people have the app downloaded and keep using it, unpatched, that's a potential security threat to exploit with millions of users. Is going dark the right move? I don't know. But it feels like it could be a fairly responsible one.
Why should TikTok give a fuck about anyone in the US considering how the US government is treating it
I can understand them basically saying "fuck y'all, we're out".
Assuming the stats I googled are correct, the US only constitutes 16% of the platforms users
This whole entire debacle has been an infuriating waste of time, energy, and resources
We need data privacy protections
Not a xenophobic oligarch-driven single app witchhunt to hand Meta even MORE of a monopoly
This is entirely correct, while I sympathize with the american public affected by this ban. From a stance of the capitalistic reality we live in, they have no reason to sink maintenance costs into private american server hosting(oracle) without receiving anything in return.
It's really funny how people tie themselves in knots trying to justify this ban as something else than xenophobia or capitalist takeover. If this was ever about user data or propaganda, the regulation would be apply to all apps.
Save your uncharitable thoughts for the US Government that was bought by AIPAC and Meta. Going 100% black is the only way TikTok has left. Especially when the “law” says TikTok banned for everyone BUT the government. Use your anger and platform in the right way buddy.
The same reason that a labour strike is intended to be maximally disruptive. If you want to make a point and have any leverage, the absence has to hurt someone enough to feel the pinch. If they can turn the creator anger toward the legislators who started it all, that is job done.
let’s not try and blame tiktok for our government stomping on our freedom and constitutional rights. This is 100% an acceptable way to handle the ban. Tiktok SHOULD be maliciously compliant. and the american people should be up in arms about it.
If I understand you correctly, there’s also the concern (@theverge.com explained this well IMO) that even if Biden or Trump say they won’t enforce it, that could QUICKLY turn into “we won’t prosecute you unless you do X”, so companies want to play it safe.
He’s specifically less shifty and continuously goes up against industry norms. Cuban aside though, the Bluesky model is designed to be more neutral. You can actually bring your own algorithm from a third party onto the bluesky platform as well
I'm fully on board with Bluesky's ATP. Decentralized networks are attractive to me. Reading up on Cuban's drug company, and while that is a commendable use of his wealth and power, he's still a billionaire. For a billionaire to exist means the lower class has to grow. Their money doesn't just appear
I fundamentally agree with you on billionaires as well, I think their existence is a total system failure. Mark seems to agree with that too. This system made billionaires possible and Mark is a successful participant. He doesn’t seem to actively lobby for more wealth disparity for his own sake
I remain skeptical on the sheer fact that he hasn't volunteered to become a millionaire. If he truly believes it's a failure in the system, he has it in his power to give 4.7 billion and 1 $ to help end homelessness or pay off student debts. Lesser of evils is still an evil.
I fully agree, I’d hope the company would be publicly owned and not private with Cuban just providing the seed money in exchange for shares or something. Another social media company privately owned would be a mistake, whoever the billionaire is. I just think Cuban seems to agree with that idea too
Gross, no. Cuban is another imperialist billionaire, who will willingly kowtow to the US government in censorship and follow the same predatory data extractions.
I feel like you aren’t allowing your imagination to look beyond the business sense of any decision. Going totally black will make the shutoff even more embarrassing to the United States.
Whatever their reasoning may be, the overwhelming sentiment among TikTok users (based on my FYP feed the past few days) is full support of whatever TikTok chooses to do. Considering how certain very rich people and the US government have been trying to bully Byte Dance into selling, I have to agree.
If anything maybe a TikTok blackout will give some users who use it constantly a slap back to reality? Probably not. It's disturbing the devotion to an app. Can you imagine that level of frenzy towards Vine or Snapchat or any app? It's creepy.
How about this is a thinly veiled attempt by the US government to coerce TikTok to sell to Meta, and it's good for lobbyists and congresspeople to realize they can't bully everyone all the time?
actually i would trust tiktok with my data more than the US government because they aren't a oppressive world regime with multiple genocides and tens of millions of deaths under their belt.
Uhm, the CCP has multiple genocides and tens of millions of deaths under their belt, is a world regime and oppresses both urigurs and political dissidents inside their own borders.
let me just say, it's good that they're doing this. american oligarchs wanted the platform gone purely for anti competitive reasons. if the american congress cared about data security, they should've passed a privacy bill.
I absolutely have my concerns about Tik Tok and data privacy and government involvement in its data, which is why I never joined (also have been burned by every social media ever, tho I am not here so there's that), but the US has absolutely no moral high ground on this. That sucks for everyone.
I acknowledge that they don't have to do it that way, but I'm supportive regardless. Quietly fading to obsolescence doesn't have nearly as much impact as immediate withdrawal and also forces us to come face to face with what this actually is: censorship.
The most charitable idea is very "Kids these days!" but it is banned means banned, if we ban drinking alcohol we do not get to sell what we have made, we must destroy it all.
Possibly to reduce load so they can spin down a large portion of their containers and reduce the overhead. I'm sure they are keeping the infrastructure hot until they find out if Trump will reverse this.
As soon as they have the go they can spin up containers and open back up
Comments
They are not the issue here.
Not saying that Meta or Musk are cool, just saying that the issues aren't the same
The national security threat is at home not overseas
Senator Tom Cotton couldn't even make out that there are more than two types of Asian people.
Good lord, you folks are fully brain washed ny an fyp !
Why do h think china blocks all Western social media? Google?
On a more serious note: i believe that the surveillence that is possible with this law plays a big part...but it could also be that they're simply uneducated on digital stuff...I'll just remind you of "sir im singaporean"
*trust me, I know who has the servers and where they are.
The oligarchy tsunami is about to hit the coastline and they want EVERYBODY on the beach.
However, the website should continue to work so you could totally just continue to use TikTok on your through any browser plus a VPN.
But it is also a strong message.
No chance for people to phase out or accept that the app is going away. Which letting it linger would do.
I’m not confident that users will lose access, more likely it just gets removed from app store for liability reasons if anything imo.
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5089151-tiktok-ceo-donald-trump-inauguration/
https://www.npr.org/2025/01/17/nx-s1-5258396/supreme-court-upholds-tiktok-ban
Once it’s banned they can’t make money off Americans so why let em on the server
Bad press is absolutely good press.
Our government has gotten too comfortable with making our lives miserable.
We failed the test.
Like no reason for Kamala to support Israel, no reason for her to say she will appoint republicans into her cabinet. No mention of popular policies like UBI or seizing assets
This assumes we have another fair election 🗳️
We really screwed the pooch on that one.
Because she didn't promise us what we wanted, now we'll get less than nothing. 👍
We needed the left to come out and vote for her, you don’t motivate the left with neoliberal policies that just causes infighting that sabotages a movement. Like we saw with Hilary in 2016 and Kamala in 2024.
Biden promised student loan
I'd say we should socialize social media but I don't trust the government either.
Maybe we need Wikimedia or some other high trust org to create a vertical video platform.
Ok.
Lemon8 runs on another set of servers, which is why users are being encouraged to move their videos.
I hear Xiaohongshu is pretty good though 👀
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/03/us-cuban-twitter-zunzuneo-stir-unrest
(As a note: this is ironic. I’m not totally sure I agree with this take, I am simply doing the funnies. Not super informed on the topic)
That's probably not THE reason, but it's A reason.
You would tell them to go fuck themselves.
Every congress member who voted yes need to be removed from office.
So should anyone else forced out of business for no valid reason by the government.
Plus there's still a chance this isn't the end for them here in the US.
You let your government ban them, so they're shutting down. That seems very straightforward to me.
I don’t think there was an intention to sell, this level of influence over the country is priceless
I know those a lot of users potentially could continue using the platform but it feels like they are the dozen players who stayed on Halo 2 for weeks after Xbox shut the game down.
"if the market is hostile, we will cease attempting to provide service to the market."
maximising disruption is probably the goal, but I don't wholly hate it. the US has indicated that this is now an adversarial situation and they are responding in kind.
a) apple/google can't distribute the app via their app stores
b) every other US-based service provider that they use will have to stop providing/carrying their data.
Not sure if the pervasive lack of understanding of how the internet works or a pervasive lack of having read the (v short, v straightforward) bill is causing the misunderstanding.
Prob both.
I think the disruption is to make a statement to the US for trying to bully Bytedance into selling when US companies do exactly (or more of) what we're accusing them of doing.
Which really does make one wonder about their principle reason for existing, and how that relates to the CPP Propoganda Weapon thing.
If they were so interested in being a profitable business, they should try to penetrate the Chinese market, that TikTok is not available in.
No reason it has to only be one reason.
What is thy point, here? Ginning up some anti-CCP conspiracy about TikTok? Are ye skewing Rightward, Hanko?
They face unprecedented suppression, why NOT be disruptive?
Not that they're not also trying to be divisive, but I don't think it's 100% that.
Come the 20th, I ll be going dark there. Permanently.
Rage, rage, against the dying of the light."
I think that's why.
Is the American exodus dragging other users away? If TikTok sees their userbase plummet it might more sense to close up.
ISPs are likely not even allowed to resolve traffic to TikTok’s IP addresses. So it’s possible even if the app was untouched, no content would ever be delivered.
Although I think it's going to fail, people have already been loud, the government won't listen. Only money talks.
They voted to make themselves more wealthy
I truly believe Trump tried to get an extension so that he could "negotiate" the sale to Musk. Musk would pretend he's not interested, but will step in to save the poor Americans.
Going dark before it can happen is a good thing as long as it's reversible.
Tbf, they were NOT expecting a sudden influx of 700k English speaking users. But most Chinese users are captioning their videos in English now.
My phone's Chrome browser has a page translation tool, but it breaks some functionality and doesn't work on the app. The app doesn't even let me copy text to translate it elsewhere.
Just be kind and add Chinese subtitles and text until Xiaohongshu adds a translation feature ❤️
I can understand them basically saying "fuck y'all, we're out".
Assuming the stats I googled are correct, the US only constitutes 16% of the platforms users
We need data privacy protections
Not a xenophobic oligarch-driven single app witchhunt to hand Meta even MORE of a monopoly
https://bsky.app/profile/techcrunch.com/post/3lfuwrquusj2t
We don't know how many breaking protocol changes they do a year, never mind security patches.
From a technical point of view I'd now want multiple millions of unsupported clients
As soon as they have the go they can spin up containers and open back up