For me, this was the first time I've actually had to do a lot of thinking about CFIUS and its implications. I definitely didn't understand the scale and impact of CFIUS before, but now I'm at least aware of the power. I'm undecided as to whether or not this is an appropriate power for the president to have, but I think I'm much more relieved to understand the mechanism by which the "TikTok ban" is being implemented than the very nebulous term "ban."
The reality is that this is the type of thing that can affect each and every one of us in a new set of unexpected ways. Lawfare's explanation was particularly shocking to me:
> TikTok (then called “music.ly”) was bought by ByteDance in 2018 for nearly $1 billion. Of course, music.ly like ByteDance was a Chinese company. So you might think that CFIUS would have no say over that acquisition. But you’d be wrong. For purposes of CFIUS review, a covered “U.S. business” is any entity that engages in interstate commerce in the United States—even if that entity is a foreign corporation. [0]
In other words, I'm at least thankful that I now know that the US has a legal framework for this set of actions -- even if they're a bit shocking in the first place.
[0]: https://www.lawfareblog.com/tiktok-and-law-primer-case-you-n...
Another reason the executive branch should give detailed reasoning for their decision is to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Right now it seems like Trump is simply mad at TikTok because some users allegedly reserved tickets to his Tulsa rally in order to spoil turn out (it should be mentioned that this also was reported by the media without hard evidence).
And because the government of China's long track record of data theft for commercial gain the Trump administration sees it best to use CIFIUS to ban all companies from China that collect any sensitive information (whether personal or corporate), even if they haven't found a smoking gun that the government of China has misused the data yet.
I don't believe the Trump administration is going for complete economic decoupling with China at this stage (though I personally wish they were), but they certainly are going for banning applications with any access to sensitive information at all. Through this reasoning I am fully expecting applications such as AirDroid (made by Beijing-based Sand Studio) to be banned sooner rather than later.
On the other, I feel like if we're going to force a divestment in the name of national security for a social media app, maybe we should have all our social media apps operating domestically abide by strong privacy protections and data isolation policies.
US based companies enjoy 2 benefits when it comes to regulation: 1) “Domestic” factor which makes them immediately above suspicion of wrongdoing by the National Security apparatus and 2) Access to the legal lobbying infrastructure which they use to protect their interests.
The interests of both Domestic firms (who want to neutralize a fast growing threat) and the National Security apparatus align in this case, which is why the parent company seems to have accepted the fact that it would need to sell off its interests in TikTok. Their interests do not align so much when it comes to protecting user data (arguably for certain 3 letter agencies, they align in favor of fewer user privacy measures).
For those that wonder why big technology firms all seem to be based in the US, there isn’t something magical about the US. It is mostly the State assisting domestic firms in neutralizing international competitors.
>“Domestic” factor which makes them immediately above suspicion of wrongdoing by the National Security apparatus
This for example, is not true.
And I am afraid about fate of the GitHub ...
There is a huge list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...
how many of those survived?
Also despite being only Nokia branded, their Android phones are just as good as ever, and the only Android brand that I actually get updates on, versus the one shot update in a device's lifetime that I have had from other OEMs.
Absolutely not ruined
If the deal passes, Microsoft will get TikTok in four of the Five Eyes countries. I wonder why the UK service is not included?
This also means there will be a TikTok US, TikTok Global, and Douyin.
Perhaps the next phase for ByteDance will be completely separate TikToks where they license the technology to local companies. Then these local companies can sign content deals with other countries if they want to share.
“I've read hundreds of books about China over the decades. I know the Chinese. I've made a lot of money with the Chinese. I understand the Chinese mind.”
― Donald Trump, Trump: The Art of the Deal [1]
[1]https://www.amazon.com/Trump-Art-Deal-Donald-J/dp/0399594493
