And from John Tamny…who is not a fan of government mucking around in the Sacred Market:
But wait, there’s been a major, essay-long typo. It’s actually conservatives who are triggered by and hiding in their safe spaces from reasonable discussion about this “communist” country. It’s conservatives who want muscular government meddling in the global economy and the theft of private businesses hatched in the “communist” country. Oh dear. Nevermind.
Ban them…fine by me. Force them to be sold and then bought up by a US company?
It does seem disckish what the states is doing. But being a dick is slightly better me thinks. One of those, someones got to put the brakes on the nazis kind of deal.
President Trump on Monday suggested that the U.S. treasury should collect a portion of the potential sale of the social media company TikTok, although it was unclear under what authority the White House could demand such a payment.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump reiterated that he wants TikTok to be forced to cease operations in the United States by around Sept. 15 if it is not sold to Microsoft or another U.S.-based company. If that sale goes through, the president said, part of the proceeds should be paid to U.S. taxpayers as compensation for operating in America.
Yeah. The CCP is the poor little guy that gets bullied and only wants to do good with its benevolent rule against the American Imperialists that only ever wanna push China down.
IDK what they’re smoking over at the CCP. It’s like complaining the US is treating HK as any other Chinese city when they made it like any other Chinese city. Imagine getting mad other countries want to ban your firms and restrict how they operate when China has been doing that for decades.
CCP: “How can you do this to us? It’s not a big deal we’ve been doing that to everyone else”
It is interesting that the countries with increasing civil unrest become more authoritarian and fascist as a response - but it is more interesting in a country supposedly based on “freedom”. The irony is painful these days.
Well, just goes to show you that the free market ain’t all that free. More disturbing, and I do not know even a little bit about the company so there’s that…but the speed at which Microsoft approached the table was frightening. We’ll take it!
Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian: The idea of our government taking action to protect our society from TikTok is absolutely not a far out idea and is, I think, appropriate. The problem with banning something is we don’t have any kind of special legal or decision-making structure about how to ban a social media app. This is kind of uncharted territory for the U.S. And it’s a really delicate thing, because if you look at China 10 years ago, when they were banning Facebook and Twitter and lots of other websites, that was universally viewed as censorship, as a threat to free speech, and as a threat to an open world. And for the U.S. to ban TikTok would in a sense be emulating that.
It is the a sort of cold war and decoupling is inevitable. The way its happening (Trump executive ordering everything without any input from the hill) is not ok though.
China could just pick a high value American target next. Say Apple or Tesla. Or they can invalidate the drug patents and sell to third world countries in retaliation. But I think they will do nothing and wait to see if Biden gets in. Any retaliatory action today will stoke the Trump base up to go vote so they play 3D chess. I think if Trump gets reelected then the gloves come off.
I think the CCP would like to ban Bytedance from selling but if they do that it will be shown that they have undue control over it. That is why Microsoft is so fast to jump in there
I can see your point, but I don’t think that this is anywhere close to Venezuela. Venezuela attempted to nationalise most of its economy in order to attempt to redistribute wealth…poorly.
No market is completely free and employ a mix of socialism and capitalism to varying degrees. Completely free markets don’t work the same way socialism doesn’t work. It just moves the oppressive hand between governments and owners of capital. I’m not in any more favour of extreme capitalism any more than I am in favour of extreme socialism and to me, both are extremist. I’ve always been in favour of taking the best aspects of each world and putting them together to address each other’s failures or shortcomings.
That said, as we continue to attempt to establish a fair rules-based international order, there remains players like China who don’t feel like playing by the rules or only ever demand that others follow the rules when it’s in their own interest. This has nothing to do with the free market when a media company is controlled by a foreign agent that has no intention of creating a level playing field within their own borders and has every intention of shaping the landscape in our sovereign territory to follow its narrative and to shut out dissent. We believe in freedoms that involve a number of personal freedoms to do and say things like freedom of speech while also having freedoms from various forms of oppression like the right to a free press. The issue is that China has found that since all opinions are technically legal in western countries, they see fit to suppress fundamental freedoms on their platforms, especially as more people become dependent on internet and communication platforms for their livelihoods and entertainment, whether needed for work or for influencing. Since China expects access to everyone’s market while maintaining unsustainable and unreasonable levels of protectionism that ensures that only their companies and media can operate in both markets, is this fair market trade? In media especially, the lopsided treatment means that if the Chinese Communist Party were somehow able to grow and control much of the media platforms we consume, from theatres to internet platforms to TV channels…then we could be losing freedom of the press without actually losing it on paper. This can also be a national security issue as the Chinese Communist Party has been shown to weaponise everything from trade to information.
A lot of popular influencers depend on TikTok. That already scares me. Should they be subject to suppression of political opinions under threat of real world punishment. Our western countries are sovereign nations and since the Chinese want to play this game, we don’t have to welcome their products or services into our countries if they continue to ensure that our platforms are not allowed there. We are sovereign states and we reserve the right to filter what comes through our borders and we already do that. We have regulations in place to protect us and our rights and if our media and trade is weaponised against us, then I say good riddance to China’s platforms and I support banning TikTok and other Chinese media if they don’t have the decency to give us the same treatment we give them. With banning them, we are exercising our sovereign right. But back to Venezuela since it’s everyone’s favourite reference. Venezuela’s government nationalised key industries and was unable to adapt to changing market forces when things went south. They, like every crappy investor saved nothing for a rainy day and spent like there was no tomorrow. They, like a lot of governments focused on the now cause they wanted to please everyone for votes without being prudent and responsible. They didn’t diversify and pretended that wealth would come flowing out of the taps forever. IMO this isn’t the same. We’re just saying no more Chinese products until they can play by the rules. TikTok is a Chinese product. If TikTok happened to all-of-a-sudden become American again…say being bought by an American company so that my privacy is subject to US rules…then that’s A-OK.
Little guy