And very important difference:
The new law gives ByteDance a year to sell TikTok to a US-based company, or the app will face a total ban from American app stores.
Sales to an American company and a company based in America are not the same.
(1) the term “United States business” means— (A) a United States citizen; ( a corporation, partnership, or other association created under the laws of the United States or of any State (including the District of Columbia or any commonwealth, territory, or possession of the United States); or (C) a foreign corporation, partnership, or other association, more than 95 percent of which is owned by persons described in subparagraphs (A) and (B); and
So you can set up a company in America and own it, but you may be held to the law.
@Danny Phantom’s post gives a very good overview of the list of countries that are eligible for this law.
People’s Republic of China, including the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (China)
Republic of Cuba (Cuba)
Islamic Republic of Iran (Iran)
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea)
Russian Federation (Russia)
Venezuelan politician Nicolás Maduro (Maduro Regime)
And again, the country it comes from clearly agrees with the US government, so I don’t really know what they’re whining about.
Apple has removed WhatsApp and Threads from the Chinese version of the App Store at the request of the Chinese government. The reason for the government is ‘concerns about national security’. Messaging services Telegram and Signal have also disappeared from the platform.
news: Apple removes WhatsApp and Threads from Chinese App Store after Chinese demand …
Apparently the Chinese government sees America as an opponent and uses exactly the same reasoning (we ignore the fact that everything else has already been closed and there is no possibility of appeal here either).
There is no doubt whatsoever that Bytedance MUST cooperate with the Chinese government according to Chinese law (and I can already see the whataboutism coming, and no, the law in China is of a completely different order than in America, since a Chinese Apple does not have to trying to refuse to help).
Then we look at the actions of the Chinese government on social media in the west.
Most recently, Meta took down two China-based operations in the third quarter of this year. One was a network of around 4,800 Facebook accounts impersonating Americans and posting about domestic politics and US-China relations.
Now you give the same government an app where they can force the parent company to cooperate without any control and we should also follow exactly the same path in Europe.
Wikipedia: Censorship by TikTok
There is evidence that TikTok has down-weighted the posts of topics deemed sensitive by the Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party. Topics alleged to have been censored by the platform include the Persecution of Uyghurs in China, the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests, the Sino-Indian border dispute, foreign political leaders, LGBTQ+ people, disabled people, and people of African descent. TikTok has also removed or omitted information from its services to comply with company policies, legal demands, and government censorship laws.
[Reactie gewijzigd door Zyphlan op 27 april 2024 11:15]
