ByteDance confirms TikTok will be sold to US owners
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
It's only okay if it's not American company being forcefully sold in a foreign country. /s
Now that the gates are open I wonder how long it will be before we see similar things happening to Facebook in Europe, Microsoft in Asia, and so forth.
Now that the gates are open I wonder how long it will be before we see similar things happening to Facebook in Europe, Microsoft in Asia, and so forth.
Upvote
157
(161
/
-4)
Oh man. Oracle. How do they pull this stuff off? They have undeniably one of the worst database products on the market, yet they continue to thrive. I hate this timeline sometimes.
Upvote
211
(214
/
-3)
If TikTok dies because of this the world will be a better place. If it tanks oracle in the process even better. Screw Ellisson along with his son who's gutting CBS news
Upvote
194
(201
/
-7)
Upvote
121
(122
/
-1)
We got our best sales-folk from Oracle,
Which makes sense, if you can sell that… you can sell anything!
Which makes sense, if you can sell that… you can sell anything!
Upvote
65
(65
/
0)
Upvote
96
(97
/
-1)
Upvote
115
(116
/
-1)
Oracle will happily serve China whatever data they fucking want via data brokers, because the US has zero comprehensive privacy rights and our only moral compass is making as much money as possible.
Upvote
113
(113
/
0)
This is one of those stories where it's just rotten all the way down.
- TikTok is an aggressive spreader of misinformation and worse.
- Congress wrote and passed a law essentially designed to ban a single company. It calls out that company by name, which is insane.
- On challenge, the Supreme Court unanimously invents a national security exemption to the first amendment (one categorically different than things like data classification).
- Then, without suffering any recourse or repercussion, the executive simply decides to not enforce the law. TikTok is not 'risking a ban', it's been banned for months and the law enforcement apparatus of the country has simply decided to ignore the law.
- Behind the scenes, Trump orchestrates a deal to have massive amounts of PII diverted to a political ally of his via Oracle.
- Also this new scheme probably still doesn't actually comply with the law Congress passed because it's not full divestiture it's just contracting Oracle to manage the data and frontend.
Upvote
266
(268
/
-2)
I would mark this as start of the end of TikTok. New Chinese competition will come, which will have new things and people will flock to it .
These rich dumbasses has zero understanding how this works.
These rich dumbasses has zero understanding how this works.
Upvote
54
(54
/
0)
Dru Nemeton
Smack-Fu Master, in training
So now when a viral trend starts killing people the new USA owners can be sued?
Upvote
36
(36
/
0)
Upvote
30
(30
/
0)
Just the US (though even then not entirely).
Basically Oracle will be in charge of harvesting data from US tiktok users and manage the frontend but otherwise Bytedance and TikTok remain the way they were. Outside the US not much should change unless you're specifically hooked into the US version of the app.
Upvote
44
(44
/
0)
Upvote
16
(16
/
0)
eduardopozo56
Ars Centurion
By being best buddies (and give money to) some of the worst but most influencial people on earth.
Upvote
39
(39
/
0)
Why is there a reference to a "2026" ban in the article when the ban was supposed to have already taken effect at the start of 2025?
Really, Trump really did an amazing job of applying pressure on ByteDance by refusing to enforce the law that was designed to apply pressure on them.
Really, Trump really did an amazing job of applying pressure on ByteDance by refusing to enforce the law that was designed to apply pressure on them.
Upvote
76
(76
/
0)
Upvote
13
(13
/
0)
ColdWetDog
Ars Legatus Legionis
Although I have only very limited contact with what happens inside Tik Tokers minds, I think that making TikTok a primarily MAGA place ala X would serve as a death knell for the site.
And I welcome this with open thumbs.
Upvote
53
(53
/
0)
IIRC he made an ''exception'' that gave Bytedance an additional 120 days of operation into the ban to allow negotiations to keep going. And that ''exception'' runs out early 2026.
Upvote
8
(8
/
0)
You would think that, yet Twitter/X is still around. I guess the bastardized version of TikTok will continue, though with fewer numbers.
Upvote
24
(25
/
-1)
"Spying on users and controlling what they see is okay as long as we are the ones doing it"
Upvote
28
(28
/
0)
Ooh, is it the one where he pretends to double-jerk invisible dicks? Seeing as it’s MAGA, and directed at kids, it would be on brand for them.
Upvote
30
(30
/
0)
Remember when many of the red state governors banned it for state employees and on state properties at the behest of their orange god? Are they going to allow it again? Not a brain among them.
Upvote
18
(18
/
0)
Hilarious. Exactly what all of us were saying. This is theatre. ByteDance were never going to give up control of the algorithm because the US market simply isn't valuable enough for them to exert that pressure. So you wind up with this, a joint venture licensing the exact same algorithm but with a fig leaf of local ownership. The exact kind of arms length borderline legal fictions everyone gives the side eye when US companies operate in -checks notes- The PRC.
As the article alludes, there's very little reason to actually believe that this arrangement even satisfies the admittedly dubious law, especially given the premise upon which they argued it was even permissible to make such a law.
So the Executive Branch is in flagrant violation of the law and even their smokescreen effort to nominally comply with it (while mixing in some crony capitalism for good measure courtesy of the ongoing fiasco known as Oracle, taking a brief pause form running themselves into the ground by pretending to be an AI company) gives lie to the entire premise of the thing.
Absolutely laughable.
As the article alludes, there's very little reason to actually believe that this arrangement even satisfies the admittedly dubious law, especially given the premise upon which they argued it was even permissible to make such a law.
So the Executive Branch is in flagrant violation of the law and even their smokescreen effort to nominally comply with it (while mixing in some crony capitalism for good measure courtesy of the ongoing fiasco known as Oracle, taking a brief pause form running themselves into the ground by pretending to be an AI company) gives lie to the entire premise of the thing.
Absolutely laughable.
Upvote
54
(54
/
0)
Upvote
4
(4
/
0)
Using the words trustworthy and Oracle in the same sentence is an interesting choice.
Upvote
35
(35
/
0)
Ars Technica needs to do a article on the Oracle data center that's running the whole website , and it's databases
Upvote
11
(11
/
0)
RickRoyLeonPrisZhoraRacha
Ars Scholae Palatinae
You all are witness to the fall of the American Empire. Billionaire-Aryan Technocrats buying up and controlling the media... just the start along with eviction of immigrants to concentration camps prisons.
Upvote
30
(30
/
0)
I won't be holding my breath, but fingers crossed that this sets off a twitteresque exodus of most things of value on the app.
Upvote
13
(13
/
0)
While the official legal justification for the forced sale of TikTok is U.S. national security and the risk of Chinese government influence, it is true that the Israel-Gaza conflict became the primary political catalyst that accelerated the legislation into law. Ellison is known to be the largest private donor to the IDF. One would expect that any pro-Palestine speech to be severely censored on Tik-Tok going forward if it hasn't already.
Upvote
26
(27
/
-1)
My twitter is at least half bots, minority/immigrant hate, Jewish hate, white race being "replaced" topics, random death videos I never asked for and extreme right wing politics.
Tiktok isn't perfect but not even remotely as bad as Twitter, but looks like we can kiss that goodbye shortly.
Tiktok isn't perfect but not even remotely as bad as Twitter, but looks like we can kiss that goodbye shortly.
Upvote
2
(9
/
-7)
Why are you still there? Don't support the Nazis...
I even have a blocking filter so I can't even see Twitter content people post of forums.
Twitter has been utterly dead to me since Musk bought it.
Upvote
60
(60
/
0)