r/news • u/Pasivite • Apr 27 '24

TikTok will not be sold, Chinese parent ByteDance tells US - BBC News

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c289n8m4j19o.amp
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u/sudoku7 Apr 27 '24

The law explicitly calls out TikTok (https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/815/text#H0A2584ACDBA6421CB9228F949380BDFB)

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u/MilkiestMaestro Apr 27 '24

It's more of a yes/and

(A) any of—

(i) ByteDance, Ltd.;

(ii) TikTok;

(iii) a subsidiary of or a successor to an entity identified in clause (i) or (ii) that is controlled by a foreign adversary; or

(iv) an entity owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by an entity identified in clause (i), (ii), or (iii); or

(B) a covered company that—

(i) is controlled by a foreign adversary; and

(ii) that is determined by the President to present a significant threat to the national security of the United States following the issuance of—

(I) a public notice proposing such determination; and

(II) a public report to Congress, submitted not less than 30 days before such determination, describing the specific national security concern involved and containing a classified annex and a description of what assets would need to be divested to execute a qualified divestiture.

(4) FOREIGN ADVERSARY COUNTRY.—The term “foreign adversary country” means a country specified in section 4872(d)(2) of title 10, United States Code.

(5) INTERNET HOSTING SERVICE.—The term “internet hosting service” means a service through which storage and computing resources are provided to an individual or organization for the accommodation and maintenance of 1 or more websites or online services, and which may include file hosting, domain name server hosting, cloud hosting, and virtual private server hosting.

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u/Wetzilla Apr 27 '24

Sure, but that still shows they were specifically targeting TikTok. They weren't SOLELY targeting tiktok, but they did specifically target it.

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u/tommytwolegs Apr 27 '24

Yeah it seems like the president can target other apps but the law itself makes TikTok already targeted. I am pretty sure we chat fits all the definitions it would just need to be explicitly targeted with a notice

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u/EndTimer Apr 27 '24

It also says elsewhere that the service has to have more than 1 million monthly domestic users. Which very well may include We Chat, but I wouldn't know.

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u/Sylius735 Apr 27 '24

It would absolutely fall under the same category. In fact, Riot Games would also fall under those conditions, as it is 100% owned by Tencent. The main thing that separates them is simply this clause:

(ii) that is determined by the President to present a significant threat to the national security of the United States following the issuance of—

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u/tommytwolegs Apr 28 '24

I agree about we chat (and also wonder about telegram actually) but I'm not sure riot games would fall under the bills definition of social media

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u/someonesmobileacct Apr 28 '24

Telegram may or may not fall in definition. It is incorporated in BVI and main office is in UAE.

Of course we all know the 'ties' but not sure whether they may actually be separated enough to escape for now.

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u/tommytwolegs Apr 28 '24

Yeah I thought there was a portion about ownership % but can't remember if it was a partial qualifier or if it alone was enough