The straight up "shout out" in the pop-up, I almost couldn't believe my eyes.
I don't think I've seen anything like it in a long time. I also don't think an American company would ever do that as it seems "unprofessional." Ironically, it probably got them huge bonus points so they know what they're doing.
Damn, this is the simplest, most accurate breakdown on what’s actually happening that I’ve come across. The incoming administration is pretty transparent in the bend toward corruption, and these folks know exactly how to manage that as a business challenge.
Why don't you detail why you believe only the Chinese government operates that way. It's MY government, the US government, not the Chinese government that is the subject of these bribes and flattery. It's a human trait not a trait of the nation of China.
> I don't think I've seen anything like it in a long time. I also don't think an American company would ever do that as it seems "unprofessional."
Have you been paying attention the last few weeks?
NVIDIA: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/ai-policy/ "As the first Trump Administration demonstrated, America wins through innovation, competition and by sharing our technologies with the world — not by retreating behind a wall of government overreach."
Companies aren't stupid. They know that in order to be successful in today's world, you have to personally fellate Trump. Thanks to the American voters for bringing us this reality.
"Sucking up" implies there’s a meaningful choice—that firms or individuals can realistically be expected to show courage now. But voters chose this, knowingly. Blaming firms for bowing to public will misdiagnoses the issue and wastes emotional energy fighting a false battle.
Whats the realistic alternative? Standing up to Trump? The president who has explicitly said he will retaliate against firms and individuals who oppose him.
The same president who was re-elected even though everyone knew this was coming?
If this bothers you, and you want to address it, focus on identifying the real root cause and work toward changing that.
And if you genuinely believe firms would act differently, make the case. But let’s be honest—how many rational people would stand up to someone who:
- Faces no accountability,
- Has the Supreme Court and legislature backing him,
- Is in power for a second term,
- Commands an incredibly effective political machine (Fox-GOP),
- has die-hard voters behind him?
> after the democratic party decided that their winning strategy would be to villainize tech and emerging west coast values.
Trump proposed the TikTok ban and even tried to enforce it via executive action during his first term. He also said he would put Zuckerberg in prison and attacked big tech companies for almost a decade at this point. The reason Silicon Valley is aligning themselves with Trump’s administration is for strategic reasons. If there are any ideological reasons I doubt these would stand the test of pendulum shifts.
Republican speaker Johnson also still wants to enforce the ban and only considers Trump’s interference as a delay to have TikTok sold to a US entity (which the bill explicitly allows as an alternative): https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/speaker-johnson-2-...
yes, the Trump faction also flirted with anti-tech politics in the 2016-2020 cycle - but there have been shifts since then. i don't disagree with you that a significant part of this alignment is due to strategic reasons - but it doesn't fully explain outsized donations to Trump prior to his election and shifts in donation patterns by regular tech workers. I do think that there has been a real political shift rightwards in SF/SV, especially among the tech elites but percolating downwards.
This line in particular sums up the cynical stance of these billionaires:
> We are non-partisan, one issue voters: If a candidate supports an optimistic technology-enabled future, we are for them. If they want to choke off important technologies, we are against them.
They simply don't care about society as a whole, they want their businesses to thrive, no matter what.
There has definitely been a rightward shift in SV management and ownership. Maybe a lesser shift in individual workers, but it's really hard to tell. And frankly, that hardly merits a footnote when compared to the sums that the wealthiest can spend on elections now.
With other words, while Silicon Valley founders said and pushed that they actually have ethics, morality and "good for the world" ideas, it wasn't actually true and money+extreme capitalism won in the end.
Democrats decided they did not like the results of the “anyone can talk to anyone” social media revolution.
I think they should have tried to adapt, they decided to focus their efforts on putting the genie back in the bottle.
Technological progress has made us more affluent and better off. My father grew up in Europe and his family couldn’t even afford shoes for him or education past the third grade. I am wholly uninterested in anti-tech politics or a politics of stagnancy as seems popular in Europe. Democrats need to stop looking to Europe for inspiration and become the party of abundance, redistribution, and human capital investment. How can we make everyone better off, rather than focusing our energies on finding the next bogeyman to blame.
So then by convincing ByteDance to reinstate TikTok, did Trump just spell the end of his popularity, is Trump behaving erratically to reinstate TikTok, or are you projecting because you helped author and canvas for the bill? Moreover if the bill had so much bipartisan support, why did it need to be combined in a foreign aid package to Ukraine rather than stand on its own?
(P.S. Given your deep involvement in the bill and the sheer amount of comments you make on this site trying to convince readers that it's both popular and necessary, I think you should absolutely disclose your position on the bill. I'm a transit and modeshare advocate and I do not discuss specific bills I have helped author and sponsor online without disclaimers.)
> Moreover if the bill had so much bipartisan support, why did it need to be combined in a foreign aid package to Ukraine rather than stand on its own?
You've got things reversed. The ban is what the Republicans wanted and the Ukraine support was bundled in to take advantage of that. They wanted the Tiktok ban so much they allowed the Ukraine funding (as part of the larger funding bill).
Trump is doing what the law permits, granting a 1-time extension of not more than 90 days. In the meantime, he’ll find a way to remove the national security threat.
> why did it need to be combined in a foreign aid package to Ukraine rather than stand on its own?
This is how all bills are passed. I also advocated for the Ukraine bill; that was the weaker (and far more partisan, though not entirely so) of the two.
> I do not discuss specific bills I have helped author and sponsor online without disclaimers
Cool. I do not. (I’ll disclose my involvement if I need to add gravitas or if there’s a conflict. But it’s not a conflict to be arguing for a thing I advocated for, or vice versa. I’m not professionally in politics, after all.)
> the only time there's something bipartisan is when it's to do Israel's bidding
The gay marriage bill was at Israel’s bidding?
I worked on the TikTok bill. I really don’t care about Israel. While it’s tempting to see everything through the lens of your pet issue, it’s myopic to believe everything is motivated by a single cause, particularly a foreign-policy line.
Since you worked on the bill, can you clarify if the driving force behind it was national security concerns which have not been revealed to the public?
Right, but what's the actual demonstration of this? I keep hearing "TikTok can do bad thing" but it's not shown to actually happen and we don't seem interested in making them not do that.
> We all know you don't care about Palestine, you care about Israel
Not sure who "we" are, but they're wrong.
It's not a war I have strong views nor knowledge about. I've never visited either place and while I respect people who have strong views on both sides of the debate, my pet war over the last few years has been Ukraine. (Though even there I'm aware enough not to paint everything through the lens of Russian meddling.)
Nope, just worked on it as a private citizen. (Don't have an account with any Meta service.)
In an ideal world, we'd regulate social media. I've tried and failed advocating for privacy legislation--the people who are passionate about privacy in America, unofortunately, also tend towards political nihilism, which makes the cause a political nonstarter. I'm also concerned about Chinese influence over American society, and care about Taiwan's security, so TikTok sort of aligned between my views on privacy, teen mental health and national security.
> Democrats decided they did not like the results of the “anyone can talk to anyone” social media revolution.
Wasn't it Republicans that initiated what would eventually lead to the ban of TikTok? Maybe I remember incorrectly.
> How can we make everyone better off
Wasn't it a really long time ago that was the goal in the US? It seems capitalism leads to a very different goal than "redistribute so everyone is better off"
Democrats? The government as a whole has been incompetent with regards to tech for years now. That said, there are huge issues with the “anyone can talk to anyone” revolution, namely that some people are a bit easier to talk to and some issues are a bit easier to talk about, and that these are selected on the basis of increasing engagement and use time for advertising. This causes the benefits of said revolution to be buried under a mountain of cynicism and slop.
The key question is whether you think Nazis have the right to express their views freely. It used to be that everyone agreed this to be the case, but we are in the process of learning a very hard lesson that allowing Nazis the right to express their views freely only gives them power to restrict our speech later on.
On the contrary. I'm not afraid of Nazis, I'm afraid of those who would restrict speech for Nazis. Because once you break the seal, it's simply a matter of time until it's another unpopular thing which gets silenced... and another, and another, until we don't have freedom of speech any more. The road to hell is very much paved with good intentions.
Me personally? I am pretty afraid of nazis, that's their whole deal, violence on people, that was kind of the whole big problem with them initially and what led to a world war and genocide. A nazi isn't just someone with different viewpoints from my own, it's people who based their whole ideology on violence, against me, my wife, my children, my friends, my coworkers.
How much time? Because the way free speech absolutists talk about these ideas always seem to imply that we are mere moments from a country like Germany collapsing into authoritarianism. What evidence do we have that the US's level of free speech is truly better than a country like Germany which does specifically restrict the speech of Nazis?
Can you point to a single time that banning the speech of Nazis has led down a vast slippery slope of further speech bans, particularly in a vaguely democratic country?
Russia is allegedly attacking Ukraine due to Nazis there. The issue with these things is that you can easily motivate horrible things with the "but we are attacking nazis!" argument, that is why people hate it when you say that.
I used to believe this vehemently. It has become clear that that’s a notion from a bygone age.
The internet has created a global town square where the loudest voices are the ones that catch people’s attention, regardless of the veracity of their claims. There is no truth any more, only the cult of personality.
Tomorrow the US installs a racist, rapist, treasonous kleptocrat as president because the majority of people are unable to think objectively and swallow his promises at face value, despite every indication that life will be immeasurably worse if you’re not a billionaire oligarch.
i do not agree that this is the key question nor do i find Nazis so compelling that i have to avert my eyes from their speech for risk of becoming convinced myself
You’re speaking for yourself now. Millions of [mostly russian but not only] people today are convinced that the extermination of millions of Ukrainians is the morally righteous course of action.
Populations being persuaded into harbouring extremely bad ideas is a thing.
The problem isn't that they're scary or compelling but that they bring discourse down to its basest level once they comprise a certain proportion of the environment. Imagine if 90% of HN threads were mostly just discussion about if the author of a submission or comment is Jewish, what their ulterior Jewish motives are, and what repercussions they should face in an ideal world. Many clusters of Twitter are now that.*
A lot of people see the culture shift and start posting less or leave, and then the ratio gets worse and worse. Freedom from government restriction of speech is a good thing, but I disagree that this new era calls for throwing out norms of discussion platforms curating their communities' cultures.
I fully acknowledge there are valid, interesting philosophical reasons to host a site like Twitter or 8chan where "if it's legal it's allowed", but on net I think the benefits do not outweigh the costs.
*(Even many 4chan boards are less obnoxious. In part due to its linear format.)
It’s amazing, really. No matter what, the Dems are always wrong.
Trump is a criminal? The Dems are wrong.
Trump brings up trans issues during elections? The Dems are wrong.
Trump lies constantly? Somehow, the Dems are still wrong.
Let’s be fair: we can only blame the Dems. Because how do you blame a force of nature like Trump? Bring up any substantiative discussion, and you get identity politics and gotchas.
Facts don't matter, because "everyone has their own facts.", even when they dont.
People arent really discussing reality. They're fighting for their teams. But the least thing we can agree, is that the Dems had to have made some mistakes, since they didnt stop it. They didn't win. So the Dems are wrong.
The reality distortion field that the world builds around Trump and against democrats is literally insane. I unironically believe the source is an IRL SCP object (they have to exist otherwise no explanation for no cornucopia on the fruit of the loom logo) - and trump lucked out into being in possession of one or being that object!
Biden said it best: The USA has gone through the greatest economic recovery story NEVER TOLD. Democrats do great policy work and NEVER get credit for it.
Obama was a great president, Biden was a great president, Carter was among our very best of presidents, and NONE of them get the damn respect they deserve.
Trump, yet again, on day 1 gets an insanely good economy, an insanely good geopolitical situation, etc. Why? Because of those no good horrible marxist dummicrats!
Trump voters tomorrow will magically gain 100,000$ in their bank account, an extra house, 1$ gas, eggs, and groceries, and 500 more guns. And the day trump walks out in 2028 (if that happens) and a democrat comes in, they will instantiate become papurs again.
Ah, the propaganda GUI element. I distinctly remember covering it in my HCI class. Right between 'How to Design Intuitive Interfaces' and 'How to Influence Favorability Ratings with Popups.'
> I have no issue with American companies trying to change American policies.
For me that's a naive stance that ignores the problem of corporate influence on politics.
Apart from that, how is US corporate influence necessarily better than foreign corporate influence? Neither care about the US general public. Some US companies knowingly harm their own citizens (Philip Morris, Exxon, Purdue, etc.)
One can argue the problem with TikTook is that it's controlled by the government of an adversary nation (from the viewpoint of the US), but it's not just the fact that the company resides in a foreign country.
Corporations and their wealthy owners have an outsized influence on policies to the near total exclusion of everyday people. Not sure what future you're envisioning here but you might want to consider where you fall in the pecking order before bending the knee to blatant oligarchy.
I agree they know what they are doing by manipulating or perhaps secretly enriching Trump. He posted on Truth social that he is seeking 50% US ownership. That’s very odd. Why not 51% so that there is US based voting control? Or full divesture from China as the law requires?
And then there’s the fact that the conditions for an extension aren’t met as written in the law. There’s no way he can certify to Congress that the conditions are met, which is why he’s trying to use an executive order. But that’s illegal.
The Biden administration signed the thing into law. Of course they need to comply. And people are acting as if somehow TikTok decided to self-ban and have now un-banned. No, it's only those with the app already installed that are able to continue to use it. It's still blocked on the app stores, and will presumably stay that way until tomorrow.
> We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office.
Additionally, an extract from TikTok's later statement [1]:
> In agreement with our service providers, TikTok is in the process of restoring service. We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive.
What the fuck? That's some incredible bootlicking by TikTok. They've done a great job making Biden seem like the bad guy for banning TikTok, while Trump saves the day by rescuing them. This is especially ironic considering Trump was the one who wanted to introduce the ban in the first place until he gained 15M followers on the platform.
How? The law as written only gives the president the authority to give one 90-day extension, only if certain conditions have been met. And those conditions have not been met.
Please don't put words in my mouth, I did not comment on who bears the most responsibility for the ban. It is undeniable that Trump laid the groundwork for it though:
I mean, the promise to boosting Trump in the popup is probably literally what got them the promise of an executive order, possibly with the suggestion that if they wanted to stay on Trump's good side they'd best ensure their algorithm was Trump-friendly in future.
Of course, everything he does is quid pro quo. Now he has a sword of damocles he can hang over their head to ensure he can get anything he wants in the future.
How remarkable that our major geopolitical enemies (with the exception of Iran) support our incoming president. He must truly be a great uniter that will usher in a new age of global peace.
Ah ok, enlightened one. I’m sure the trough you feed from is propaganda-free. Care to explain why they are not actually our enemies? Please try to stick to facts and evidence.
> The problem is most readers still think theres a discernable difference between the parties.
No, the problem is people like you who try to convince others that Democrats and Republicans are the same, when some child-level reasoning is all that's necessary to disprove this tired bit of rhetoric.
Are you familiar with Malcolm X's speech about the fox and the wolf?
Given the past four years have seen things like shutting down labor strikes, support foreign wars, expanding arctic drilling at record pace, increased police budgets, erosion of women's rights, erosion of lgbtq rights, and a steady increase in corporate power... I think the difference we'll see is in degree, not in direction.
A party that wants to kill my and a party that wants to kill me politely are the same. Yeah, sure, I can discern one is smiling, but practically the "choice" I have is die or die (politely), which really isn't a choice at all.
Numerous pieces of anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ legislation have passed at a state level under the Biden presidency. You might argue that that's outside of the purview of the federal government, but that certainly wasn't the case in the 50s and 60s where federal military force was used to enforce civil rights legislation. The federal government failing to use its sovereign power is 100% erosion of rights.
I don't think those situations are comparable. There is precious little LGBTQ-rights legislation at the federal level, so there's nothing for the federal government to enforce when a shitty state-level government chooses to discriminate against LGBTQ folks. And it's not like Republicans in the federal government will let LGBTQ-rights legislation to pass.
LGBTQ rights are popular. Appropriate legislation could be drawn up and enforced. It would be an authoritarian move, certainly, but authoritarianism just won the election.
You're arguing Biden should have used the military, and because he didn't do that he's clearly sympathetic to anti-LGBTQ sentiment and that makes it the Dems fault? Well, that's certainly a take. It feels like it ignores the current government dynamics.
That seems an unreasonable expectation as to what the Dems can do. It's sets them up to fail, and make it's easy to say they are the same, when you set up an unreasonable scale where one is trying to remove the rights and the other isn't fighting hard enough become the same.
The Dems are writing and sponsoring anti lgbtq laws nationwide. Biden removed anti lgbtq discrimination rules, permitting local municipalities to discriminate against trans kids. The Dems aren't just side liners here, they are active participants in the erosion of lgbtq rights.
Read up on 1557 changes and title ix changes, which include language that specifically permits institutions to say, "we do not discriminate based on criteria X, y, z" when they discriminate against trans people.
It also affirmed that they felt they could supersede state law to protect caregivers (doctors, etc) who provide care against the law in their state (gender affirming care). They declined to exercise that authority and explicitly said they would not.
They also said they would consider provider discrimination only on a case by case basis (which they are not funded to do, and leaves poorer people more likely to suffer discrimination).
They added language stating "nothing in this rule imposes a requirement that covered entities provide gender affirming care".
They specifically struck the following language: "a providers belief that gender transition or other gender affirming care can never be beneficial for such individuals is not sufficient basis for a judgement that a health service is not clinically appropriate." Basically giving doctors the explicit right to say "I don't believe in gender affirming care and will not provide it".
I'm not the one setting liberalism up to fail, it seems to implode catastrophically every few decades. Last time was during the interwar period. The failure of liberal governments to exercise their sovereign powers in the face of social and economic crises is exactly what handed electoral victories to fascists in the decades after WWI. Their failure was baked in and you were duped from the start for thinking that liberal democracy could be a sound basis for human emancipation.
It's worse than this, actually. Biden administration removed anti discrimination statutes that both Obama and Trump had in place around discrimination in healthcare care and education. Biden changed the rules to permit discriminatory behavior by states as long as it was not "systematic". So, of course, states and municipalities will discriminate against trans folks and then claim they were all unique cases.
Yes, you are right Biden did nothing to protect LGBTQ folks, but he did also take action to harm them.
Most of that legislation is to protect the sex-based rights of women and girls, or to safeguard children from medical harm. When you examine the details it's not really going against anyone's civil rights.
Ah, the great American rhetorical tradition of masking discrimination in the language of civility. Just like pre-Jacksonian restrictions on voting protected the rights of the propertied from the depredations of the masses. Or how Jim Crow protected the rights of white southerners from those uneducated undesirables threatening orderly society. Or how restricting gay marriage protected the rights of Christians...
You should elaborate on why you believe these are comparable.
For example, consider a male convict who desires to be incarcerated in the female prison estate. Is it really civil rights discrimination to deny him this? If so, how?
Most importantly, what about the civil rights of the female prisoners he would be incarcerated with, if this were permitted?
American prisons violate any notion of humaneness and rights from the outset. The abject subjects who are condemned to dwell in them cannot be used to illustrate anything about civil rights, other than the fact that the state regularly uses its sovereign power to violate them.
If I was under constant threat of rape or murder, I would do anything to get to a situation that I thought might be less dangerous.
I don't think I've seen anything like it in a long time. I also don't think an American company would ever do that as it seems "unprofessional." Ironically, it probably got them huge bonus points so they know what they're doing.