you’re taking it as a given that bytedance will sell the app if this law passes. there is a chance that they won’t want to sell and then the app will be banned. (but i think this unlikely.)
also, if i’m understanding things correctly, there’s the possibility that they do sell and the app still gets banned. the article says
An app would be allowed to stay in the US market after a divestiture if the president determines that the sale "would result in the relevant covered company no longer being controlled by a foreign adversary."
depending on who the next president is, there’s no guarantee that they’ll say any sale will result in the company not being controlled by a foreign adversary. (although this past is just speculation.)
anyways. this bill will certainly raise the chances that the app will be banned in the US. (and it opens the door for other apps to get banned if the US doesn’t like the country they were developed in.)
I also just noticed in the article:
TikTok urged its users to protest the bill, sending a notification that said, "Congress is planning a total ban of TikTok... Let Congress know what TikTok means to you and tell them to vote NO."
Also from a BBC article about the same thing:
Earlier, users of the app had received a notification urging them to act to "stop a TikTok shutdown."
So they were literally sending out misleading notifications (because a forced sale is not a total ban), and then the users wrote to Congress based on that...
The probability that they will sell seems really high to me, as the same thing almost happened back in 2020.
There's no guarantee that making the sale will prevent the ban.
Yeah but if they sell then it's someone else stuck holding the bags so why wouldn't they?
because its not in the corporation's interest to incur the expense and organizational disruption if they're still going to get banned anyway - profit is maximized by continuing with business as usual instead of spending resources attempting to reach compliance
you’re taking it as a given that bytedance will sell the app if this law passes. there is a chance that they won’t want to sell and then the app will be banned. (but i think this unlikely.)
also, if i’m understanding things correctly, there’s the possibility that they do sell and the app still gets banned. the article says
depending on who the next president is, there’s no guarantee that they’ll say any sale will result in the company not being controlled by a foreign adversary. (although this past is just speculation.)
anyways. this bill will certainly raise the chances that the app will be banned in the US. (and it opens the door for other apps to get banned if the US doesn’t like the country they were developed in.)
I also just noticed in the article:
Also from a BBC article about the same thing:
So they were literally sending out misleading notifications (because a forced sale is not a total ban), and then the users wrote to Congress based on that...
The probability that they will sell seems really high to me, as the same thing almost happened back in 2020.
There's no guarantee that making the sale will prevent the ban.
Yeah but if they sell then it's someone else stuck holding the bags so why wouldn't they?
because its not in the corporation's interest to incur the expense and organizational disruption if they're still going to get banned anyway - profit is maximized by continuing with business as usual instead of spending resources attempting to reach compliance