US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days - <AUTHOR> https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/US-China-tensions/Trump-to-ban-transactions-with-ByteDance-and-Tencent-in-45-days <comment><USER3> I don't get it. It's US companies standing to loose their stronghold (near monopoly) on social, advertisement, and other forms of monetizing the web if the US creates a precedent for "national security" in this way, as in "we're welcoming social networks and free speech as long as it benefits the US and can be searched without warrant." Quite predictably, governments all over the world will be pressurized to question why they should give US companies (bred by teethless US antitrust) a free pass to destroy their publishing industry. Publishers themselves will put this onto the agenda in their own best interest. The French are already on the fence to create new digital tax legislation after EU/US negotiation have been aborted by the US side. Maybe hurting Google, Facebook, Twitter & co is seen as desired collateral damage?

<comment><USER4> Isn't this just reciprocity? China banned a long list of media companies: FB, Google, YouTube, Twitter, Netflix, and every traditional media. Now the US is banning two apps made in China.

<comment><USER5> It's only reciprocity if you divide the world into two tribes, the "China tribe" and the "US tribe". Someone from the "China tribe" did something bad to the "US tribe", so now we're going to grab a random member of the "China tribe" and punish them for it, even if they're not the one responsible. I used to think the Western world had abandoned that kind of collective punishment, but apparently not.

It ceases to be reciprocal if you distinguish groups at an only slightly higher resolution: Chinese businesses like TikTok and WeChat and American businesses like Google and Facebook in addition to the Chinese and American governments. The Chinese government demanded that all businesses censor content, but Google and Facebook had most of their users outside China, so they could choose not to comply and still survive. Whereas TikTok and WeChat didn't have that luxury and censor their Chinese users (TikTok by offering Douyin as a separate product and making TikTok unavailable in China, WeChat by censoring messages in conversations with at least one Chinese participant). So far, both Chinese and American businesses were bullied by the Chinese government. Now the US government decided to "reciprocate" and ... decides to bully businesses as well, but only Chinese ones. Great justice.

If TikTok or WeChat have done anything wrong they deserve to be punished for, then sue them, or, if it's not illegal, make a new law that requires them to stop doing whatever it is. That law should then also apply to Google and Facebook, just in case they might be tempted to try the same thing.

But having the president order arbitrary punishment without proof of guilt (what happened to presumption of innocence?) looks like a dictatorship to me. Maybe I'm just biased by living in a parliamentary democracy where the voting system aims for proportional representation.

<comment><USER6> > But having the president order arbitrary punishment without proof of guilt > (what happened to presumption of innocence?) looks like a dictatorship to > me.

It is. There's a faction in the US that believes the US has to have a dictatorship to compete with China.

We've been here before. The USSR looked like an unstoppable juggernaut until the late 1960s / early 1970s. Like China they started from a state of relative backwardness and rapidly industrialized and modernized. The pace seemed incredible until they ran out of stuff to copy.

Totalitarian systems excel at execution, but they are not creative. A vertically integrated totalitarian state will always beat a liberal democracy at "see that? do a whole lot of that!" type challenges. Totalitarianism fails utterly when the leaders are incompetent or deluded, but when the leadership has at least basic competence they can appear formidable... as long as there is a "that" to "do a lot of." When totalitarianism runs out of clear obvious paths forward, it flounders.

Totalitarian systems find it very hard to innovate because innovation is disobedience. It goes against entrenched bureaucratic and monetary interests and sometimes even laws. The latter is why states with a minimalist doctrine of law (some version of "that which is not explicitly forbidden is permitted") tend to do better at innovation.

For a real world example of above: look at how ISPs which are state backed monopolies use the law to push against competitors be they local or municipal broadband or Starlink. In a totalitarian state, those sorts of entrenched interests almost always win. Once something becomes entrenched in the power structure it is immovable and competing with it becomes effectively illegal.

During the Cold War there were always factions in the USA and Western Europe who argued that we must become more like the USSR. The right pushed for more militarization and executive power, while the left pushed for more central management and central planning. They were really pushing for "right" and "left" variants of the same thing: a vertically integrated totalitarian system like the Soviet state.

The same thing is happening now. I think a major reason many at the top of the financial and intelligence world pushed (sometimes covertly) for Trump is as an answer to Xi Jinpeng. There is always a temptation in any conflict or tension to emulate the adversary. It won't work. The real answer is to encourage and protect our ability to innovate while waiting for China to run out of things to copy.

That being said, I am all for cutting China off from easy access to inside knowledge and training. We shouldn't make it easy for the CCP to copy everything. As such I am not opposed to _disengagement_. We should move production to places like India, Africa, Indonesia, etc. so as not to readily share industrial and technological expertise.

Edit: I mean no racism here. The _Chinese_ can innovate just fine. _China_ under Xinpeng finds it hard to do anything but copy, because it's a dictatorship.

<comment><USER7> > The real answer is to encourage and protect our ability to innovate while > waiting for China to run out of things to copy.

When did you last visit China? That train has long left the station :-)

Advanced materials research, Aerospace and Chip Fabs are pretty much the only areas where technological areas where I currently see US having a lead

<comment><USER6> Those are innovative fields. The US has a clear lead in aerospace and is among the leaders in materials. We've lost our lead in chips not to China but to Taiwan, a comparatively more liberal Asian country. The gap is not huge (yet) so it's possible that the US will regain its fab lead... if we want it. I think it's more likely in the short term that the US will make deals to get TSMC to build high-end fabs here for strategic reasons.

I'm sure China will manage to copy a Boeing 737 pretty soon, which is 1960s technology. Meanwhile we are doing:

[https://boomsupersonic.com](https://boomsupersonic.com)

[https://www.spacex.com](https://www.spacex.com)

... and who-knows-what at places like Area 51. :)

Last I checked China's most advanced fabs were doing 28nm, but that was in 2019. By now they've probably started to get EUV working as they feverishly race to copy TSMC. I would not be surprised if Chinese fabs are literal exact copies of prior generation TSMC and Intel fabs, since it takes time to steal inside information.

<comment><USER8> > I'm sure China will manage to copy a Boeing 737 pretty soon, which is 1960s > technology. Meanwhile we are doing:

Well, good enough is good enough. Boeing 737 is currently the most popular plane, and if China's regime manages to steal enough tech to be able build an equivalent product, even if it steals only 60s technology, then China's regime will be in a position to outcompete Boeing based on metrics that matter such as cost or soft power.

It really doesn't matter who has the cutting-edge after a point of diminishing returns. When that point is reached, good old economics start to become the leading criteria.

<comment><USER9> With passenger planes, the cutting edge _is_ in economy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Regardless of how I feel about this particular company or transaction, to me this is a bad overreach of presidential power. I guess it's merely a reflection of the incompetence/inaction of Congress to study the matter and do something about it, as is their responsibility.

Why do I say so?

1\. The justification for this is that it's a "national emergency with respect to the information and communications technology and services _supply chain_ ". Supply chain? Are you kidding me? The permissions given to the executive to declare emergencies for critical goods and services such as related to war time -- these extend to a voluntary communications app? Strains belief, and however you feel, this is not a good precedent to allow.

2\. CCP is censoring / monitoring / scraping users' data, so this is a national emergency.... but not for 45 days and then also ok if we can buy the company on our terms.

This is yet another thing I guess time to throw up your hands and say, this is how we live now. One throw-it-against-the-wall proclamation after another.

Even if you're somewhat ok with it, are you really ok with this principle being applied, when someday it may not go how you want, for something you care about?

<comment><USER11> Justifications are meaningless. The US wants to curtail Chinese influence and power, so it finds some mumbo-jumbo to justify it.

<comment><USER12> This plays right into China's narrative. Now the arrest of Meng Wanzhou (Huawei CTO) starts to look a bit less principled and a bit more like a piece of realpolitik.

I think it's definitely justified in the sense that it's understandable to strike back, but it's hard to take a moral high ground now.

<comment><USER13> But only China believes China's narrative... Just ask any of China's neighbors. Philippines is reversing course of late even though they were trying to get closer to China, for example.

<comment><USER14> I'm in Singapore and most of my colleagues here view the US as the bad guy in all this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> None of these Chinese companies would have grown to what they are today without intense government-enforced protectionism at home, and until China agrees to compete on a fair playing field I'm perfectly fine with them all being banned outside of their firewall.

Would China ever agree to let Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Messenger etc. or any new startup operate freely and make money there? It should never have had this one-way economic benefit to begin with.

<comment><USER16> It's pretty much impossible for lower-income countries to develop economically without protecting their emerging businesses from being slaughtered by established foreign competition.

The priority of the Chinese government is the benefit of its citizens (leaving aside that the CCP doesn't consider ethnic minorities in China to be full citizens, as this is a separate issue) and its domestic economy, not the benefit of the American tech sector's senior executives and shareholders.

It's not reasonable to expect, much less demand, that the Chinese turn their tech economy over to silicon valley by allowing unrestricted US entry. It's not in their economic interests, nor is it in their security interests, and no amount of US bullying will change this.

China is not Europe; it's not going to hand over the keys to its economic future to the United States just because the US asks for them.

<comment><USER17> But does this exact argument not also justify the US and Europe to pursue their own interests?

Isn't that what Trump thinks he is doing?

I mean, there is plenty of countries around Europe that are sort of doing worse than China, but are still strongarmed by these Chinese.

Maybe the EU should also get in on this, not allowing any Chinese firms onside our borders. After all, our companies are even more fragile.

A call for global protectionism, in other words.

<comment><USER18> The EU protects all sorts of industries, glaringly agriculture with CAP. I can see a case why we should have regulated social media, search and shopping platforms (which are highly monopolistic) a decade ago. The EU did not do any of that, and it's left with virtually zero digital footprint. Considering the importance of the digital economy for growth, it's quite logical to regulate itself to the the creation of a local market.

<comment><USER19> Half joke question, if EU managed to deliver their own social media restricted in EU, what will be the main language?

<comment><USER18> Klingon

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Some people here are wondering about the implications of this. What this means IMO is that all Chinese investments in SV need to be liquidated at fire sale prices in the next 45 days. Regardless of how people here feel about China this is a huge escalation. The US is inflicting huge losses on Chinese companies for no clear violation of US laws on their part. The pandoras box is now open.

Do countries get to do this to each other whenever they feel like it now ? Can China force Tesla to sell its Chinese operations because Teslas data gathering poses a national security risk ? China has some pretty serious means available to it for escalation. China can ban Boeing from China forcing the US taxpayer to incur serious losses in keeping the company afloat.

The whole thing is pretty stupid overall. Most people don't realize that during the 2008 crisis it was Chinas 500 billion dollar stimulus that kick started demand and pulled the world out of a depression. China and the US are interdependent and hold up the global system upon which global growth depends. If China slows down as a result of all this that reduces global growth. Pushing China to the wall can make them take extreme steps like undercut the entire dollar based financial order leading to mass instability. The US might come out victorious anyway but its not worth the risks. Not to mention a war which if it breaks out could lead to WW3.

Previous attempts to contain China were much more tactful with things like the TPP and the Iran deal. Right now the world is hurtling towards the abyss and most people here don't even realise it.

A meta point I'd like to add is that currently 10 % of the earths population in the "Westosphere" controls 60 % of the worlds wealth. This is untenable in the long term and all this flailing about will not stop a reversion to a more balanced world. Its better that this happen gracefully than in a violent fashion.

<comment><USER21> What are your views on IP theft by some companies there. Should that be considered first strike by China.

<comment><USER20> China says if you want to set up a factory in China you need to transfer IP. They aren't forcing western companies to invest. Most companies invested voluntarily. And this was seen as mostly OK when the rivalry wasn't as heated.

<comment><USER22> It was tolerated in the hope that over time China would open up. But that did not happen. When facts change, time to change your strategy.

<comment><USER23> What does this "open up" actually mean? A bunch of American companies have set up shop in China, which was not possible 50 years ago. Now it's common for huge entertainment properties like blockbuster movies and the NBA to get a massive share of revenue from China. Video game consoles are now legal. And of course, China is now essential in the production of most American products.

<comment><USER24> Open up means become a modern democratic state with respect for human rights, or at the very least, be on the road to one. The opposite has happened and the pundits from the 90s look pretty silly right about now.

<comment><USER25> > democratic state with respect for human rights

Iran tried that in the 50s. Latin America tried that in the 70s.

Got overthrown by CIA every time.

Clearly that's not what it means.

<comment><USER24> The irony of these trite whataboutist responses is that China would be in such a better position as global leader if it were open or democratic. Unfortunately for the Chinese people, the Party is more interested in maintaining personal power than charting a good path for humanity.

<comment><USER25> > China would be in such a better position as global leader if it were open or > democratic.

Certainly. And the CCP hinders that. But the point of my above comment is to illustrate that it's an open question whether China would be 'allowed' to be open and democratic.

I don't believe the West is actually concerned about CCP's human rights violations. They're simply concerned about China's rise as an economic and military power, we would not support the Saudi regime if human rights was a concern.

One of the major reasons the CCP got a foothold in China was because there was a sense that for over a century China was subservient to Western powers.

The CCP was fine as far as the west was concerned as long as it was primarily a dumb factory for us. But now they have ambitions to go beyond that.

I think that's the crux of the animosity towards China today, not human rights violations, as gross as they are.

I could imagine China being somewhat of an EU and democratic and as long as they buy enough western products, be left alone. But if they actually wanted a truly independent foreign policy for example, that would not fly. See the Iran Deal for how dependent EU foreign policy is on the U.S. one.

P.S. That does not mean the CCP is good. It's not. But pretending that western leaders actually care about its human rights abuses is silly.

<comment><USER24> I think this viewpoint is pretty one-dimensional and oversimplifies the complexity of geopolitics. The US is like any other country in that faces a constant struggle between its idealistic values and the realities of the world. To say that "the West doesn't care about the human rights violations" is absurd, as if you could paint nearly a billion people (Europe plus US) with a single brush. The idea that by supporting one repressive state you forfeit your ability to critique other repressive states is also absurd. The world isn't that simple.

To give you an example: in retrospect, keeping Saddam in power and not invading Iraq is considered a fairly reasonable opinion; i.e. even though we got rid of a dictator, the consequences were arguably worse.

The reality is that the West tends to not get involved politically if the state in question is insular enough to not affect other countries. This isn't because they condone abuses in these countries, but because a long history of failed colonialism and wars has rendered the West extremely hesitant to get involved in any sort of 'just' war that isn't provoked by the state in question (see Iraq and Kuwait for example.)

The contemporary populist rise of American hostility to China is also linked directly to offshoring jobs from the Rust Belt, so again, there are clearly groups of people who have issues with China that aren't merely "crush the rising competitor."

In any case I don't disagree that the West has sunk democratic movements which were against its interests, but that to say all such attempts will be shut down is overly-simplistic.

<comment><USER25> > To say that "the West doesn't care about the human rights violations" is > absurd, as if you could paint nearly a billion people (Europe plus US) with > a single brush.

It should be pretty clear from the context that I am talking about western governments, not people.

Also, as an European, it doesn't look to me like we have much in terms of independent foreign policy.

> The idea that by supporting one repressive state you forfeit your ability to > critique other repressive states is also absurd.

One? Please. We support plenty of other dictators all across the world. Or is Egypt's Sisi not a dictator? What about the UAE, Qatar etc.?

What about human rights violations by democratic countries? We don't seem to care much about illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

> in retrospect, keeping Saddam in power and not invading Iraq is considered a > fairly reasonable opinion; i.e. even though we got rid of a dictator, the > consequences were arguably worse

The assumption that the goal at the start was to get rid of a dictator because he was one is fairly well established to not be true. Basically a bunch of neocons who were bitter we didn't dispose Saddam in the FGW wanted to settle scores.

> The reality is that the West tends to not get involved politically if the > state in question is insular enough to not affect other countries.

Really, what about the likes of Venezuela/Nicaragua?

> I don't disagree that the West has sunk democratic movements which were > against its interests, but that to say all such attempts will be shut down > is overly-simplistic.

I hope you're right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is sad, we in the US are losing the little high ground we had and no longer lead by example to bring the world closer together by encouraging free markets and free people. I'm against this protectionist nationalism, it only leads to future conflict.

<comment><USER22> US is merely reciprocating the policies of CCP: let them allow US companies to compete fairly in China as well.

<comment><USER27> Yes, by mirroring China's authoritarianism and restricting the freedom of Americans. I'm living overseas and now my government is telling me I can't use WeChat? Telling me who I can and cannot trade with, etc.

Restrictions on trade with China are attacks on our freedom.

<comment><USER28> How do you feel about restrictions on trade with North Korea, Syria, or Iran?

<comment><USER27> The same, especially with regards to communications and consumer goods. We're talking about a chat and payments app...

It's not an actual national security issue like selling China nukes or something.

<comment><USER29> Private chats can contain sensitive material that could be used to extort/blackmail government officials and/or business leaders, and in-app payments can be used for tax evasion, money laundering and bypassing sanctions. That in combination with the fact that TenCent or any large Chinese corporation is essentially an extension of the government means that WeChat can very plausibly become a threat to national security if it gains widespread adoption.

While I agree with your stance that this is infringing on personal freedoms of American citizens, and I too wish our leaders wouldn't always so eagerly infringe on personal freedoms in the name of national security, the national security claim itself does have merit.

<comment><USER27> The military and government officials can avoid use of the apps, without banning them for Americans. As they have before WeChat, and before the Internet.

I think the notion that WeChat is a threat to national security is honestly ridiculous. National security is a legal excuse to do things Trump otherwise wouldn't be able to do in his pursuit of a trade war.

<comment><USER29> There's no way to predict in advance who's going to become a government official. When they do, and if they used WeChat before then, the damage is done. Material on those close to the officials can also be used against them in similar manner.

Again, not condoning the restriction of personal freedoms, but the national security angle is not totally without merit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> According to Sam Dean (LA Times): "Video game companies owned by Tencent will NOT be affected by this executive order! White House official confirmed to the LA Times that the EO only blocks transactions related to WeChat." [0]

So that clears up at least a little of the ambiguity.

[0]: [https://twitter.com/SamAugustDean/status/1291576813685108736](https://twitter.com/SamAugustDean/status/1291576813685108736)

<comment><USER31> not yet, but this just shows how unpredictable US is. that will surely have an effect on many businesses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> So does this ban transactions with _all_ of Tencent or just those in relation to WeChat? [https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive- or...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order- addressing-threat-posed-wechat/)

      Section 1.  (a)  The following actions shall be prohibited beginning 45 days after the date of this order, to the extent permitted under applicable law: any transaction that is related to WeChat by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, with Tencent Holdings Ltd. (a.k.a. Téngxùn Kònggǔ Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī), Shenzhen, China, or any subsidiary of that entity, as identified by the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary) under section 1(c) of this order.

<comment><USER33> And what's a "transaction"?

<comment><USER16> Payment.

<comment><USER34> Time for Tencent cryptos

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Is there any precedent for a president to do such a thing? I am completely astonished and dumbstruck that everyone is ok with this.

<comment><USER36> The government frequently bans foreign products that have national security implications.

<comment><USER37> The ban of an app like TikTok is absolutely unprecedented and is very atypical. This isn't par-for-the-course behavior by the US government, and the outcome of this ban will set a precedent for other apps the US bans on "national security" grounds.

<comment><USER38> The most recent example was Grindr which was first sold to Chinese company and the government had to force them to sell it back because the app contained location info of potentially sensitive military personnel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The (US-HQ'd) company I work for has a small but significant office in China. We are not a household name, even within tech, so I doubt we'd be a target of any retaliation by China.

However, my worry is this: Whilst we have a lot of really good people in China, we don't do any business in China (and there's no realistic prospect of us doing so). So at this point operating in China seems like a huge exposure to risk for relatively little reward in the long term.

But I don't see an alternative for us. Pull out of China and business continuity would take a huge hit; stay in China and accept the risks & uncertainty.

Basically, I'm torn about the whole situation.

<comment><USER40> Your Chinese employees will be fine, but foreign personel coming in should indeed be very careful not to pique the party's attention as it will actively be seeking pawns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I am going to ignore value judgment over whether it is fair, or whether it even makes sense and am going to jump straight to enforcement framework and EO interpretation.

EO appears to single out two entities WeChat ( Tencent subsidiary ) and TikTok ( ByteDance subsidiary ). EO appears to indicate that the restrictions will be governed by sanctions framework.

Tencent owns a fair amount of gaming outfits so based on ownership, for example, Grinding Gears could be affected since Tencent owns 80% stake there. Gears seems to interpret the order in an optimistic way leaning heavily on phrase 'any transaction that is related to WeChat', but ignores 'with Tencent Holdings Ltd.' and how it is likely going to be interpreted by the banking. In short, Tencent interpretation right now is 'it applies only if it only blocks transactions related to WeChat.'

I personally have less generous read, but if a lawyer could actually weigh in, that would work:P

Original text:

Section 1. (a) The following actions shall be prohibited beginning 45 days after the date of this order, to the extent permitted under applicable law: any transaction that is related to WeChat by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, with Tencent Holdings Ltd. (a.k.a. Téngxùn Kònggǔ Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī), Shenzhen, China, or any subsidiary of that entity, as identified by the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary) under section 1(c) of this order.[1]

[1][https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive- or...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order- addressing-threat-posed-wechat/)

Diclaimer:

I am not a lawyer yo. Don't be an idiot.

<comment><USER42> This joke was good:

> In addition, the application captures the personal and proprietary > information of Chinese nationals visiting the United States, thereby > allowing the Chinese Communist Party a mechanism for keeping tabs on Chinese > citizens who may be enjoying the benefits of a free society for the first > time in their lives. //

Because only a fascissistic dictatorial government would be shooting on it's own citizens, eh.

Who is using TikTok for something that's got any business or political sensitivity?

I'm surprised Trump doesn't just admit 'China is beating us on internet platforms, we're not going to let them win financially'. He could present it as 'leveling the playing field'. That sort of overtly authoritarian dictatorial xenophobic fascism seems to be lapped up by the USA public at the moment?

Or does anyone want to defend that some video of me dancing to music is somehow critical to keep private??

I can see there's a side effect of the USA administration not wanting any apps they don't have a backdoor to being used in USA.

They don't say which companies will be subject to the order, really open and free (presumably to allow maximum market manipulation [fluctuation on the speculated actions, then controlled movement according to which companies the order covers] and a month and a half to get relevant bribes).

Tl;dr depends if Grinding Gears pays Trump enough campaign funding I'd guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> The entire western world should treat China exactly the same way China treats them.

Western companies have a difficult time operating in China, but Chinese companies have zero problems operating in western countries. It's completely unfair and if we follow this to conclusion, the future will be one of only Chinese international corporations.

Would WeChat or TikTok even exist if the Chinese market were open to existing western chat and social media software?? Unlikely.

If China wants their companies to be able to access western markets then they must allow western companies to access their markets.

Quite frankly, the entire western world should be banding together to oppose this nonsense from China. We should outright ban any goods or technology that originates in China until China changes its behavior and opens its economy.

<comment> Al-Khwarizmi Why "the entire western world"? As an European, why should we align with the US in this?

The EU doesn't have any tech giant because, contrary to China, we have received US tech giants with open arms. So our economies bleed money and lose jobs to the likes of Amazon, because hey, "the free market". What do we stand to gain by siding with US companies in this US companies vs. China companies wars?

Perhaps it would be better for us to just imitate China, start being protectionistic and banning foreign tech companies so we can grow our own and prosper. It works. In the US you're pretty much telling us that it works - <USER2> well that you are doing the same.

Now that the US has shown it can ban foreign tech companies if it's in their own interest, and all the moralizing talk about the free market has been exposed as the self-serving propaganda it has always been, what reason do be exactly have to keep playing this game where we are the biggest losers?

<comment><USER44> \- Does the US prevent European tech companies from doing business in America?

\- Does the US prevent European people from finding work, moving to, and purchasing property in America?

<comment><USER45> Right now, it doesn't. But I don't think it is because they are OK with European companies dominating US market. It is rather because there are no European companies at the moment capable of dominating US market. The moment a company in Europe starts to gain significant market share from American companies in the US, the government would (most probably) step in and stop them.

I'm not European, but here in Canada, I have seen how the US treats its trade partners. Trump forced Canada to renegotiate NAFTA and got many concessions from us. Less than 2 months after his new trade deal came into force, he is imposing a 10% tariff on aluminum imports [1]. Before aluminum, it was softwood lumber. In the middle, there was Bombardier passenger airplanes.

The funny thing is, in order to force Canada to renegotiate NAFTA, the US imposed tariff's on Canadian steel and aluminum under the guise of "national security" [2]. That is why I don't buy any claims on national security excuses for putting tariffs or expelling companies. It's mercantilism, plain and simple. But because it is frowned upon to talk about mercantilism in this day and age, the US administration always covers its mercantilism with a thin veneer of market fairness and national security.

Either that, or Canada is actually a national security threat to the US.

[1] [https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/trump-aluminum- tariff-1.567...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/trump-aluminum- tariff-1.5677036)

[2] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/politics/trump- nationa...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/politics/trump-national- security-tariffs.html)

<comment><USER46> While it's true that the US is backsliding in some agreements, this is mostly due to the current administration and unclear if this will continue.

Historically, the US has mostly been a free market to both Europe and Canada, and hasn't enacted protectionist measures overall. The US allows European car companies to sell here despite having domestic production. Nestle, HSBC, Astra-Zeneca, Siemens, SAP, Ericsson...these are all companies that are titans in their respective industries and also have a large mostly dominant US presence.

The level of US protectionism pales in comparison to what China engages in and it's hardly fair to compare the two. Obviously there are well sourced grievances but to compare China's protectionism to US protectionism isn't correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Tencent is a particularly interesting selection given their stake in Riot Games, Activision Blizzard, Epic Games, Supercell, and others. [https://twitter.com/Slasher/status/1291565115670695936?s=19](https://twitter.com/Slasher/status/1291565115670695936?s=19)

</comment><comment><USER48> What is his motivation for this right now? Is it just the distraction of the week or was there a specific incident recently that triggered this?

<comment><USER49> There's likely a lot that is not and will never be covered in the news that the NSA and CIA know. I'm sure they look at our commentary on here, with 1% of the geopolitical information, and chuckle.

<comment><USER50> they look at your commentary and chuckle. you guys believe in NSA-CIA like people believe in god

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Didn't Pompeo say something this week along the lines of banning China Mobile servicing telephone calls to the U.S.? That means if you carry a cell phone from China to the U.S. you can't get roaming service anymore?

I am surprised Lenovo hasn't been singled out yet. They supply enterprises throughout the U.S. a lot of corporations that hand out laptops to their employees all use Lenovo.

<comment><USER52> They ruined the ThinkPad line, please sell it to someone who can restore the brand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> The ongoing anti China circus through executive orders is arbitrary and draconian to say the least... and while I've been mostly ignoring it so far, a lot of Americans live in China and have money on Wechat. Are they now violating this week's "law"?

The actual executive order: [https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential- actions/executive-or...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential- actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-wechat/)

It's quite short and just adds a lot of FUD

<comment><USER54> I just went to my Wechat to try to transfer my money left in there to a friend. Transfer isn't going through.

<comment><USER53> I just managed to move part of my money to friends. Try in smaller amounts. Sending a bunch of hongbaos works up to a point as well (then it requires SMS verification which I can't do right now)

<comment><USER54> After fooling around with it, I was able to move or otherwise give away the balance in my account. I had to do in a combination of smaller hongbaos, transfers and business transfers. I triggered face verification with the first transfer I tried, but some how it reset after a while.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> An important note that nobody seems to be reporting on: this is only possible because Apple and Google have control over which apps are permitted on your device.

The US government has no legal authority to ban publishing (including apps) in the US. They do, however, have the ability to regulate trade between the operators of the App Store (Apple) and the Play Store (Google), and app publishers, which is what they're doing here.

Ban the business relationship, and they've effectively banned the publishing. It's an end run around the US constitution, and everyone should be up in arms about it: not just at the US government, but also at Apple and Google for creating a legal chokepoint for mass censorship by the US federal government.

This would not be possible if end users actually exercised control over their own devices. This is how the web works, and it's how everything else on your device should work, too.

<comment><USER56> And this is why as a European I think that we should take a long and hard look at our dependency of US technology. Its becoming more and more clear that US is not a stable actor.

I think it would be prudent for us to force alternatives to apple and google app stores (and other software) that are housed and owned in Europe. I have no confidence that US intelligence is not accessing our data and setting up profiles on Europeans that could be used for nefarious purposes.

<comment><USER55> I think a dependence upon US technology should be evaluated separately from US services/companies/staff.

There's nothing wrong with US tech. There is a lot wrong with US persons, subject to capricious US military/law/spying, having real-time control over your device or the services it needs to run.

You can say the same about Chinese tech. Nothing wrong with the device, everything wrong with allowing a government far away real-time remote access/power.

It's time to peel away software from services once again.

If we break off the control of software distribution, and disable automatic remote updates (which is manufacturer backform/RCE), hardware in the general case can become reasonably safe again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I agree 100% with this. I mean, there are other developing economies with serious tech sectors like India which operate according to the rules based open market system we have in place.

If the US doesn't take action against Chinese protectionism, why should other countries abide by the rules and give US access to their markets? The US provides China it's market even though China closes it down for everyone.

I think US being soft on China sets a bad precedent.

<comment><USER58> India has a lot of protectionism in place for their core industries as well.

Example is call centers. Foreign call centers, like in the Philippines, are not allowed to service any company that does has operations in India.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Wow this is huge if Tencent is out of the game in the US. What happens to their stakes in companies like Reddit and Riot Games?

</comment><comment><USER60> Instagram Reels is launching at a "convenient" time.. . . ..

<comment><USER61> I do wonder if there's a deeper connection than Facebook simply having this feature ready to go and releasing it early. Was there cooperation of the sorts "you ban TikTok and we'll release Instagram Reels early to help distract upset users"?

<comment><USER38> Facebook has had a Tiktok competitor called Lasso for 2 years. It failed though. They are shutting that down and simply porting the features over to their existing Instagram app.

[https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/01/lasso-facebook-tiktok- shut...](https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/01/lasso-facebook-tiktok-shut-down/)

<comment><USER61> My comment wasn't about whether they already had it or not. It is obvious they were already working on it. No one could develop and release a feature so quickly. It is about the timing of the release, which could have very well been cooperatively timed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> For WeChat, how much impact will this have on Americans? As an American, I tried signing up to communicate w/ someone in China, and I couldn't get through the verification process.

Obviously TikTok has a big USA presence.

<comment><USER63> > As an American, I tried signing up to communicate w/ someone in China, and I > couldn't get through the verification process.

I signed up before there was a verification process. But my understanding is that you get vouched for by an existing account. Since you were signing up to communicate with someone, wouldn't that person have been a natural choice to verify you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Rather than every nation deploying their own internal version of X, surely the sane endgame is open source software.

<comment><USER65> Someone has to store the videos though.

<comment><USER66> Having to pay for storage seems to be a better outcome than total foreign intelligence penetration and public opinion influencing.

<comment><USER67> > public opinion influencing

Has the USA not been doing that all over the world since forever?

Hell, they usually just change governments directly, without even bothering with public opinion.

<comment><USER13> Not through intentional federal policy. It's a side effect of US companies being the world over and US culture being spread by those companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Since TenCent is huge:

>Video game companies owned by Tencent will NOT be affected by this executive order!

>White House official confirmed to the LA Times that the EO only blocks transactions related to WeChat

>So Riot Games (League of Legends), Epic Games (Fortnite), et al are safe

[https://twitter.com/samaugustdean/status/1291576813685108736](https://twitter.com/samaugustdean/status/1291576813685108736)

I guess Chinese users will resort to Chinese IP VPNs, there's already some to get around geofenced mainland content.

E: much downvote

<comment> Spartan-S63 I had no idea that Tencent had full ownership of Riot games. Same thing with 40% ownership of Epic Games. Wow!

<comment><USER69> Also some percentage of Discord.

<comment><USER70> And Reddit $150M I believe (wow didn't know that about Discord).

<comment><USER34> and 5% of Tesla and 17.5% of Snapchat

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Here's a diff between the two orders, if anyone else is curious about the specific changes. I used the TikTok/ByteDance order as the "original", so removals and additions are relative to changing that one into the WeChat/Tencent one: [https://gist.github.com/Deimos/8fcb95ec4017cf1a28e32f6057a91...](https://gist.github.com/Deimos/8fcb95ec4017cf1a28e32f6057a91e01/revisions)

</comment><comment><USER72> So does this mean Apple will have to remove WeChat from the App Store everywhere in the world including China?

If Apple does this, what will it mean for their huge business in China?

<comment><USER34> Trump just neutered Iphone sales in China. Apple can't even get revenue from WeChat now since those are transactions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> Which workarounds you suggest around the Great Firewall of the United States of America?

<comment> _-___________-_ Might be time to start a VPN service with exit points _in_ China!

<comment><USER74> I get it's a joke but this is already a popular service as many services are inaccessible outside the GFW or extremely throttled.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> "Threat" aside, it does seem fair for the West to reciprocate bans on Google/Facebook etc, but not sure the best way to communicate with family in China now if the western messaging apps are banned there and vice versa

<comment><USER76> Email? I know that seems dismissive, but people got along just fine before Facebook, texting, WeChat, etc. I suspect in reality there will be an endless whack-a-mole game with messaging services where people use a different one fairly frequently.

<comment><USER77> The great firewall of China does block email. If your email address is blocked 1\. When you send an email to a recipient in China who is using an email service provider whose MTA does not support SSL/TLS/STARTTLS: the delivery attempt by your email service provider will result in a TCP reset. 2\. Similarly, if someone in China want to send an email to your blocked email address but their MTA doesn't support SSL/TLS/STARTTLS: their attempt to send the email will result in a TCP reset.

I know this because my Gmail account is blocked in this way.

<comment><USER78> And if you can reach the MTA, that means the email itself is unencrypted. So the MTA can monitor the email content.

<comment><USER77> This goes both ways. If I want to send an email to someone but their MTA doesn't do encryption, I might choose to encrypt the _content_ of my email, but I have no way to hide my FROM.

Blocking the MTA server is not unheard of.

<comment><USER78> Right, metadata is not encrypted for the MTA. That's the flaw in the email protocol for full anonymity, even using PGP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> This also potentially has many ramifications in different industries. Tencent (owner of WeChat) is a big investor in media and entertainment companies. One side effect, for example, is blocking financial payments to Riot Games, Epic Games, Fortnite, and half the gaming industry.

Has anyone seem any details on what exactly it will cover?

</comment><comment><USER80> What a bizarre and interesting turn. I'd give a lot to be able to sit in on the meetings between TikTok and Microsoft right now.

I wonder if FB will come over the top with a bid.

<comment><USER81> > I wonder if FB will come over the top with a bid.

Doubt it, they already have a new competing product. As soon as TT engagement drops due to friction the user will switch.

<comment><USER70> I'm not so sure, Facebook fatigue is real and TikTok built a better product.

<comment><USER82> Facebook just introduced "Reels" to Instagram.

Instagram is not Facebook and is used by the same audience as TikTok.

<comment><USER70> yeah I'm still not convinced... I don't use TikTok but my gf does and from what I've seen, they've really tapped into young millenials/zoomers and created a product that people love. Facebook fatigue _does_ seep into IG (owned by FB). The most obvious sign of it is feature creep. FB is adding every feature to IG that they can to stay relevant, but ultimately that's going to bloat the app and turn it into Blue V2, which is no longer en vogue.

TikTok works because it isn't suffocated by ads and is hyper-focused on one format, aka it's a well-designed but simple experience.

<comment><USER81> IG can use their existing ad platform to convince TT content producers to switch so they can monetize.

There isn't brand loyalty for social media platforms but there is for the content producer. The least amount of friction and most benefit to the content producer wins.

I see TT becoming another Snap.

Who knows though, I'm not invested in either company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> This is how war festers. You lose the common communication mediums. It becomes easier and easier to see the other guy as BarBar-speaking barbarians.

Fuck the fuckers that would rather punch back than uphold their own integrity.

You can't call the other team an asshole for cheating, and then go right ahead and cheat in the exact same way. It makes you even worse than they ever were, because you ever presumed you were better.

How absolutely sad.

We deserve to choke on the toxic fruits these seeds may bear.

</comment><comment><USER84> Are we witnessing the end of free markets? Or the growth of decentralization? These sorts of moves are making a very strong case for decentralized platforms.

<comment><USER85> More likely the end of one-sided free markets. There's no suggestion that the US is about to pull the same shit on countries that don't try and hobble US tech companies.

<comment><USER86> The EU will probably start to tax tech companies that avoid taxes by registering in tax havens within the next few years. If that's the US' sole motivation, it seems like a receipt for disaster.

<comment><USER85> That sounds like it's more likely to raise US tax revenues tho, so I imagine there'll be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth, and no action.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Also wonder if this affects wechat pay, it's gotten pretty huge in Canada in the last few years. But we have much more mainlanders. The knock on affects will be interesting.

And if wechat allows web only, will US ban the service from browsers GFC style? Seems like a different can of worms than blocking apps.

</comment><comment><USER87> I don't see why the executive order can't simply be to compel Apple and Google to display warnings on the download page, or one when the app launches. They already do thisshould you dare to install something that originated outside of their walled garden.

Let the consumer make the choice whether to use it or not.

The case against Huawei at least has merit; protectionist policies against threats to strategically important industries (telecom infrastructure) has numerous precedents.

This just seems like a favour to Zuckerberg after he gave the all-clear to unfettered lying in political ads. Surely that would have no impact on "national security, foreign policy and the economy".

</comment><comment><USER88> Every step they take to distance the population from Chinese products makes the next steps towards heightened conflict easier for the government. China isn't an enemy of the US people, only of our elites. Part of what they're doing is protectionism for US buisness, which is funny because when US business is strong they promote zero trade barriers so that the "free market" means total domination by US interests. Part of what they're doing is creating a foreign enemy so they can blame the grotesque failures of the government on external enemies in an election year (both Rs and Ds).

</comment><comment><USER89> I haven't seen any discussion about how other non-China non-US countries feel about TikTok being forced under American ownership. For example, I understand that TikTok is quite popular in the middle east, and I imagine that some countries there might not be happy with American intelligence services having access to their citizens data, at least if they are also subscribing to the beliefs that short video clips are a national security matters. I suspect those countries wished that Bytedance sold just their US operations, but it appears they are instead selling _all_ non-China operations.

</comment><comment><USER90> Wouldn't there be some value in decentralizing social media? Surely, countries where most of their users are communicating via Facebook puts them at extreme disadvantage, especially if they need FB to comply with some sort of subpoena. We don't really have global central news networks, so why would we ever think global social media platforms would ever work? Plus decentralizing social media could possibly help with bot/hatespeech/fakenews problems, or at least localize them a bit more to reduce the speed and scale problem.

</comment><comment><USER91> I can understand the US decision of banning huawei reasoning for national security, but case against TikTok is not something I grasp understandable. Even India(where I live) banned Tiktok. At first I believed,its just temporary and will be lifted in few days but it didn't.

These types of actions will not benefit anyone, just toss name of china with other country in above scenario. It will be something like,

\- EU banning Tesla because of its USA origin

\- US banning Reliance/Tata because of its Indian Origin

\- Russia banning google/facebook to favor their local companies

\- etc.

This is something that should never happen,but sadly it is.

</comment><comment><USER92> Only took a couple decades to do this. A messaging app that allows China to read everything but not other countries should be illegal to begin with. Entirely secure or not at all is the way.

<comment><USER93> Isn't this exactly what US companies do, and what the US government wants to do?

<comment><USER94> the us needs a warrant to spy on its own citizens

<comment><USER95> I don't understand how you can say that with a straight face after everything we've seen about the NSA, PRISM, etc.

<comment><USER94> none of that contradicts what i said.

any targeted surveillance requires a warrant

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> There's a lot of practices that China has that I disagree with.

There's a lot of practices that US has that I disagree with.

China has traditionally been __very __closed and is very slowly moving to be slightly more open to other countries.

The US used to be kinda open, but is shutting itself in like crazy.

This is way so many countries are pushing so hard to reduce their reliance on the US. This can only bode badly for the US, while the rest of the world continues slowly uniting. Not _against_ the US, just uniting to work together.

</comment><comment><USER97> No one forced American corporations to do business with China. America's current lack of "greatness" is America's own fault. There is a nonzero chance that America is going to face serious economic distress in the coming decade. Those who made poor leadership decisions for America's economy are desperate to find a scapegoat. No one forced American corporations to do business with China.

<comment><USER98> Your scapegoat narrative is an unproductive one and apologist at worst. As usual, people are getting wrapped up in the "America bad" trope while ignoring the fact that there are real people being targeted and having their lives tracked and terrorized by the Chinese government. I don't know what country you're from but if someone was behaving badly in your house, I would be kicking them out too. You'd have to be stupid to let a burglar in your house and offer them a room.

<comment><USER97> I'm definitely not a China apologist. This story would be a comedy if it were not a tragedy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER99> No one seems to be asking the most illuminating remark about this situation:

 _The US should allow TikTok if China agrees to allow unrestricted use of Instagram in China. That should have been the deal that Trump could make to expose the assymmetry of "open market" that China keeps touting about._

Everything, all arguments in this thread fall apart if people are complaining, condemning US's move to block TikTok. I agree, the justification provided by President Trump hides behind national security, it would have been far better to make a case for free trade and unrestricted access to China's domestic market.

Imagine, the opportunity for Instagram to advertise to a country of 1.4 billion people. The opportunity cost is massive.

</comment><comment><USER100> I feel like the underlying third variable in this whole thread rests in the question, "Have you or your company ever accepted or considered Chinese investment?"

I would absolutely love to know how many of these folks saying "We need to uphold Western open values and not reciprocally punish" have business entanglements with Chinese funds.

</comment><comment><USER101> Does anyone know whether the ban on WeChat means WeChat will not be available on iOS in China?

If so, Hauwei must be very happy.

</comment><comment><USER102> Wechat is used by a vast majority of overseas Chinese (and increasingly non- Chinese as well), and a lot of the employees would message each other about work matters over WeChat because of convenience. All these messages are routed through Tencent's Chinese servers.

</comment><comment><USER103> Let's face it: it has nothing to do with "treat people the way they treat you." It's just Trump trying to win/secure the votes from his loyal supporters.

Does TikTok grab user data and analyze them for ads, recommendations, etc? Sure, so do Instagram. But does TikTok send those data back to Chinese government so that it would potentially threaten U.S. national security? We need proof, but so far none. Here's an article of French hacker Elliot Alderson (@fs0c131y) analyzing TikTok code: [https://medium.com/@fs0c131y/tiktok-logs-logs- logs-e93e81626...](https://medium.com/@fs0c131y/tiktok-logs-logs- logs-e93e8162647a)

So IMHO the two real reasons Trumps banned TikTok and WeChat are: 1\. His supporters are mad that everything is made in China. It violates some basic economics principles but that's fine. 2\. What happened to that Oklahoma rally, Trump really took it personal.

This ban put hundreds of thousands of Chinese people (including those who are already U.S. citizens or green card holders) in the U.S. to a difficult position. They don't have other ways to communicate with there friends/families in China other than WeChat. But I guess, those people (including myself), are the least important factors Trump worries about, if he even cares at all.

<comment><USER104> > But does TikTok send those data back to Chinese government so that it would > potentially threaten U.S. national security? We need proof, but so far none.

How about the No place to hide laws that mandate this? Proof enough for you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER105> Photos of the CCP community in these so called companies:

[https://twitter.com/hnjhj/status/1291906465775509506/photo/1](https://twitter.com/hnjhj/status/1291906465775509506/photo/1)

</comment><comment><USER106> This is just the start, introducing [https://www.state.gov/announcing-the- expansion-of-the-clean-...](https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of- the-clean-network-to-safeguard-americas-assets/)

</comment><comment><USER107> Can someone explain the motivation?

<comment><USER108> The stated motivation is to reduce misinformation from China in lead up to election. Pretty wild that Facebook which was 100% proven to have been used for Russian misinformation in the last, and this election, somehow dodged a bullet on this...

My (totally personal opinion guess) is that this is just another way to poke the bear as part of the tit-for-tat with China and maybe a minor contributing factor that someone has got in his ear and blamed TikTok for his low campaign event turnout after there was a TikTok meme to RSVP to his events to make them sound like they were going to be huge, then embarrass him with low numbers.

Cynical perspective is that one of his friends with a stake in Facebook got in his ear about China using TikTok to make fun of him or something, and now Instagram Reels is right there to pick up the slack. Nothing would surprise me with this govt anymore. I mean the news is all talking about TikTok now instead of COVID-19... troop bounties... so on...

<comment><USER109> I don't see anything about misinformation or the election in the executive orders [1, 2]. It talks about data collection, e.g. "potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage" and " the application captures the personal and proprietary information of Chinese nationals visiting the United States, thereby allowing the Chinese Communist Party a mechanism for keeping tabs on Chinese citizens who may be enjoying the benefits of a free society for the first time in their lives".

[1] [https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive- or...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order- addressing-threat-posed-tiktok/) [2] [https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential- actions/executive-or...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential- actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-wechat/)

Edit: okay, there is a bit, e.g. "This mobile application may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party, such as when TikTok videos spread debunked conspiracy theories about the origins of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER110> I'll be impressed when US says we're not depending on China to manufacture and instead bringing the big dogs like Apple and the Fashion behemoths to US.

We want a net export to China instead of a net import. At-least a resilient manufacturing industry.

</comment><comment><USER111> It is fair.

If both sides can be in ... but now only China can be in, influence the media, use $ to buy and work with USA firm in USA etc. etc. But not USA. It is so one sided that China will win only in the arrangement.

Time to restructure. It is time!

</comment><comment><USER112> Although the focus of the discussion seems about TikTok, what really should get more attentions WeChat and Tencent - this is basically the only way one can communicate in modern fashion with people in China.

</comment><comment> hoyle-hortler This is what Monero is for. Any cryptocurrency which hides the value and participants of transactions on its chain will always have value as long as asymmetric power exists in society.

</comment><comment><USER58> This brings to mind the US auto industry where GM and Ford kept thinking that building cars their way would win and then lost to cars from Japan that were more attuned to customer needs.

If WeChat is taken off Samsung and Apple phones, it would drive more purchasers to replacing their existing with Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo, etc phones because digital payment is a way of life in China now. Overseas business users may buy 2nd phones to be able to access the China partners and markets.

BTW, Tencent is not going to cripple WeChat to not do transactions. They make too much money from it and can afford to ignore this autocratic request.

</comment><comment><USER113> Theres an incredible amount of foreign propaganda in western social media anyway. Twitter took down like a million CCP accounts the other month (they made an announcement about it) and thats just the ones they know about. This is a step thats at least in spirit probably makes sense but there are more larger issues. Reddit literally has an API to comment...you think all those policial default subs are real comments? Not a chance. Reddit doesnt care because it drives engagement.

<comment><USER114> Almost every CCP-owned channel on Facebook has bought fake subscribers, it's so visible they don't even try to hide it. As an example, CGTN French has 20M subscribers, more than any local French newspapers despite being virtually unknown in the country. If you go by subscribers count, it would be the most popular news platform of the country...

<comment><USER115> Link?

<comment><USER114> [https://www.facebook.com/CGTNFrancais](https://www.facebook.com/CGTNFrancais)

You can compare that with the top newspapers of the country:

[https://www.facebook.com/lemonde.fr](https://www.facebook.com/lemonde.fr) [https://www.facebook.com/lefigaro](https://www.facebook.com/lefigaro)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER116> If Apple/Google are forced to take out the apps from their stores, would they have to take them out of the US only or worldwide?

</comment><comment><USER117> Doesn't this eviscerate Chinese investment in SV?

<comment><USER81> No because wealthy people care about making more money not principles or nationalism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER118> Seems pretty weak to be honest. Definitely not the "American Great Firewall" that some were predicting.

<comment><USER119> After 45 days, would anyone logging into a Wechat server in China be guilty of circumventing an embargo? Would they have to actually be sending money?

<comment><USER118> Unclear, but defining accessing a server as a "transaction" for these purposes would be extremely aggressive, difficult to enforce, and challenged in court.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER120> Can't have China influencing the election. That's Russia's job. It's not like these companies are new or doing things that every tech company in the world isn't doing. National security is clearly a pretense that's laughable. If that was the case, we'd see Facebook, etc. banned in many countries.

</comment><comment><USER121> This should be taken to the WTO if it wasn't coopted by the US and allies

<comment><USER95> Won't make a difference, Trump would sooner pull out of the WTO than have his decisions dictated by it.

<comment><USER121> True, but that might even be a good thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER122> This feels like the kind of thing that could make sense as part of a broad portfolio of carefully analyzed actions to thwart the rise of CCP soft and hard power, but instead is a one-off poorly considered fit of pique from a self-dealing bona fide moron right before an election.

</comment><comment><USER123> Is he trying to get Microsoft a better deal? Like, right out in the open?

</comment><comment><USER124> Good, the US should reciprocate the treatment it receives from China.

</comment><comment><USER125> Is there nothing between turning the other cheek and stopping to their level?

Ugh.

</comment><comment><USER126> Does anyone think Facebook is requesting for this to happen? Trump and Zuckerberg are friends (on friendly terms anyways). Trump needs Facebook for reelection purposes, Facebook is losing users to TikTok. Seems like a win-win for these two to team up like this? A little quid pro quo?

</comment><comment><USER92> This is what happens when your app behaves like malware.

</comment><comment><USER127> Seems arbitrary and capricious to me. USA is a democracy. If foreign apps are a threat laws should be passed to protect user data privacy and maintain data sovereignty and made equally applicable to all.

</comment><comment><USER128> Conspiracy theory: this is being spun as an anti-US move despite being totally sensible with precedent.

We did _literally_ the same thing with Grindr. Why would we not do the same on a platform full of CP?

</comment><comment><USER58> China is going to declare war on the US dollar.

</comment><comment><USER129> Time to ban AWS in Europe too. Maybe cut the transatlantic cables too. I mean we ve known for ten years we are definitely being spied on and did nothing

</comment><comment><USER130> What is it mean to the future of ADRs?

</comment><comment><USER94> would any company bother acquiring wechats american operations or are we just letting them disappear?

</comment><comment><USER131> Is DJI on the pending list?

<comment><USER132> Time to buy a drone before they're sold out.

<comment><USER131> I have two of their drones. Hope I can continue to fly. It's helped me a lot since this pandemic started, being able to take a fun distraction. I'm able to just zone out from all those meetings, calls, reports, emails, code etc. etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER133> time for android phones. let's get to work community.

</comment><comment><USER134> I wonder how the TikTok userbase in the US is going to react to this? This could galvanized teens to action against the Trump administration. On the other hand, they could just ignore it aswell.

</comment><comment><USER135> So WeChat is likely to be banned by the US govt?

</comment><comment><USER136> Trump doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.

China is creating a social credit system that exerts a ridiculous amount on control over its citizens, and spies on their every move. Who in their right mind doesn't think that they would force TikTok to do the same on global citizens - not to mention manipulate them with propaganda.

Not to mention that whole imprisonment, torture, enslavement, and sterilization of the entire Turkic Uighur population. The real question is why do we tolerate ANYTHING Chinese?

</comment><comment><USER137> I wonder if he's actually followed the administrative procedures act; often a lot of Trump proclamations end up being stricken down by the court for not following the proper rules. That's exactly why DACA remains in place; while the president has a lot of power over this area, there are still rules and processes that have to be followed.

</comment><comment><USER138> Finally some good news

</comment><comment><USER139> Explanation of CFIUS and why and how Trump can use it: [https://www.lawfareblog.com/tiktok-and-law-primer-case- you-n...](https://www.lawfareblog.com/tiktok-and-law-primer-case-you-need- explain-things-your-teenager)

<comment><USER140> Our 70s-era national security regime needs desperate Congressional overhaul. I take particular peeve with the prohibitions on judicial review of CFIUS actions.

<comment><USER109> Sounds like these 1970s laws were actually a Congressional overhaul of earlier legislation, see e.g. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Emergency_Econom...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Emergency_Economic_Powers_Act#Curtailment_of_emergency_executive_powers)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER141> For once, I agree with Trump that governments shouldn't be spying on users data. But let's start by ending the NSA dragnet.

</comment><comment><USER142> This is obviously just a tactic by the Trump administration to distract people from the US economy tanking because of the mishandling of covid-19. If you haven't noticed, the US has much bigger problems. How about covid-19, the economy, lack of universal healthcare, weak education system, huge deficits, etc?

I am not blaming the mishandling of covid-19 solely on the Trump administration. I am just pointing out their Wizard of Oz distraction tactic and how the vast majority of people fall for it.

There is an economic competition between the US and China but this move is pure silly. WeChat isn't doing anything in the US. It's for Chinese people to talk to family in China.

<comment><USER143> Stoking animosity towards outsiders is a time honored tactic of all bad regimes (including that of the PRC) to distract citizens from their own failings. Time honored because it works almost every time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER144> Laws and law enforcement are the only sane ways to deal with espionage or whatever the accusation is. What Trump is doing here _must_ be illegal, I hope it is challenged and defeated in court.

</comment><comment><USER105> Great action, I fully support!

<comment><USER145> What's the motivation?

<comment><USER105> The free world gave the criminal CCP regime a free pass after the 1989 massacre. The same criminal regime get stronger in the last 30 years and put on a capitalist shell on its bloody skin. But it never stopped its criminal practices but has been doing it more relentlessly just with more concealment. For about 20 years it made large scale human organ sells from people they kidnapped or arrested. It put up huge concentration camps in Xinjing to get rid of some minor race people in the number of millions. That is just a small sample of its crimes still actively happening. I am glad US starts to realize the CCP regime is not a country following normal human ethics.

<comment><USER105> A country not following normal human ethics should not be allowed to corrupt the free world unchecked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER146> OK This is huge. Trump isn't just banning TikTok he's banning Tencent and it's holdings too from operating in the US. To put this is perspective Tencent owns Riot Games (League of Legends) and has stakes in Epic Games (Fortnite), Ubisoft (Assassin's Creed) and Activision Blizzard (Call of Duty). Overall Tencent owns 108 companies across media, entertainment, fintech and education. This is going to be a mess. (universal music and Spotify also owned partially)

Also how will impact companies of which Tencent owns less than 50%?

<comment><USER147> It's only WeChat. Reddit, Riot, Epic etc are unimpacted

<comment><USER64> If the justification is that these apps are going to be used as social surveillance and manipulation apps, then surely Reddit and games with social features are next.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER148> I know much of western people agree with Trump's decision to ban ByteDance and Wechat, and it's fair to me when it's based on reciprocal. But actually, ByteDance and Wechat(Tencent Holding) was and is growing more like a US company then a company with China Communism background. A lot of employee of ByteDance/Wechat are engineers like the engineers in hackernews. Even the CEO of bytedance, Zhangyiming, is now cursed in China for earlier friendly voice to US and western world. I mean, why hurt the companies and engineers are or was friendly to US. The recently ban action is turning friend to enemy, why not put the punishment to other unfriendly subject or entity.

</comment><comment><USER149> After seeing some of the comments here and seeing their half-baked "libertarian' views which are grounded in fantasy, I am speaking out and saying: Good job! It is about time! I fully support decisions like this.

There is no point in playing a "fair" game if the player (China) won't follow the rules.

</comment><comment><USER150> I realize that this is completely speculative correlation buuuut...

Part of me wonders if Trump was briefed on the Russian law going into effect last month :

Nov 2019 - [https://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-50507849](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50507849)

> Russia has passed a law banning the sale of certain devices that are not > pre-installed with Russian software.

>

> The law will come into force in July 2020 and cover smartphones, computers > and smart televisions.

And is literally just aping Russian policy :

August 2020 - [https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-the- clean-...](https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-the-clean- network-to-safeguard-americas-assets/)

> Clean Store: To remove untrusted applications from U.S. mobile app stores. > PRC apps threaten our privacy, proliferate

> viruses, and spread propaganda and disinformation. American's most sensitive > personal and business information must be

> protected on their mobile phones from exploitation and theft for the CCP's > benefit.

</comment><comment><USER151> Under what authority can he issue this order?

<comment><USER109> The order says:

> By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws > of the United States of America, including the International Emergency > Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National > Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), and section 301 of title 3, United > States Code,

</comment></comment><comment><USER115> I'm mixed about this. On one hand the US as the most powerful country should lead and be an example of the free world. On the other hand China is playing an asymmetric game with foreign companies and has banned many US companies from entering their market.

Now they're still a developing country, so this would be fine by me, except that the Chinese government is committing crimes against humanity and getting more and more powerful at the same time. This is really dangerous, and the only thing I can think of is germany pre-WWII where Hitler had huge approval ratings. Chinese people are extremely pro-CCP even in the US, this is frightening imo. And most countries are doing nothing about the xinjiang and hongkong situations. So maybe this is a good move...

</comment><comment><USER152> And China has a massive 5th column based here already, especially in tech.

</comment><comment><USER153> To be clear, TikTok and WeChat are quite different 'threats', both real, but it's not clear how dangerous:

TikTok is aimed at a wide market, and it's a content app - there are two worries with it, data and influence. If they are installed on a significant number of devices in the US/the 'West', and their user data is stored in or available to Chinese networks, that data is available to the Chinese government on-demand. Secondly, if they have significant enough cultural influence, they can use that to promote/demote certain topics or specific content, for a variety of purposes.

WeChat seems to have no serious ambitions beyond China and the Chinese diaspora, nowadays. It's used by people all over the world to keep in touch with their friends and families, and to do business, with people in China, and it's widely-known that the content is actively monitored and censored by/on behalf of the Chinese government. Although VPNs etc are available, it's really the only significant communication and social media platform available in (and into) China. There's also pretty good evidence (although mostly anecdotal, AFAIK) that it's a channel for nationalistic propaganda, government- coordinated action and similar amongst the Chinese diaspora - actively so, beyond the passive effect of censored content.

None of these things are to say that billions of people can't happily use those platforms, every day, all over the world! But they also cannot be completely ignored...

And before anyone starts with "but the American government is just the same!", it's not, it's really not. The Chinese government is a literal totalitarian, authoritarian, one-man dictatorship. However much Trump cosplays as a dictator, and however much authoritarianism he demonstrates, there are huge qualitative differences.

</comment><comment><USER154> At least the Chinese Communist Party has the decency to make policy that has the effect of banning foreign businesses from operating and kangaroo courts to keep up the charade.

I think this is going to be tossed out in court. The President does not have the power to unilaterally decide trade policy, and it's really hard to argue that a consumer software product has national security implications (even if I think it does, I don't think our courts have technically literate judges who would agree).

If you want to provide consumer privacy protections that would prevent the alleged (and very likely) malfeasance of nominally-private businesses from China, _write some fucking policy_ instead of signing an EO with no weight.

Another day, more disillusionment from our federal government's ability to govern. Regardless of how much I want something like this to be in place, I want Congress to write a law that enshrines consumer privacy protection and recognizes that _any_ business doing what they purport Chinese businesses to be doing is a national security threat ; be it from businesses foreign or domestic.

</comment><comment><USER155> Forget I said anything. HN is infiltrated by propaganda without people even realising.

<comment><USER156> Like...China?

<comment><USER157> Well China does have a valid reason to outlaw Google et. al, because they publicly siphon your data and are not shy about it. Also if you're gonna downvote, provide a reason and counter-point. This isn't reddit and the downvote button is not for "I don't like this".

<comment><USER158> > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, > and it makes boring reading.

> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a > semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.

From the guidelines

Downvoting because you disagree has also been acceptable on this site, since basically forever [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER159> This is a fantastic start.

More people need to become aware of what China is currently doing with their so-called "reeducation camps".

I would like to see other countries doing the same, and not just with fancy (but mostly useless) things like TikTok, but cut off Chinese involvement in anything critical where countries depend on them.

It has become clear they have total disregard for human rights.</comment>


Google App Engine: Datastore Performance Growing Pains - <AUTHOR> http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2010/06/datastore-performance-growing-pains.html

<comment><USER2> I just started writing a GAE open-source community tool for rare disease orgs two weeks ago. I thought it was slow, but wrote it off as a limitation inherent to the Datastore. I moved a lot of things to the Memcache level, mitigating (mostly) the slow queries. That being said, I am glad it was actually a real problem.

I'm also impressed that they are not charging anyone until the problem is solved.

<comment><USER3> GAE does have some performance surprises even during normal performance periods, so it's good that you're using Memcache etc now.

Couple other ideas:

Try to minimize read effort as much as possible, so e.g. pre-calculate as much as you can and rather optimize for performance than data cost. Data is cheap, so de-normalise where you need speed. Calc offline, so add a task to calculate something and return immediately to the user.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like the way they're dealing with this. Acknowledge the problem (and actually call it a "problem" instead of handwaving aroung it), and stop charging for the service until they fix it. This is a good pattern to follow if you run a service that ever runs into issues that affect your users.

On the performance issue itself, I actually used AppEngine for a project when it first came out and was astounded at how poorly it performed in general. Any page requiring more than a single "select where id={}" query would regularly throw CPU warnings at you.

I couldn't imagine building a site even as straightforward as HN on top of it. As soon as you had a page needing a dozen queries to construct, you'd run into the wall.

</comment><comment><USER5> If I'm reading the current status graphs correctly they're regularly seeing 1.5-2.5 second queries and 400ms direct fetches. That seems unbearably bad. Can anyone running mission critical apps on the platform comment?

<comment><USER6> Yeah we've been freaking out about this. We have our app used in the classroom, and have had several sessions disrupted because of this. Needless to say our customers were pissed.

We're in the process of doing an emergency move over to EC2 because of these issues. That being said, I must admit that this is a really decent response on Google's part. Unfortunately the problems go deeper than just these latest problems with datastore.

<comment><USER7> Just wondering, are you porting to mySQL, Cassandra, or HBase? We're currently moving off app engine also, and would love to hear more about your final setup.</comment></comment></comment>


The Satoshi Paradox - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2014/03/07/the-satoshi-paradox/

<comment><USER2> There is no paradox here. His English isn't bad: [http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn- satoshi-...](http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-satoshi- nakamot-chose-reporter-video-20140306,0,400825.story#axzz2vITHFr8a)

Sounds like jealousy in not getting the scoop.

edit: he may or may not be the creator.</comment>


Israeli Startup Can Charge Your Phone in 1 Minute - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30710295 <comment><USER2> This just sounds like complete snake oil.

When asked to explain, the spokesman says things like "we use new physics". That alone peaked my bullshit detector.

Every battery tech I'm also aware of cannot handle high amperage charging without things like outgassing, battery seperation, heating effects, and explosions. Even the venerable NiFe battery has problems with high current charging.

But this startup has beat it? [Citation needed]

<comment><USER3> Lithium Iron Phosphate cells can charge at a rate of up to 5C with no side effects - they're used in more expensive hand-tools and as primary power cells for electric radio control aircraft and helicopters.

That said, smartphones don't use these batteries, and anyone who tried to put a couple of amperes into a standard lithium polymer battery is going to have an amusing experience.

<comment><USER4> What exactly do you mean by "5C"?

<comment><USER3> 5 times the nominal rating of the battery - it's a term we throw around loosely in Radio Control, based on Elec.Eng terminology that is too complex for us laymen :) A 1000 milliamp/hour battery has a C rating of 1 i.e. 1 ampere/hour. So for a typical Lithium Polymer you'd charge this at at most 2 Amperes to prevent damage to the battery. A LiFePO4 could be safely charged at 5 Amperes, which drastically reduces the charge time - very useful if you're at a flying site and are charging packs in between flights to extend your flight time and make use of good weather.

<comment><USER5> _ampere /hour_

Minor correction: battery capacity is measured in ampere-hour, i.e. ampere * hour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From what i can understand the biological process is used to construct non- biological parts in this case very small semi-conducting crystals. The "battery" it self i would assume is some sort of a high density bank of MIS capacitors or any other semi-conductive capacitor.

According to some of the more business oriented reporting about the product their current end goal for 2017 is a 100-150$ batter capable of 1500-2000 discharge cycles this means that if it will be put in a phone it will give you a life time of 3-4 years depending on your discharge rate.

Their goals at least seem to be very realistic, even if the price will be a blocker even for most high end phone users. I do see this technology having many applications tho especially for military and emergency services. Considering that the US Army has trialed multiple Samsung phones so far with specialized software an "ultra battery" like this would be very appealing to them even if it will have a horrible life time and a very high price compared to commercial batteries. The Army can and will pay very high amounts if it means that the turn around for a soldier's computing package will be minutes instead of hours.

The company so far raised 40-50 million $ and not via "kickstarter" some of the investors are rumored to be phone giants including Samsung, and in any case venture capitalist firms don't ten to put 50M on the table for snake oil.

<comment><USER7> > in any case venture capitalist firms don't ten to put 50M on the table for > snake oil.

You have a much higher view of VCs then I do then. I'm personally aware of a few tech companies that exist solely to siphon money from the investors to the founder. Rich people aren't always careful with their money, particularly when they are putting it into something hot, like tech, that they know nothing about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Maybe a nanopore/nanostructure battery[1,2]? They are touted to bring near- capacitor charge/discharge rates from fairly traditional chemistry. This specific application leaves a few questions, though:

1: What is the actual capacity of the battery demonstrated? If it has a high C but low capacity, this isn't really notable. The paper [1] indicates that total charge capacity is a function of how fast the battery is charged; what tradeoff are they making?

2: How many charge cycles is this battery capable of at those rates?

3: What thresholds are they putting in place for temperature, and are all the components of the phone rated for _repeated_ thermal cycles to those levels and back to ambient?

4: What is the failure mode for this battery? Outgassing? What compounds are released in overcharge?

[1] - [http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v9/n12/abs/nnano.2014.24...](http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v9/n12/abs/nnano.2014.247.html)

[2] - [http://www.google.com/patents/US20060216603](http://www.google.com/patents/US20060216603)

</comment><comment><USER9> I used to have that technology on my first mobile phone, back in a previous millenium. It was called "spare battery".

<comment><USER4> I think the point to be made here is the short recharge time. Did your spare battery recharge in minutes?

<comment><USER9> No, but my pain point as a user is that I want a fully charged phone right now. I don't care that the spares sit in a charging station for an hour or two; that's an uninteresting detail of the implementation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "The BBC has been given an exclusive look at a new kind of battery charger that can recharge a modern smartphone in less time than it takes to boil a kettle."

Unless I am missing something on Storedot's website, the BBC were actually shown a phone with an ultra-capacitor instead of a battery.

<comment><USER11> From the video it just looks like a phony app that claims the battery is being charged.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm currently backing the Petalite: [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/petalite- flux-15-minute-c...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/petalite- flux-15-minute-charging)

Which sounds rather more believable, and like it might be useful this year. I can live with 15-minute charging, and it being an external battery.

<comment><USER13> It's 100% believable, technology-wise. It's a 2600 mAh LiPo (or LiFePO4 or other similar lithium battery), and the charger charges it at about 4C == 10A. The tradeoff is that such high charge rate tends to damage the battery quicker (resulting in sagging voltages/lower capacity).

I don't believe their claims that it will last 3 years of regular use, that it will have 1500 charge cycles, or that it has "novel battery chemistry". I'd give it up to a year, and even then you'd probably be experiencing much lower capacity by the end of the year, but that's my rough guess. I'm also a bit surprised that it's deemed safe for consumers and will be certified.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> No, it can't charge _my_ phone in 1 Minute.</comment>


A Hard Transparency Choice: What Is WikiLeaks? - <AUTHOR> https://lawfareblog.com/hard-transparency-choice-what-wikileaks <comment><USER2> The US intelligence community (aka the Deep State) has a strongly vested interest in covering its tracks, which makes WikiLeaks a dangerous opponent, who must be shut down at any cost.</comment>


VMware Photon: Minimal Linux Container Host - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/vmware/photon

<comment><USER2> If vmware (the company) like money: just let me run containers on bare metal using your management tools.

People don't want containers on VMs. They just want containers. There are many reasons for that.

<comment><USER3> The vast majority of people who seem to want containers, are those who have embraced the idea that developers can manage servers because they can write (or copy) a Dockerfile and push a container to a container service on AWS or Google Cloud.

In those situations you specifically _do_ want containers on VMs because Docker containers do _not_ provide the same level of security and isolation that VMs do.

<comment><USER4> I recall watching a talk (given by @bcantrill I think it was?) where SmartOS had implemented the docker api, but ran the actual "container" via linux emulation, inside a zone. I think they named it "lx branded zones" or something similar.

I could see vmware doing something like that -- implementing the docker api, but actually running containers on very lightweight vms, so they can leverage their existing virt infrastructure (memory ballooning, cpu allocation, migration, etc) with it.

<comment><USER3> So you have a docker container inside Linux emulation inside a Solaris-style zone on a SmartOS host.

This is the opposite of "turtles all the way down" \- it's like a veritable layer cake of system isolation. It's the turducken of server systems.

<comment><USER4> Not quite. Docker is just the api. So you just have linux emulation (which is apparently some light weight api call mapping) inside a zone. So maybe ducken without the turd? ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Would be nice to have more detail on tyum, [https://github.com/vmware/photon/blob/master/docs/tyum.md](https://github.com/vmware/photon/blob/master/docs/tyum.md)

 _" a new, open-source, yum-compatible package manager that will help make the system as small as possible, but preserve the robust yum package management capabilities."_

</comment><comment><USER6> Seems like it's the realization of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_enough_operating_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_enough_operating_system)

To me, for this to be widely successful it should work well across any VM solution

</comment><comment><USER7> OS/360 says hi.

</comment><comment><USER8> _" It is designed to have a small footprint and boot extremely quickly on VMware platforms."_

Look's like it's only for the VMWare platform.

<comment><USER9> > Look's like it's only for the VMWare platform.

The README also says "An official Vagrant box is available on Hashicorp Atlas, to get started: vagrant init vmware/photon"[1] and they include instructions for Google Compute Engine[2]. It may be optimized to run on a VMware product, but doesn't seem that's a requirement.

[1] [https://github.com/vmware/photon](https://github.com/vmware/photon)

[2] [http://vmware.github.io/photon/](http://vmware.github.io/photon/)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where is that "Who's hiring" thread? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Since today is a holiday (New Year's Day), it should appear tomorrow, on the first business day of the month.

<comment><AUTHOR> ah, thanks. I had not realized it comes on the first business day, I just previously assumed it was the first day.

<comment><USER3> It used to be, but someone automated it now its the first business day, so people don't lose it if the 1st happens on a Saturday and they don't check it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Thank you guys! I will check on monday then!!</comment>


Coronavirus Contrarianism: The British strategy // Maybe I will go outside - <AUTHOR> https://andyljones.com/posts/covid.html <comment><USER2> There's another important reason for the British strategy; nobody else has tried it, or is trying it. We need to know if it works or not, so we have more information about how to tackle future epidemics. That kind of information is extremely valuable.</comment>