Many American civil liberties organizations think that the the ban is a free speech issue:

https://action.aclu.org/send-message/tell-congress-no-tiktok...

https://www.thefire.org/news/fire-scotus-tiktok-ban-violates...

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/eff-statement-us-supre...

It seems to me that they aren't "pretending" they honestly believe the issue is about free speech. Laws that does not explicitly curtail free speech but effectively still does just that can certainly be created.

I keep seeing this type of comment here, like a sell is the obvious thing to do. Why? Selling / divesting TikTok US under these circumstances would surely not fetch the best price. In addition they would immediately create a global competitor that have the same product. Why would ByteDance the company or its investors want that?

In practice, US social networks usually promote content that is aligned with US cultural values and geopolitical interests. Whether this is because the government is actively leaning on them or just because being run by Americans colors them with those values, I don’t know. But the fact is, it’s not a coincidence that TikTok is the main place pro-Palestinian content was allowed to go viral, and it’s likely that changing owners would change the content on TikTok even if the law doesn’t actually require it to do so.

I'm not defending them here, but the laws in China prevent a sale, so technically they have a duty to uphold China's laws first before upholding their fiduciary responsibility. Same with any American company and following American laws.

> Their preference to shut down instead of receiving tens of billions of dollars would be a clear violation of a company’s fiduciary duty to shareholders for any normal company.

This is not strictly true - when a company leaves a huge market, it is imprudent to leave behind a well-resourced competitor in place. If I were a ByteDance shareholder, I'd hate if it spun off TikTok America LLC, and then having TikTok America compete against ByteDance in Europe and the Rest of the world on an equal technological footing, but perhaps even deeper pockets from American markets.

I do not understand this line of argument. On the one hand there is a political decision to ban-or-annex a foreign company, on the other hand the reaction should not be political and in general political implications should not be discussed?

And if anything, if tiktok US is sold it will be way below its actual value, so there are many reasons to resist this apart from the political ones. And I assume they expect they will come to a concession in the first place.

Bytedance is privately held. With a 20% stake by founders and employees. Divesting according to the bill terms would have them giving away portion of their most precious IP that is the fyp recommendation system. Any reasonable company would refuse to totally divest and create a competitor just because a government said so. Also TikTok makes money for advertizing to the entire world not just the US.

>Their preference to shut down instead of receiving tens of billions of dollars would be a clear violation of a company’s fiduciary duty to shareholders for any normal company.

Would you argue for Tesla or Apple to sell to China? Do you think Musk would divest his China business? The parallels are almost identical

1. Tesla cars collect a huge amount of data.

2. Tesla is already banned from being driven by government officials.

3. Tesla has the best self driving algorithm

4. Chinese cars are already banned in the US

5. China is Tesla's second largest market

6. Tesla is the 3rd largest EV company in China

Would you be surprised if Elon decided to exist China instead of "receiving tens of billions of dollars" from China?

Except now they get to remain the owners and they don’t have to sell at fire sale prices, so it turned out to be the best possible outcome for their shareholders.

> Their preference to shut down instead of receiving tens of billions of dollars would be a clear violation of a company’s fiduciary duty to shareholders for any normal company.

It is not. A company would be (financially) punished if it didn't follow regulations. DiDi was an example. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/23/investing/didi-us-delisti...

I’m not arguing it’s a restriction on TikTok’s speech or bytedance’s speech.

It’s a restriction on my speech. Telling me where I can publish a video? Telling me what apps I can download? Telling my software vendor what software they’re allowed to let me get? Telling internet providers what servers they’re allowed to let my device access?

The law doesn’t fine TikTok. The law fines the people who let me download an application I’ve chosen to use. At $5,000 per instance.

It’s not about TikTok’s rights being violated. It’s about mine, and yours.

Interesting position. I wonder if another country could just force Musk to divest himself of Twitter in the same way. Could solve a lot of headaches that way. Maybe the EU could force the issue.

> Their preference to shut down instead of receiving tens of billions of dollars would be a clear violation of a company’s fiduciary duty to shareholders for any normal company

This is only true if you assume the US is the only market that matters. But TikTok is very much an international phenomenon, and selling would likely harm the company far more than a couple billion. Firstly it would give another company everything they need to run a global competitor to TikTok, including software, infrastructure and userbase. Secondly it might encourage other countries to also force TikTok to sell.

Giving in here would be the beginning of the end of TikTok and could well be argued to be a violation of the company's fiduciary duty to shareholders. It would be the ultimate version of chasing short-term gains by selling the long-term future.

Rep Mike Gallagher, the sponsor of the bill, published this op-ed making it sound like a speech issue: https://www.thefp.com/p/tik-tok-young-americans-hamas-mike-g...

Personally, I am more concerned about people pretend it is not.

"Shut down in the US" not shut down everywhere, if I'm not mistaken. It also doesn't seem like an obvious violation of their fiduciary duty. The eventual growth in all other jurisdictions could easily be claimed to be worth more than the sale price, and it could also be argued that selling to US holders would harm the platform internationally.

This does not make sense, it is like saying that requiring bezos to sell his newspapers is not a free speech issue (I might or might not support such action as I am not a free speech absolutist)

Fifuciary duty to shareholders is one of the most pernicious forces against progress there is.

The short term "number go up" mentality is breeds is a cancer.

"You may speak if..."

Is a freedom of speech issue.

You should talk to the ACLU. Get them straighten out.

https://action.aclu.org/send-message/tell-congress-no-tiktok... https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/banning-tiktok-i...

What would happen if Brazil says they would ban X if Elon Musk didn't divest from it?

This is a shakedown and violation of property rights.

Another free speech interpretation: the right to assemble. I cannot assemble with the group of people I once was with TikTok gone

I'm not buying this drivel - the company stands to make way more than one rushed and limited buyout would garner.

Your argument is a false dichotomy, and it's made in bad faith. You argue that they should have taken a 10B pay day, meanwhile they are alive today and arguable worth over 100B.

That would be if they were American, even if they were not Chinese, not every country puts shareholders capitalism above everything else a company is suppose to decide upon.

>"Their preference to shut down instead of receiving tens of billions of dollars would be a clear violation of a company’s fiduciary duty to shareholders"

I am shedding tears for those poor shareholders.

> pretending that the TikTok law is a speech issue

A lot of folks here are saying that the TT ban had nothing to do with free speech. A couple of indirect rhetorical questions that might be relevant to help illuminate opinions about TT:

1. If there were a single newspaper (in the pre-internet era) that developed and printed a lot of reporting with a particular political outlook and was the home of many columnists known for being the premier thinkers with that outlook, and a law were passed that had nothing to do with the content but had the effect of shutting down that paper, and only that paper, would this be a speech issue?

2. If a political rally were assembling to petition for redress of their grievances, and a law were passed that told them they could say what they wanted but the rally was only allowed to occur in a specific field 30 miles outside the city and 3 miles from the nearest paved road, would this be a speech issue?

3. Given that deadtree-books-in-physical-libraries are not the primary point of reference for most people anymore, if you wanted to block access to certain kinds of information and/or make a statement about doing so, what action would you take in the 21st century to do the equivalent of a book burning? And would this be a speech issue?

There are obvious and easy things you can point out about how the TT law is different from each of those three scenarios, don't @ me about that. But it seems to me that most people who are serious (or, publicly serious, which is a little different) about supporting the TT ban give reasons for it that would be inconsistent with their answers to one or more of those three questions.