TechScape: No WhatsApp in China, no TikTok in the US, and the return of Llama | Technology | The Guardian
TechScape: No WhatsApp in China, no TikTok in the US, and the return of Llama | Technology | The Guardian
In this week’s newsletter: While Apple removed the platform from App Stores without a squeak of public protest, its battle with the EU rages on. Plus, how a ban in the US could change TikTok everywhere
While Apple removed the platform from App Stores without a squeak of public protest, its battle with the EU rages on.
"When an authoritarian regime tells Apple what it can do with the App Store, the company’s response is a curt single paragraph. When a democratic union tries to do the same, the response is vociferous and negative."
This is the best summary I could come up with:
No defender of the Digital Markets Act would be too happy to stare Apple in the eye and demand to be treated like the Chinese Communist party.
To avoid the appearance of passing a bill of attainder (a piece of legislation specifically targeting an individual, generally looked down upon in the English legal tradition from which US governance descends), it covers TikTok and any other service “controlled by” a “foreign adversary” deemed to be a security risk at the determination of the president.
The “world wide web” isn’t a misnomer, and although there remain geographic differences in which services are popular where, as a general rule, American voices will dominate.
It seems unlikely that American TikTok will be wiped out by any ban – the number of compulsive users willing to hack their devices, use web apps or simply never uninstall the service means there will be always be posters stateside.
Some portion of the content they would have wanted to watch will no longer be there, and much of the rest will be in reposts, arriving late and shorn of any connection with their original creators.
I still think the most likely outcome is that we never find out, and some combination of money, lobbying and protest means that an arrangement is found that maintains access to TikTok.
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Clearly it’s amusing to see the difference in compliance when China wants something or when Europe wants something else😅