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[20200803_012617 UTC UTC Update 2:]
tl;dr version: Trump threatened to ban TikTok. Then Microsoft said it was in talks to buy TikTok. Then Microsoft said the talks were in doubt after Trump's threats. Now, Microsoft is "continuing discussions."
Microsoft to continue discussions on TikTok purchase after talking to Donald Trump:
After reports US President Donald Trump is considering an order to force Beijing-based tech company ByteDance to divest ownership of popular social-video app TikTok, Microsoft has announced it will be "continuing discussion" on a potential purchase of TikTok after a conversation between Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and the President.
"Microsoft fully appreciates the importance of addressing the President's concerns," said Microsoft, in a statement. "It is committed to acquiring TikTok subject to a complete security review and providing proper economic benefits to the United States, including the United States Treasury.
[20200802_144217 UTC Update 1; added:]
Microsoft pauses talks on TikTok US deal - reports:
A possible sale of Chinese-owned TikTok's US operations to Microsoft is reportedly on hold after Donald Trump vowed to ban the video-sharing app.
A sale was thought close to agreement, but was put in doubt after the US president's warning on Friday.
The Wall Street Journal said Microsoft had now paused talks despite TikTok owner ByteDance making last ditch efforts to win White House support.
It comes amid criticism of Mr Trump's threat as an attack on free speech.
[...] Late on Friday, Mr Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One: "As far as TikTok is concerned we're banning them from the United States."
[Original story follows.--martyb]
TikTok: Trump says he will ban Chinese video app in the US
President Donald Trump has announced he is banning the Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok in the US.
He told reporters he could sign an executive order as early as Saturday.
US security officials have expressed concern that the app, owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, could be used to collect the personal data of Americans.
[...] Microsoft has reportedly been in talks to buy the app from ByteDance, but Mr Trump appeared to cast doubt that such a deal would be allowed to go through. If the deal went ahead reports say it would involve ByteDance shedding TikTok's US operations.
A TikTok-Microsoft Deal Might Solve Everything (archive)
On Friday, Bloomberg News reported Trump plans to order ByteDance Ltd. to divest its ownership of TikTok. Then later in the afternoon, several media outlets reported Microsoft Corp. is in talks to purchase TikTok's U.S. operations.
[...] There seem to be two active bidders for the app. One is Microsoft. As for the other, Reuters reported earlier this week that some of Bytedance's U.S investors have proposed a bid for a majority stake of TikTok, valuing the company's non-China operations at $50 billion. The offer would be about 50 times TikTok's forecast sales of $1 billion this year, Reuters reported.
Previously: Bytedance: The World's Most Valuable Startup
Lawmakers Ask US Intelligence to Assess If TikTok is a Security Threat
TikTok and 53 Other iOS Apps Still Snoop Your Sensitive Clipboard Data
India Bans TikTok, WeChat, and Other Chinese-Owned Apps
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @02:51PM (43 children)
Antifa is a myth spread in DC. Maybe you mean the white nationalists who are setting for to courthouses?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @02:55PM (35 children)
You mean the patriotic Americans protecting our Christian heritage?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @03:02PM (8 children)
How is setting a courthouse on fire protecting our heritage? Trump is destroying the country, Biden knows how to fix it but can't get anything but negative coverage from the media.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @03:17PM (4 children)
Biden learned everything he knows from Obama. Biden's "fix" for America would be to send drones to wipe out all the Christian churches on Sunday morning while guaranteeing jobs for illegal immigrants.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @03:35PM
And from Neil Kinnock apparently.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @03:36PM
When did you ever see the inside of a church?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @03:38PM (1 child)
Biden is for law and order. His long and illustrious political career has shown he is in favor of strict drug laws, civil forfeiture, and segregation of the races to prevent "racial jungles". Vote for Biden if you want to feel safe and secure.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @11:49PM
Can you guarantee he'll send all the Blacks to Liberia? If so, he's electable since that's the best place to ensure their safety. #BLM
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @04:05PM (2 children)
WRONG WRONG WRONG.
Do not be under the illusion that these protests and riots are anything but an attempt to dismantle all of Western Civilization and upend centuries of tradition and freedom of religion.
https://www.christianpost.com/news/portland-rioters-burn-bibles-outside-federal-building.html
(Score: 4, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday August 02 2020, @08:52PM (1 child)
Good lord, christianpost.com owned by Liberty (sic) University.
What point are you trying to make? That the Falwells make a lot of money pouring lies into the brains of gullible young fools?
Fortunately several of the commenters on that awful site don't seem to be buying into their bullshit.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 03 2020, @02:05AM
Unfortunately, it's not just Falwell's fans who buy this BS. Americans have been Christian extremists for a long time. Basically what's going on in this country is that a significant minority of the population is abandoning this religious garbage, but another group at least as large is turning even more extremist as a reaction to this. It isn't going to end well. We should probably look at Iran for an example of how things will go here, combined perhaps with the former Soviet Union.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @03:18PM (17 children)
Somehow, American Christian heritage coexisted with— or even enabled— the American institution of slavery.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @04:10PM (4 children)
Well slow down there cowboy. There is zero evidence of racism in the Bible. It's not God's fault that the lesser races chose the path of sin and were tainted with a dark complexion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @04:55PM (2 children)
According to the Bible, "all the kings of the earth are controlled by the great whore."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @05:58PM (1 child)
That's why I follow King Neptune, King of the Sea.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday August 02 2020, @08:55PM
Bad news, Neptune has been sued by Poseidon for copyright violation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @08:58PM
That's Mormonism, you idiot! And the Church has apologized [sorrywatch.com].
(Score: 0, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 02 2020, @05:47PM (11 children)
And, American Christian heritage coexisted with and even enabled the Emancipation of slaves, not to mention women's suffrage, gay rights, and all the civil rights we enjoy today. Now, kindly pull your head out.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @06:40PM (3 children)
So it's completely amoral? I don't get your point.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 02 2020, @07:49PM (2 children)
It surprises you to learn that an amoral person might use moral teachings to justify his ends? FFS, Adolph Hitler could quote the Bible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @08:23PM (1 child)
Different AC, but you might want to look up "amoral" in a dictionary and compare it to "immoral." I think the GP was making a different point then you thought they did.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @09:00PM
We call this, "Runaway reading comprehension."
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @06:45PM (6 children)
They were different Christians who were pro-slavery (majority) and abolitionists (tiny minority).
The mainstream Christians, in the US, at the time, were far-right, as today. They were vehemently opposed to converting slaves to Christianity since their justification for slavery, at the time, was that the slaves were not Christians (yes, they quoted bible verse to support this assertion). Progressive Quakers, Shakers, etc. went against the mainstream far-right pro slavery church, and converted enslaved humans to Christianity. This was the origin of non-whiteness as a reason for being enslaved. The right-wing pro-slavery Christians invented race to continue to justify slavery.
Christianity (as it has been practiced in the Americas, Europe, and Australia) has been used to justify every sort of evil deed by its far-right practitioners. Some years ago, a far-right Christian church took to the streets protesting about the arrest of one of their members for beating the shit out of his children-- turns out the far-right Christians believe the bible says that parents should beat the fuck out of their children, and picketed with signs quoting bible verse they said supported this claim.
I tried to find a reference, but the google search just brought up page after page of Christian sexual abuse of children: https://www.google.com/search?q=christians++protest+church+member+being+arrested+for+child+abuse [google.com]
Chris Hedges (a progressive Christian, who went to seminary) refers to these far-right Christians as, "Christian-fascists". The far-right Christians were for enslaving humans, they were for genocide of the indigenous, and they have not changed their world view today-- these are Trump's base.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @07:38PM
Great summation, sadly that will require runaway to do some introspection thus he will completely ignore reality and continue speeing his preferred version of 'reality'.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 02 2020, @07:47PM (3 children)
You are looking for Proverbs 13:24
He that spareth his rod hateth his son: But he who loves him chasteneth him betimes.
Note that it says nothing about beating.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @10:35PM (2 children)
He that spareth his rod hath no son.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @10:56PM
He that beats his rod may not get one either.
(Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Monday August 03 2020, @12:42PM
He that spanketh his rod hath no son. FTFY
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday August 02 2020, @10:57PM
How mainstream abolitionism was depended a lot on where you were and when you're talking about, both within Christianity and in secular law. For example, the Quakers weren't universally anti-slavery until the late 1700's, mostly due to the influence of a fellow by the name of John Woolman who wrote a piece condemning slavery in the 1750's and convinced congregations one at a time to end it. Meanwhile, by the 1840's, lots of Christian sects were quite anti-slavery, including Methodists and Presbyterians, and it was common among Protestant revivalists of the Second Great Awakening. And of course John Brown was devoutly Christian.
But yeah, it's all driven by a moral idea that slavery is wrong. Which it is.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @03:51PM (7 children)
By "protect our Christian heritage" you mean to impose your Christian religious beliefs on everyone, even though violence if necessary. A lot of Christians say they vote for Republicans because of the abortion issue, citing the hundreds of thousands of abortions each year in the US. The number of abortions is in the hundreds of thousands per year and the volume of abortions is cited as why the issue takes precedence over others.
But these same Christians are obsessed with repealing Obamacare, taking away healthcare coverage from millions of people who may die from treatable conditions because they can't afford the care. These same Christians are willing to parrot Trump's lies about COVID-19, a disease that has already killed 150,000+ Americans and will kill far more before slowing. Most of these deaths are preventable by implementing restrictions that reduce the spread of the virus, but these Christians line up to support Trump's repeated attempts to undermine those restrictions. So those hundreds of thousands of abortions are a travesty to those Christians but not the huge number of Americans who will needlessly die from diseases that could have been treated or prevented. You'd think these "patriotic Americans protecting [their] Christian heritage" would do a better job even of something simple like following the Ten Commandments, but they are happy to ignore those when it suits their purpose.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @04:03PM
Inept medical care (misuse of ventilators, sending infected into nursing homes, telling people to stay home rather than visit their GP, failure to correct vitamin deficiencies, etc) killed probably 100k, 25k or so died as in a bad flu season, then the other 25k died with covid from falling into the Mississippi and getting eaten by a catfish, police kneeling on their necks, etc.
The next stage is the immunity to all the usual circulating pathogens starts disappearing due to excess sanitation/distancing. Some of these also provide cross immunity to covid, so we should also see that illness get more severe in the young. After that they will give out the rushed vaccine to minorities after only testing it on healthy people, the vast majority of whom are young. This should result in the deaths of another couple hundred thousand elderly, obese, etc individuals.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/09/us/coronavirus-vaccine.html [nytimes.com]
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 02 2020, @05:50PM (5 children)
The eleventh commandment, "Thou shalt wear a mask if thy neighbor is offended."
The twelfth commandment, "Thou should wear a mask while robbing stagecoaches, trains, or banks."
*rolleyes*
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday August 03 2020, @12:29AM (4 children)
1. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. (Matthew 22:39)
2. If thou not wearest a mask, thou hast increased the odds that thy neighbor will get sick with Covid-19. (nearly every doctor everywhere)
3. Getting someone sick with a disease with Covid-19 carries a substantial risk that they will be dead, or at the very least dealing with lifelong disability. (nearly every doctor everywhere)
4. Ergo, thou shalt wear a mask around thy neighbors.
The idea that following a doctor's recommendations was anti-Christian comes from those who are, in my estimation at least, breaking the First Commandment, choosing to follow false prophets that worship the idol of pieces of paper with the word "Dollar" on them.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @01:14AM (1 child)
Is this the same doctors who said not to wear masks in Feb/Mar and that we need to put everyone on ventilators right away without evidence for that treatment?
You need to hold bad decision makers responsible or they will keep hurting you and your family.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @05:10PM
That was about a mask shortage you dummy, they promoted wearing cloth masks. Also given Trump's Demon sperm doctor you can find all manner of educated idiots for a citation of stupidity. I never heard anyone say to put people on ventilators right away, that was for when their oxygen levels dropped dangerously low.
Sounds like you are listening to stupid talk shows who make a living off keeping you outraged, thus they spin minor things into grand conspiracies or scandals.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by tyler on Monday August 03 2020, @02:05PM (1 child)
The ten commandments were in the old testament. There is nothing in the 10 commandments about loving your neighbor. The only thing close is the last one that tells you not to envy your neighbor's stuff. There is actually more than one version of the ten commandments. In the book you cite, Jesus cursed a fruitless fig tree, which was out of season, because he was hangry. That book also has dialogue between Jesus and the devil. The book was allegedly written by a person who was not there to witness the dialogue. In Luke, Jesus told people to hate their family (Luke 14:26). I guess you are supposed to love your neighbor more than your family, but you can't envy them. According to the more commonly known set of 10 commandments, you are supposed to honor your parents. It must be hard to honor someone you are supposed to hate. I find the bible confusing.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday August 03 2020, @05:16PM
The 10 Commandments are specifically a section that Christians decided were the most important out of the 600+ commandments in the Torah. As for the "love thy neighbor" rhetoric, while there are certainly hints about that since you're not supposed to murder or rob or cuckold your neighbor, Jesus could also have picked that up from the Talmud, most famously Rabbi Hillel's summary of the Torah as "Love your neighbor, the rest is commentary."
As for that passage in Luke, I do have to wonder about the last part of that verse, where he says that Christians are supposed to hate their own life. I mean, that seems like the ultimate expression of conservative Christian thought which so often boils down to "My life sucks, so yours should too!"
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @03:37PM (5 children)
I see DNCDonkey's propaganda has taken seed.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @03:45PM (4 children)
Antifa is a myth spread only in Washington DC: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hzfx9cPCMhk [youtube.com]
This guy has access to classified materials and shit vs an anonymous individual on the internet. Who do you think has better information?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @03:46PM
Ah but you didn't deny the rest! Proof!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @04:43PM (1 child)
And he makes youtube movies based on that "classified information"? There truly is a shortage of brains.
Supposing the democrat lies were true, does Trump sending police to protect the courthouse against them lead to a logical conclusion that he is opposed to RWNJs? That wouldn't be strategic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @05:03PM
You think Jerry Nadler uploaded the video to YouTube?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @01:51AM
Anti-female? Where do I sign up?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @06:33PM
ok, Nadler. you lying Jew fuck.