Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

No, he can't. Congress would have to revoke it. But it has bipartison support. So its just more of the same charade BS that he rants on about. Its all nonsense from him. It will be worse this time around bc he is not all there (even moreso than 2016). The next 4 yrs are going to be quite comical. He can't even control his bowels and he has to wear diapers to stop leaking.



I'm no fan of trump, but the law explicitly states that the president can exempt a platform.

> The Act exempts a foreign adversary controlled applica- tion from the prohibitions if the application undergoes a “qualified divestiture.” §2(c)(1). A “qualified divestiture” is one that the President determines will result in the appli- cation “no longer being controlled by a foreign adversary.” §2(g)(6)(A).

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-656_ca7d.pdf


Carry on with that:

> The President must further determine that the divestiture “precludes the establishment or maintenance of any operational relationship between the United States operations of the [application] and any formerly affiliated entities that are controlled by a foreign adversary, including any cooperation with respect to the operation of a content recommendation algorithm or an agreement with respect to data sharing.”

The content recommendation algorithm is TikTok. It is developed in China by Chinese engineers. There is no lawful way for TikTok to operate under this law, and the SC has completely failed by not considering this. It's a really lazy judgement.

Probably the outcome Congress was hoping for is that it gets sold to a US buyer who would operate TikTok with the technology under license, and everyone would just pretend that now it's operated by a US interest despite that being impossible. Like sure, they would be running the servers, but the code would largely still be written in China!

Edit: Actually it would be kind of worse, because thinking about it TikTok has a lot of engineers outside China now, so how would it even work? Would they fork the code and then that would be it? It's such a crazy proposition.


Real time content recommendation algorithm can be rebuilt from scratch relatively quickly (weeks). At the beginning it won't be as effective as current TikTok algorithm so iterations will be required but frankly treating algo like something that can only be done by Chinese engineers is silly.

When TikTok developed recommendations it was novel and on the frontier but now how it's done is much better understood and with GPUs availability can be implemented by any good ML team. Similar to Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and other, the secret sauce is content and users, not algorithm.


> the law explicitly states that the president can exempt a platform.

This feels like a fast track path to an oligarch system ? Pay enough and get your exception..


Concentrating power in the hands of the few is certainly a good way to get an oligarchy, which is what the "checks and balances" system of the US government is supposed to prevent. It's strange to see so many people wanting the president to have more authority and power, but I guess it's a response to Congress's reputation of being dysfunctional and refusing to compromise.


What kinda system is it currently?


As of 2024, a representative strong-executive democracy with a large authoritarian leaning and an unhealthy obsession with oligarch-worship.

In 2028, who knows. The current president told his supporters that in four years, they won't need to vote anymore, whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean.


A Democratic Republic


Not since a year or two after Citizens United.

Also, in case you didn't notice, the world's richest man just about bought the presidential election by spending over a quarter billion dollars.




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: