Oracle’s TikTok deal accomplishes nothing

https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/14/21436035/tiktok-oracle-deal-bytedance-president-trump-safety

97 69 6 years ago

"That makes it less of a sale and more of a glorified hosting deal. It lets Trump say he’s solved the problem but doesn’t do much else."

This is exactly the first thing that popped into my mind when I read about the deal.

vezycash2• 6 years ago

Used the app for a few days, and realized that keeping TikTok out of the hands of US tech companies is best for the users.

1. Registration not needed - without nagging. First thing Microsoft would have done is to require signup to use.

2. (Most important) copyright hunters will have a harder time ruining the experience.

3. Includes the ability to DOWNLOAD videos! (this blows my mind. I mean, consider the cat and mouse game google and others play to make video downloads difficult/impossible)

nikkwong3• 6 years ago

Yeah. This kind of interface problem is absolutely mind blowing to me. iOS especially always feels almost dumb enough to be unusable to me in comparison with my computer. For example, the other day I just wanted to download an Mp3 to my phone so I'd be able to play it at night with the cellular network turned off.

It ended up taking almost an hour to figure out. Downloading a file to the filesystem is nigh impossible on iOS, and there are no native apps which helped with the problem. I had to jump from questionable app to questionable app until one would let me "paste a youtube link in" which eventually worked; albeit, it still won't let me play my new song in the native music app! It feels like user hostility and it surprises me that this behavior doesn't drive more people wild.

oarsinsync• 6 years ago

It feels like user hostility and it surprises me that this behavior doesn't drive more people wild.

It does. The issue is that the alternative brings its own set of user hostile behaviour. At least this devil I already know.

phnofive• 6 years ago

This may not be your point, but I want to point out the VLC app on iOS provides a target for saving files, including mp3, for offline playback.

https://ytmp3.cc/ provides a general purpose online youtube to mp3/mp4 conversion service with no fee or registration.

arafa• 6 years ago

If you have Spotify, you can also do this through offline syncing, but it's annoying to figure out. Less dodgy than this solution, though.

https://support.spotify.com/us/article/Listen-to-local-files...

Spotify has pretty low-level access to playing music on iPhones.

formerly_proven• 6 years ago

Try using a mp3 or whatever as a ringtone or alarm tone. Laughs We don't do that around here. I'm not even sure you can buy extra ringtones from the app store. Think different. And with different I mean e unison.

dlivingston2• 6 years ago

I’m not sure exactly what you tried, but it’s actually quite easy to download a file to the Files app.

As a quick sanity check: use something like YoutubeToMP3 [0] to generate an audio file. Then, clicking the URL of that MP3 will prompt a download modal that will save straight to the Downloads folder in Files - right from Safari.

[0] https://ytmp3.cc/

cocktailpeanuts• 6 years ago

1. Registration not needed - without nagging. First thing Microsoft would have done is to require signup to use.

The account-less app alone tracks way more than what microsoft could ever track with all their account systems.

shadowtree• 6 years ago

MS own LinkedIn ... I think you'd be surprised.

vezycash2• 6 years ago

The account-less app alone tracks way more than what microsoft could ever track with all their account systems.

I'm using TikTok lite.

TikTok only requested STORAGE permission when I wanted to save a video. That's all.

Tubemate - one of those youtube apps requires: Read phone state and location permissions. Won't launch without it.

coronasaurus• 6 years ago

Provide some evidence for that statement, please.

zwieback• 6 years ago

The current government being Ellison-friendly probably helps this deal over some other possible configurations.

take_a_breath• 6 years ago

Maybe the opposite is true? Ellison being administration-friendly acted as a stalking horse and gets the deal because it doesn't really change TikToc's business, but makes for a campaign press-release.

Ericson2314• 6 years ago

Wishful thinking, but I hope ByteDance could somehow make Lary Ellison miserable out of this. Now that would be Justice.

nine_zeros• 6 years ago

It does SOMETHING.

It paves the way to normalizing corruption from the highest level in America. This means businesses with US operations (US businesses as well as foreign businesses) will forever be aware of this corruption and try to curry favor with the highest levels. If they don't curry favor, they will find other ways or simply avoid the American market. This means America is now more like third world democracies than a real pioneer of freedom.

Thus, the deal accomplished something that forever scars business in the US.

Pokepokalypse• 6 years ago

Like Joker said; "it's about sending a message."

leptons• 6 years ago

That makes it less of a sale and more of a glorified hosting deal. It lets Trump say he’s solved the problem but doesn’t do much else. [from the article]

Trump is in every way no different than a 3rd world dictator. And this is just yet one more way.

DudeInBasement2• 6 years ago

It's not Trump, it's presidential powers.

Over time, the congress has 'delegated' more and more powers to the president making the US more and more a revolving dictatorship.

modeless• 6 years ago

Exactly. It's a handout to Trump's buddy Larry Ellison, and it screws perceived political opponent Google by canceling a big existing cloud contract. Trump has to love everything about this deal. But that isn't the worst part.

The worst part is that this screws the future of the open internet by establishing precedent for segregating everything by country. The US was probably the biggest force supporting a global network without borders. Now that's all hypocrisy. The future of the internet is clear, if it wasn't before: Great Firewalls around every country. It will be really bad for Silicon Valley as a whole and that's yet another reason for Trump to love this deal. He's building a wall on the internet too.

Firebrand• 6 years ago

Is there anyone that comes out worse from the U.S. + China TikTok saga than Kevin Mayer?

He left leading Disney's streaming division after being passed over for CEO to become Bytedance's COO and CEO of TikTok, only to leave three months later during the company's toughest time.

Now we learn Bytedance isn't actually selling its operations to Oracle and the the most valuable startup in the world marches on to market dominance without him. Huge reputation hit.

blackrock• 6 years ago

This might just save Bytedance/TikTok. Any word on when they will go public?

Their TikTok app sort of has first-mover-advantage in the new realm of AI-recommendation-engine that actually is worthwhile. Their AI algorithm is the key.

Netflix and YouTube uses the same algorithm for video recommendations, but to be honest, that implementation is not as relevant in adding more value to those companies.

genericacct• 6 years ago

I'm an avid tt user but frankly their algo is little more than "show them videos from their area". They used to allow you to ignore videos from certain users but the feature was retired. Their recommendation engine is on the same level as youtube's and probablt not as good as spotify's algo.

As I've said before: try using tiktok and tapping "not interested" on any food video that comes up. After a month of doing this they will still show you food videos in the fyp.

Their feed is extremely edited by their moderators and AI has very little to do with it.

Barrin92• 6 years ago

Was there ever any information on what specifically made him leave? I can't imagine he was completely unaware of the fact that there are tensions around TikTok and that it would impact his job.

wombatmobile2• 6 years ago

The deal saves face for the president, and moves American business culture a step in the direction of China's.

g42gregory• 6 years ago

I would like to understand if Oracle gets to see the user data. If yes, that might be a good deal for them because the data, especially at such large scale, is very valuable.

In this case, they would not need TikTok's algorithms, as they can develop/train their own from TikTok's data.

If Oracle can not see the user data, then it's just a glorified hosting deal, as people mentioned.

Spivak2• 6 years ago

I mean that’s still a pretty good deal for Oracle since they could use a high-visibility customer that uses Oracle’s cloud.

jmpman• 6 years ago

And eliminates TikTok from Google cloud.

tschwimmer• 6 years ago

I don't understand why the Verge is framing this as likely to be approved. It seems like the Gov't. told Bytedance to divest from US Operations, Bytedance refused to divest and instead set up this trusted tech partner thing, which means that no IP will be change hands and control will still be maintained.

This deal seems not to meet the requirements set out by the US Gov't. Have the goalposts been moved or will this deal be rejected?

intellirogue• 6 years ago

Ellison is a large donor to the Trump campaign, so they're probably willing to move the goalposts for him.

evan_3• 6 years ago

It will be approved, the goal was to put it in a place where the US government (read: trump goons) could control and monitor it, and Oracle is such a place. Larry Ellison is a huge trump donor so there’s zero chance it gets held up.

joncrane2• 6 years ago

So this is basically telling China:

Hey we know you're spying using TikTok. Share the tool you use to spy so we can see, too.

China said: OK fine but you can only spy on your own citizens. Plus we also still get to.

Is that right?

Finnucane• 6 years ago

There were no goalposts.

znpy• 6 years ago

Nothing except Larry Elison being able to say "Heeeyyy... How do you do, fellow kids?"

trident1000• 6 years ago

As others have pointed out this deal is absurd. Its not about user data its about manipulation of the US populous through unknown algos by the Chinese Communist Party. They're all over western social media as well with cells and bots. Both things should be dealt with.

pphysch3• 6 years ago

It actually accomplishes the 1-2 goals of the operation:

* Political win for Trump being "hard on China"

* Paycheck for Trump's donor Ellison

Let's not pretend that there was any legitimate national security threat coming from the funny video app. That was and is a yellow peril fantasy from the outset.

lawnchair_larry3• 6 years ago

You’re very wrong on the security threat. I think people just like to dismiss anything if Trump also said it. Nobody should be using TikTok and we have said this for a while.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne...

https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/26/reddit-ceo-tiktok-is-funda...

Talanes2• 6 years ago

One of your sources is literally just a competitor making baseless accusations.

adrr2• 6 years ago

China can just buy people's data from any data broker in the US. Oracle sells people's credit card data. Mobile providers sell people's location data. What unique security threat does Tiktok pose that isn't already possible through use of cash and legal channels.

pphysch3• 6 years ago

These allegations apply to virtually every social media SaaS.

You're fooling yourself if you think this TikTok debacle is anything but an desperate assault on a foreign company by sinophobes and competitors. And Trump's capitulation confirms that!

Syntoniclese• 6 years ago

I keep seeing posts like this but they don't go into detail. What sort of data could they be getting, and why would they want it? Is the Android sandbox ineffective?

anaganisk• 6 years ago

As if US based companies dont snoop on data at all, dude big G and F has more data about anyone than any other company in the world.

sarah180• 6 years ago

"It lets Trump say he’s solved the problem but doesn’t do much else."

If you're in ByteDance's shoes, this sounds like a perfect counteroffer to the US government position. If you believe the US concern might be more politics than governance, you offer a solution that gives a political win with minimal operational impact.

qtplatypus• 6 years ago

Didn't Oracle get founded to supply the CIA with data management technology?

Oracle’s TikTok deal accomplishes nothing

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