MTP readers will not be surprised at the Executive Order relating to Tencent and one of its apps called “WeChat.” The WeChat app has long been considered a tool of censorship associated with China’s Ministry of State Security and the Chinese Communist Party. Most prominently, WeChat was linked to action taken by the ruling Chinese […]
The walls appear to be closing in on TikTok (or as it’s becoming known, TikSoft). This is probably particularly galling to the founder of Bytedance (TikTok’s parent company). Zhang Yiming worked at Microsoft but left in 2008. Mr. Zhang is launching a Google-style reaction and deflection campaign against the U.S. Government’s standard Committee on Foreign […]
You may have heard that the massive copyright infringer TikTok is going to be sold. I seriously doubt that’s what’s going on at all. It’s not a “sale” in any normal sense. It’s a fire sale at best. You’ve heard the (sexist) expression in mergers and acquisitions circles, put some lipstick and stockings on that […]
The U.S. Congress has finally gotten around to examining the monopoly power of Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple. We will no doubt hear many stories of how these companies promote or restrict competition, exploit slave labor in China, run sweatshops in the U.S. and of course control the media message for political candidates. We will […]
In their first at bat in Washington, the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) and the National Independent Talent Organization (NITO) have hit a home run. Way to go, sluggers! The two newly-created organizations have gotten two senior Senators to come together to co-sponsor the Save Our Stages Act. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and Senator Amy […]
TikTok seems more likely to be shut down in the US with every passing day. How could this actually happen and what would “shut down” actually look like?
Pick up the phone and call Senator Ron Wyden at the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Tell him to take his hold off of S. 1273. And then ask your senators to support S. 1273 the CASE Act.
There’s an easy answer to why TikTok has been banned in so many places and may well yet get banned in the US: China’s “National Intelligence Law.” China’s National Intelligence Law was enacted on June 27, 2017 and came into effect in July 2017. The National Intelligence Law is part of a portfolio of statutes […]
Sometimes the big money executives at corporations are referred to pejoratively as “corporate royalty.” The nauseating Daniel Ek caused Spotify to grant him supervoting stock and he used it to make himself President for Life. Vlad will love it.
A performance metric one hears from the digerati is the term “conversion rate.” “Conversion rate” for a streaming service usually means the rate at which users of an ad-supported free service are “converted” to paying users. That motivation is usually because they are so fed up with the advertising they are willing to pay. […]
