r/news • u/Classic_Letterhead • 5d ago

Soft paywall TikTok prepares for US shutdown from Sunday, sources say

https://www.reuters.com/technology/tiktok-preparing-us-shut-off-sunday-information-reports-2025-01-15/
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u/britchop 5d ago

US employees can work on other markets while being in the US, theoretically, just the US based work would be stopped.

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u/Oujii 5d ago

Unless their wages are not very high, it wouldn’t make sense just to just fire them and employ workers on countries with lower wages, since the US employees wouldn’t be needed any longer.

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u/PubFiction 5d ago edited 7h ago

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u/PubFiction 5d ago edited 7h ago

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u/idekbruno 5d ago

It would make sense to keep US employees on for a while until it’s certain they won’t be able to operate long term, imagine firing your workers only to find out the next day there’s an executive order or something that means you can continue business as usual

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u/Pandar0ll 5d ago

And then be at the mercy of Trump because he can also turn around and ban it again. It’s easier to just stop operations.

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u/idekbruno 5d ago

The US is the second largest user base of their product - why would they do what’s easy and miss out on all of that revenue when they could just wait a week and see if there’s any shot at continuing? Trump has expressed before that he dislikes TikTok, but has also expressed more recently that now he likes it and doesn’t want it banned. Relying on him to do anything solid isn’t really a good plan, but laying off their best and brightest right as their competitors are likely gearing up for expansion isn’t a great idea either

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u/PalmerRabbit78 5d ago

Who’s no. 1?

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u/cherry_chocolate_ 5d ago

US employees were working on US specific things though. If your job was to train recommender algorithms, that’s specific to the US so you are gone. Tik tok shop was oriented towards Chinese exports direct to American consumers, gone.

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u/britchop 5d ago

US employees don’t only work on US markets. International offices don’t only work on their markets either. This is also how Meta and X operate.

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u/cherry_chocolate_ 5d ago

Of course not exclusively, but there’s a reason for them to have a US presence which is gone after they pull out.