For more than six years, Amazon Web Services, the world’s largest cloud company, has provided technical support for Tiktok video delivery to tens of millions of Americans.
But on the weekend, Amazon faced a dilemma. A new law has entered into force by Tiktok, owned by Chinese byTedance, in the United States. Technology companies were forbidden to distribute it and inform it differently will face financial sanctions. At the same time, elected President Donald J. Trump told technology companies that he was planning to stop the law enforcement by executive decree.
A few hours before the prohibition came into force, Amazon appeared to comply with the law, according to a New York Times review on how to manage Tiktok’s online traffic. On the contrary, Akamai Technologies, a Massachusetts -based company that was already helping to deliver a Tiktok video on phones, has undertaken more technical support.
The change, highlighted by the digital criminology carried out by the Times, was one of the small maneuvers in the backstage that showed how technology companies have diverged in their approach to the Tiktok ban.
Apple and Google have also chosen to follow the law. They quickly removed Tiktok and other BYTEDance applications from their application stores. But Oracle, another technological giant, was still processing and serving Tiktok user data. Akamai and Fastly, which accelerate tiktok video editing times, were still doing so.
Schism highlights the dilemma imposed by Tiktok’s ban on major US technology companies: a risk of alienation of a plumbing president who made his support of Tiktok extremely public part of his inaugural policy or is in danger of violating federal law and billion dollars. Many legal experts have said that it is not clear whether Mr Trump’s executive decree protects companies from law penalties or possible lawsuits.
“On the one hand, you have this huge theoretical responsibility of up to $ 850 billion and on the other hand, you have the potential benefits to comply with Trump’s wishes and be in good grace,” said Neil Souri, a analyst of her Capstone. Political Research Company.
Technology companies made a different assessment of this risk. Apple did not believe that Mr Trump’s executive decree would be enough to bypass her responsibility to follow the law, according to two people who spoke to Apple representatives about her plans but were not allowed to speak publicly. Google made a similar decision, said one of these people, who also spoke with its representatives, and a person who knows the company’s thinking.
Oracle and others were reluctant to violate Biden’s law, they said two people who participated in their jobs at the weekend who was not allowed to speak public – a basic reason that the application stopped operating for half the weekend. When the prohibition came into force.
But they believed that the promise of an executive decree by Mr Trump had new power, pushing them to help the application restart its functions in the United States, people said.
Amazon, Fastly and Tiktok did not respond to commentary requests. Google, Apple, Oracle and Akamai refused to comment.
Different reactions appear to be driven by money, politics and fear.
Apple and Google were under vigorous checks in the weeks before the Tiktok ban. They control the software that supplies millions of American smartphone.
They also have a financial interest in implementation, as they benefit from the use of Tiktok in -application payments. Last year, Apple received $ 354 million in charges from Tiktok, while Google received $ 63 million, according to Appfigures, a market research company focusing on the application industry. This was mainly done through digital coins in Tiktok that users can buy and donate to creators who like it, the company said.
However, the abolition of the application will be in line with the positions Apple and Google have taken around the world in the past to follow the laws of the countries where they operate.
And it was likely that Tiktok could survive for several months without their support. Over the years, Tiktok has shifted much of the application operation to servers, mainly executed by Oracle, so that it is less based on smartphone software, said Ariel Michaeli, founder of Appfigures. He also said he also informed the application in the days before the ban, providing the latest version at the last possible time.
Oracle and Akamai have told investors that they are going to lose significant sales and profits if they stop hosting and distributing Tiktok content.
They also play critical roles by ensuring that the Tiktok application is functional. If they stop working with Tiktok, the application would not work and follow out. Much of the internet exploded on Saturday and Sunday, when Tiktok darkened for a while.
Oracle also has a unique close relationship with Mr Trump and Tiktok. Larry Eliason, founder and technology head of the company, joined Mr Trump for a statement on Tuesday on a new $ 100 billion artificial intelligence initiative. At the event, Mr Trump said Elon Musk or Oracle could buy Tiktok and stressed his “right to make an agreement”.
Oracle is also working with Tiktok to store sensitive US user data and is in talks with Tiktok to help examine the company’s video proposals in the United States as part of a wider security plan.
Amazon’s role was small but important. It hosted a critical piece of data, called the Sector Name Archive, which directs hundreds of millions of web browsers and smartphone applications to Tiktok servers.
But the consequences of violating the law, which was passed with broad bipartisan support in Congress and unanimously validated by the Supreme Court, may be painful. Oracle and other companies could take on new responsibility based on the executive mandate, they say legal experts. Mr Trump could change his mind or enforce the law against companies that fall favorably and a future government could later impose financial sanctions in accordance with the law timetable, they say.
Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas and Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, made calls to some major technology companies last week to say that they had to comply with law. He told X that they could face “hundreds of billions of dollars of catastrophic responsibility by law”, not only by the federal government but also if the State Attorney Generals move to impose it or if the shareholders are sued for the decision to violate it. .
Senator John Thune, a Southern Dakota Republican and a leader of the majority, said this week that “law is law” and “ultimately should be respected”.
A group of Tiktok users or social media companies such as Meta or Snap could also exercise lawsuits against the executive decree. Users could argue that the US government is insufficiently protecting their data by failing to apply the statutes, Capstone analysts wrote, saying that this was the most likely type of treatment.
“Oracle accounts for the possibility of being responsible is quite a few,” said Mr Suri of Capstone. “Obviously, Apple and Google have not done this account. This is a matter that they see differently the risk-reaction. “
David McKEib and Nikos Grand He contributed to the report.
