图片来源：TOM WILLIAMS—CQ/ROLL CALL, INC/GETTY IMAGES
TikTok's fate has entered the countdown: US President Joe Biden has just signed a bill that would require TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, to either sell the popular social media app or face a ban.
The TikTok divestment bill was stuffed into a $95 billion foreign aid bill, allowing it to pass Congress quickly. TikTok has vowed to file a lawsuit against the bill, which the company argues is effectively restricting free speech.
The passage of the legislation reflects long-standing bipartisan concerns about the Chinese threat and ownership of TikTok, which now has 170 million users in the United States. For years, lawmakers and government officials have feared that the Chinese government would influence Americans by forcing ByteDance to hand over U.S. user data or suppressing or promoting certain content on TikTok. TikTok has repeatedly denied the allegations and insisted that the U.S. version of the app is segregated from the Chinese mainland version.
The bill does not call for an outright ban on TikTok. Compared to the original version of the bill, the revised bill extends the deadline and gives ByteDance 270 days to sell the app to buyers who have no ties to any foreign adversary in the United States. If the sale is in progress, it may also be extended for another three months. If ByteDance does not agree to the sale, TikTok will be removed from the app store.
The bill would also prohibit ByteDance from controlling TikTok's secret weapon, the algorithm that recommends videos based on user interests, the same algorithm that has helped make TikTok a trendsetting social platform.
Many opponents of TikTok's divestiture bill argue that the best way to protect U.S. consumers is to fully enforce federal data privacy laws for all companies, regardless of the country they are from. They also noted that the U.S. side has provided no public evidence that TikTok shares U.S. user information with the Chinese government, and that there is no evidence that Chinese officials have interfered with TikTok's algorithm.
"Banning TikTok would be an extraordinary move, and it would require extraordinary reasons," said Becca Branham, deputy director of the Washington-based Center for Democracy & Technology, which advocates for digital rights. "Extending the divestiture period neither demonstrates the urgency of the threat to the public nor addresses the fundamental constitutional flaws of this legislation. ”
China has previously said it would oppose the forced sale of TikTok, and this time it is also adamantly opposed. TikTok has long denied that there is a security threat, and the company has had some success in court challenges but has not tried to prevent federal legislation from going into effect.
In November, a federal judge rejected Montana's statewide law banning the use of TikTok after the company filed a lawsuit against five content creators who used the TikTok platform. Three years earlier, in 2020, then-U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning TikTok, after the company filed a lawsuit on the grounds that the ban violated free speech and due process rights, after which a federal court halted the ban.
Trump, who ran for president again this year, has now said he opposes a potential ban.
Since then, TikTok has been in talks with the mysterious Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States over the company's future. The commission, which has been little-known, is primarily tasked with investigating corporate transactions for national security reasons.
On Sunday, Erich Anderson, a senior lawyer at ByteDance and a longtime leader in negotiations with the U.S. government, told the team that he was leaving.
"A few months ago, I began to reflect on the pressures I have experienced over the past few years, and the challenges ahead, and I decided it was time to hand over the baton to a new leader," Anderson wrote in an internal memo obtained by the Associated Press (AP). He said the decision to leave was entirely his own choice, having been made months ago after discussions with the company's senior leadership.
Who will be a potential buyer?
As one of the most popular social media apps in the world, potential buyers are ready to make an offer for TikTok in the face of the possibility of a possible forced sale. Here are the individuals and companies that have been linked to a potential deal with TikTok.
Steve Mnuchin
Last month, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin caused an uproar when he announced his intention to invite a group of investors to join forces to buy TikTok. Back in 2020, Mnuchin persuaded then-U.S. President Donald Trump to ban the Chinese company ByteDance from buying TikTok. He may have the deep pockets and business connections to make the deal: A career banker, he recently made headlines for helping the troubled company secure a $1 billion capital injection after its share price plummeted over investor concerns.
In an interview with CNBC, Mnuchin said: "I pushed President Trump to sign an order requiring TikTok to be sold, and I still think this legislation should be passed...... It's a great company, and we're going to invite a bunch of investors to join forces to buy TikTok. It should be owned by an American company. The Chinese will never let an American company have such a company in China. ”
Kevin O'Leary
"Shark Tank" star Kevin O'Leary announced in an interview with Fox News last month that he intends to make a bid if the bill passes. "If this order is passed, it will be forced to sell. I'll announce, 'I'm going to buy it.'" ’”
O'Leary said that if ByteDance sells TikTok, he thinks it's almost certain that the deal won't include a recommendation algorithm. This algorithm is the basis of its recommendation page and one of the company's most valuable assets. O'Leary said that it is for this reason, in part, that he will invite a group of investors to bid $20 billion to $30 billion. That's just half the value of the app's U.S. business, which Bloomberg recently estimated.
O'Leary told CNBC: "What you're getting is a valuable domestic brand, TikTok, and 170 million users, but no data...... It was the most complex deal in the social media space, and I had to develop a new algorithm. It's also an interesting deal and I'm interested. ”
Bob Kotick
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Bob Kotick, the former CEO of video game company Activision, has expressed interest in acquiring the app from ByteDance and discussed his ideas with ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming.
According to the report, Kotick has shared his thoughts with other tech company executives, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
However, ByteDance has denied the above news, saying that Zhang Yiming has not communicated with anyone about related matters.
Big tech companies
Other tech giants such as Microsoft, Oracle and Meta have long been considered potential buyers of TikTok. They have the money, and some companies have gotten their toes into the social media space. In addition, they have tried to acquire TikTok in the past: back in August 2020, Microsoft was considering acquiring TikTok, announcing in a blog post that "Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and U.S. President Donald J. After the J. Trump conversation, Microsoft is ready to continue discussions about acquiring TikTok's U.S. business." The deal later fell through when TikTok overturned Trump's order to force the sale in court.
Cloud computing provider Oracle has a long-standing business relationship with ByteDance, so there is speculation that it could be a potential buyer. In 2020, Oracle and Walmart partnered to bid for TikTok, but the deal fell through after a court rejected Trump's order. After criticism of data security norms by the Trump administration and other U.S. officials, TikTok launched the "Texas Project" in 2020, which would keep all U.S. users' data in separate U.S. data centers, rather than being transmitted through servers located in Virginia and Singapore.
TikTok selected Oracle to help with the Texas program calculations, and a report by UBS estimates that the partnership generated $1.5 billion in net revenue for Oracle. As part of the collaboration, Oracle reviewed TikTok's confidential source code, the proprietary and invaluable recommendation algorithm that drives the recommendation page.
But UBS, citing an anonymous former Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioner, said that TikTok could not be sold to a tech company due to antitrust concerns: "Whoever buys a controlling stake in TikTok cannot be a tech company; it will not be approved by regulators."
No one acquired
Even as President Biden signs the final bill, TikTok has announced that it will seek legal means to stop the company from being sold.
In a memo to the company's U.S. employees, Mike Beckman, TikTok's director of public policy for the Americas, said: "This is an unprecedented agreement between the Republican Speaker and President Biden. Once the bill is signed, we will sue the court. "This is the beginning, not the end, of this long process." ”
It's uncertain what form TikTok will file a lawsuit in, but it may primarily argue that banning the app violates First Amendment restrictions.
In addition to the crisis faced by TikTok and ByteDance themselves, the lives of content creators who rely on the short-form video app for revenue may also be affected. In recent weeks, TikTok lobbyists and hundreds of TikTok users have been in Washington to talk about their reasons for supporting the app's continued operations.
Debbie Gallo, a content creator in Los Angeles, told Axios: "My biggest concern is people's ability to connect with their subcultural groups. This is very important. ”
Tiffany Chianchi, a creator with more than 140,000 followers on TikTok, believes that TikTok is currently the safest platform for users because TikTok's Texas plan is spending $1.5 billion to store U.S. user data on servers owned and maintained by tech giant Oracle.
"If U.S. user data on TikTok isn't secure," she said. "I want to ask why the president is also using TikTok. (Fortune Chinese Network)
作者:DYLAN SLOAN,HALLELUJAH HADERO,美联社
Translators: Liu Jinlong, Xia Lin
Reviewer: Wang Hao
The 2024 Fortune China 500 list will be launched, using the same method as the Fortune Global 500, including both listed and unlisted companies. Based on this list and its data, one can get an idea of the latest trends in China's largest companies.
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