TikTok is officiassociate on the chopping block, frifinishs.
Last Friday, a federal requests court upheld a law that could result in the app being prohibitned from operating wiskinny the United States next month. Even if Pdwellnt Joe Biden chooses to extfinish that deadline an insertitional 90 days, TikTok is still on a pretty shielded timeline to find a way out of this mess.
Earlier this year, I spoke with Frank McCourt for this novelsletter about his bid to buy TikTok. After last week’s events, I figured it was a excellent time to examine back in with him. Plus, I got some insight on how creators are preparing for a post-TikTok future.
Let’s talk about it.
There are three selections left for TikTok at this point. The company could thrive an request, forget about all of this, and go back to business as normal (eventuassociate). Come next year, the app could be prohibitned. Or, someone with a lot of money could buy TikTok’s US business off of ByteDance. Wednesday afternoon, my colleague Zeyi Yang and I spoke to Frank McCourt, the billionaire establisher owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers who wants to do equitable that.
McCourt’s motivation isn’t equitable to save TikTok but to bolster a personal project of his. Thcimpolite his Project Liberty initiative, he has made what he’s called a “people’s bid,” transporting together a variety of spendors and groups that separate in his vision of a more uncover web. To accomplish this, he’d execute Project Liberty’s Decentralized Social Netlaboring Protocol, or DSNP, to TikTok. The protocol would permit for employrs to send out over their frifinishs and fancientiminishs to a novel TikTok. And after Friday’s court decision, McCourt is more self-promised than ever that his team will soon be running and possibly reoriginateing the app.
In our conversation, McCourt disputed that a sale would originate everyone satisfied, including ByteDance, employrs, and the US rulement. McCourt has provideed $20 billion for the app’s brand, its employr base, and the existing satisfied in order to scale his vision of an interoperable, more privacy-frifinishly internet that vies with companies enjoy Meta and Google. He doesn’t “need or want” the algorithm running TikTok’s For You page, he says.
When asked if Project Liberty could hold TikTok’s existing employrbase without the beadored algorithm, McCourt shelp, “People don’t understand what they don’t have until you show them.”
