TikTok laughs at a US ban

Thanks to everyone who subscribed after reading last week’s edition about my trip to the epicenter of the generative AI craze.

This week, I have the scoop from a big meeting inside TikTok after its high-profile DC hearing, where its top lawyer laughed out loud at the prospect of a US ban. Also: an interview with the CEO of Medium about why he’s bullish on Mastodon as the future of social media, Midjourney’s plan to ban “negative” images of public figures, and what Lyft’s new CEO is focused on.

After TikTok CEO Shou Chew’s plea to Congress, the question is whether the US government will actually attempt to ban the app or not. While plenty of smart people think a ban is likely, TikTok’s top lawyer thinks the idea is literally laughable.

During a recent all-hands meeting with TikTok’s US employees, general counsel Erich Anderson, who has been leading the company’s negotiations with the government, was asked what the contingency plan was if a ban were to happen. He audibly laughed at the question and outright dismissed the possibility of a ban, according to people who heard the remarks. He then went on to explain that TikTok was prepared to fight a ban in court if it had to, seemingly contradicting his initial reaction.

That kind of reaction from TikTok’s head of legal isn’t necessarily a surprise, though I’m told that his flippant tone caught some employees in the audience off guard. (For what it’s worth, Jennifer Banks, a spokesperson for ByteDance, told me Anderson was expressing his “personal views” and not the company’s.) In the meeting, he did not address the possibility of ByteDance spinning off TikTok to avoid a ban, which is something the White House recently signaled it wants to happen.

Anderson did speak on another topic TikTok’s US employees have on their minds: when they’ll finally be able to sell their ByteDance stock. When asked about a US share buyback, he said a plan was “coming along” and will hopefully be rolled out this year. While ByteDance has done buybacks over the years for its non-US employees, including two rounds last year alone, those in the US haven’t been able to participate. Since ByteDance isn’t publicly traded, many employees are sitting on significant stock awards they haven’t been able to cash out.

ByteDance confirmed that it is working on a solution but wouldn’t get into specifics. “There are several complex rules and related restrictions that determine regional eligibility in our RSU cash-out cancellation program,” according to Banks. “In the US, we use a common structure among private companies that limits our ability to accommodate a local program. We are actively exploring liquidity options for US employees, but there is no news to share at this time.”

Decentralized social media is a fast-moving, fascinating space. For now, Mastodon and the ActivityPub protocol it’s built on have the early lead, with companies like Mozilla, WordPress, and Flipboard building ways for their users to easily interact with the so-called fediverse.

Another company betting on Mastodon right now is Medium, the blogging platform started by Twitter co-founder Ev Williams that has raised over $150 million to date. Medium’s paid Mastodon server now has over 10,000 users, meaning it has roughly doubled in size since about 5,000 users were brought over from the waitlist at launch a month ago, according to CEO Tony Stubblebine. He hopes for the server, which is gated to Medium subscribers who pay $5 per month or $50 per year, to reach a six-figure user number later this year.

He imagines a world in which new users of Mastodon pick a server to join like we pick email providers today. The thinking is that early corporate entrants like Medium, which professionally hosts and moderates its server to ensure paying members aren’t plagued by the common problems that exist on amateur-run servers, will accrue benefits as the network grows.

Stubblebine took over as Medium’s CEO from Williams last summer. The two worked together over 15 years ago at Odeo, the podcasting startup that eventually morphed into Twitter. He told me that, while Elon Musk’s handling of Twitter certainly catalyzed interest in Mastodon, he thinks the platform has achieved enough scale to disentangled its future growth from whatever happens with Twitter. “There has always been this impulse in tech and media to seek greenfield opportunities,” he said. “And Twitter is just not a greenfield opportunity anymore.”

I’ve read arguments as to why Mastodon isn’t the technically superior protocol to be building social media experiences on. Jack Dorsey, for example, is betting on Nostr as the winning decentralized protocol (he has also given up on Twitter entirely, as his now monthslong-dormant account shows). Stubblebine’s view is that the tech itself isn’t as important as the critical mass of millions of users on Mastodon and the unique culture being built there. “I’m looking at all these interesting protocol ideas and I’m thinking that they don’t stand a chance because all of the adoption went to Mastodon,” he told me.

I’m not sure I agree that Mastodon has already won the decentralized social media wars, or that most people even want decentralized social media (they definitely don’t want to navigate servers). But I’m willing to entertain the idea. At the very least, Stubblebine rightfully pointed out that the energy around Mastodon is more exciting than what is happening on Twitter these days: “Mastodon feels like Twitter of 2009, which might actually have been my favorite time to be on Twitter.” It’s hard to argue with that.

I’m intrigued by what happens to Lyft after the sudden departures of its co-founders from day-to-day management. I personally like the product and want there to be at least two ride hailing companies competing in the US. To say a turnaround story is needed for Lyft is an understatement, considering that its market cap is below the total capital it raised before it went public.

The new CEO, David Risher, addressed employees in an all-hands last week. After I heard that he didn’t rule out the idea of merging with another company in the meeting, Lyft spokesperson Sona Iliffe-Moon sent the following statement:

“Our new incoming CEO, David Risher, has shared that his focus is on building a profitable, successful, customer-focused business. Millions of riders and drivers choose Lyft over Uber every year, and they like having that choice. Our intent is to create a rideshare experience that drivers and riders love.”

“We’re going to try just banning negativity.” - Midjourney founder David Holz in the company’s Discord yesterday.

During a town hall in the server that I overheard, Holz said the popular generative AI engine is going to add a rule that prohibits being “negative about any public figure.” Someone in the audience then called him a fascist and was kicked off the server.

As my colleague Nilay Patel told Elon Musk when he bought Twitter, welcome to hell.

I’m trying a new section where I return to what I covered in previous editions of the newsletter with updates. Two items this week:

That’s it for this edition. Please don’t hesitate to forward it to a friend.

I’ll be back next Thursday. In the meantime, if you have any feedback on this edition or stories I should be looking into, let me know. Thanks for subscribing.