More from TikTok ban: all the news on the app’s shutdown and return in the US
Meanwhile, sources tell The Information that ByteDance is “internally exploring scenarios for selling.” It’s been literally one day since the divest-or-ban ultimatum became law, so I hope you’re ready for another nine to twelve months of spin.
Our latest episode of Decoder is about the brand-new TikTok ban — and how years of congressional inaction on a federal privacy law helped lead us to this moment of apparent national panic about algorithmic social media.
This is a thorny discussion, and to help break it all down, I invited Verge senior policy reporter Lauren Feiner on the show. Lauren has been closely covering efforts to ban TikTok for years now, and she’s also watched Congress fail to pass meaningful privacy regulation for even longer. We’ll go over how we got here, what this means for both TikTok and efforts to pass new privacy legislation, and what might happen next.
Political strategists aren’t throwing away TikTok, even after their election candidates try to force its sale on national security grounds.
While US lawmakers take aim at TikTok, The Wall Street Journal reports that several popular messaging apps were removed by Apple at the request of the Chinese government which will make it harder for people in the country to download the apps for use with a VPN. Reuters notes that Meta apps like Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram are still available.
Here’s Apple’s statement on the matter:
“The Cyberspace Administration of China ordered the removal of these apps from the China storefront based on their national security concerns. We are obligated to follow the laws in the countries where we operate, even when we disagree.”
[The Wall Street Journal]
Zhang Yiming founded ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, but previously served as the CEO of 99Fang, a Chinese home finder startup with “very powerful” tech for search, image processing, and recommendations.
Now, The New York Times reports that former contractors suing Susquehanna, an investor in both companies, claim technology they developed for 99Fang was used to create TikTok without compensating them.
The proposal, reported by Axios, would give the president discretion to extend the initial six month period for TikTok to find a buyer and separate from its Chinese parent ByteDance. The Senate is already considering a longer timeframe for the forced sale, as many analysts doubt six months is sufficient.
Wired writes that Zen Goziker says he has met with Congressional staff members to share concerns about TikTok’s data practices and claims to be the source for multiple articles about the company and “Project Texas” based on his experiences working there for six months.
The article also says:
He asserts that he was put under 24-hour surveillance by TikTok and the FBI while working remotely in Mexico. He claims that US attorney general Merrick Garland, director of national intelligence Avril Haines, and other top officials “wickedly instigated” his firing. And he states that the FBI helped the CIA share his private information with foreign governments. The suits do not appear to include evidence for any of these claims.
Former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who’s apparently assembling an investor supergroup to buy the beleaguered app, wants to cut a deal to buy it sans algorithm and rebuild it, according to The Washington Post yesterday.
Now I may be a simple country tech reporter, but I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. Matt Perault, former Facebook public policy director, points out why in this quote from the Post:
“All the biggest companies have thrown a lot of money and engineering talent at that issue and have struggled to do it,” Perault said. “If Steve Mnuchin thinks he can do that and succeed where a lot of successful companies have struggled, good luck.”
[The Washington Post]
It’s not just TikTok — other apps like Shein, Temu, and WeChat are popular in the US, too. The TikTok ban focuses on ByteDance-owned subsidiaries including CapCut and Lemon8, but includes a carve out for popular shopping apps, The Washington Post reports. On the other hand, “everything app” WeChat could be in a gray area.
[Washington Post]
In an interview with ABC News, the vice president said the goal of the bill recently passed by the House is to force TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell:
We need to deal with the owner, and we have national security concerns about the owner of TikTok, but we have no intention to ban TikTok... It’s an income generator for many people, what it does in terms of allowing people to share information in a free way, in a way that allows people to have discourse, it’s very important.
The FBI, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and Justice Department will brief senators Wednesday on national security threats posed by TikTok, Reuters reports. Senate staffers will get a separate briefing Tuesday.
It could be an important tipping point, as House members emerged from their briefings confident in their votes before overwhelmingly passing a bill that could lead to TikTok’s ouster from the US.
“I did not handle this situation well from top to bottom, and that is why I have been completely roasted on this app,” said Rep. Jeff Jackson, who posted an explanation of his vote to ban TikTok on TikTok.
He tried to clear up his vote by explaining he thinks a ban is unlikely, but some commenters are still livid.
TikTok mobilized users to lobby Congress, and it backfired spectacularly.
The former Treasury Secretary said on CNBC Thursday that he’s “going to put together a group to buy TikTok.” Such a group would need to have massive buying power, since the app boasts 170 million US users, and has an estimated value in the tens of billions of dollars.
The House passed a bill Wednesday that could force TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance to sell it, or be banned from the US.
Now that the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act has passed in the House of Representatives, TikTok CEO Shou Chew made — what else — a short video appealing to the app’s users to speak up against a ban.
He doesn’t address the possibility of a sale, saying the bill will take away their app if it becomes a law, but that “We believe we can overcome this together.”
We’ve heard so much about the dangers of TikTok from both sides of the aisle, and even had Trump flip-flop his position ostensibly over the political calculations of banning an app 170 million Americans use. But what exactly did the House select committee see in its secure briefing that led them to vote 50-0 in favor of the bill that would ban the app? If this thing is going to move forward in the Senate it seems like we should at least know the basics.
TikTok’s fate now lies with the Senate
The former House Speaker said passing a new bill that incentivizes China-based ByteDance to sell TikTok “is not an attempt to ban TikTok. It’s an attempt to make TikTok better. Tic-tac-toe. A winner.”
After the bill passed out of the House with 352 votes, it now must clear the Senate to reach the president’s desk.