The United States has decided that either China’s ByteDance will sell its video platform TikTok or it will be unavailable in the US. So far, there has been speculation about how much TikTok would be available for, who might be interested in it, and whether the deal would include its algorithm, which makes the app so popular. According to the latest news, the company is not considering a sale.
“ByteDance would rather make TikTok unavailable for the US market than sell it, but only if it exhausts all legal options to fight the approved law,” four sources told The Guardian.
If TikTok was sold without the important algorithm, the value would be much lower, according to Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives. According to him, it’s like buying a car without an engine. “China will not allow the source code and algorithm to be in the hands of an American company,” adds Ives.
However, TikTok is not in immediate danger of being banned in the US. The new law gives China nine months to sell and an additional three-month period before a potential ban can be enforced. Which would mean that the final ban would only apply in 2025, i.e. after the presidential election in the United States. At the same time, Republican candidate and ex-president Donald Trump has clearly defined himself against the ban several times.
