Is TikTok getting banned for real this time?
The big news this week is that the US Government was actually able to agree on something, and that thing just happened to be TikTok.
The first thing I want to address is how badly this whole mess has been communicated. Let’s be clear: It’s not now, and has never been, a “ban.”
The US is effectively looking to enforce its foreign ownership laws where non-Americans are not allowed to be majority owners of their major media companies – and make no mistake, TikTok is one of the largest and most influential media companies in the world. The operations of TikTok are under no threat of being banned — it is welcome to run in the States — it’s the ownership structure that is being forced to change.
Does that mean the bill is perfectly built? Of course not. The fact that it names TikTok directly, rather than applying rules broadly, is more than a bit concerning, but we’ll leave the politics of all of this to other people to argue over.
Let’s recap what we do know: We wrote about the drama back in March, when the bill first passed Congress, and since then a lot has happened. Here’s what’s worth knowing:
- The US-based bill now gives TikTok 9 months to comply, with an option for an additional 90 days (so we’re at least a year away)
- TikTok will have to either sell the US arm of its business, or spin it off with ByteDance owning no more than 20% of the new company
- ByteDance has given a hard No to any talks about selling TikTok
- Despite that, reports have surfaced about ByteDance exploring a deal
So, what’s going to happen next? The only thing we know for sure is that this is shaping up to be one of the most complex and influential corporate sagas of all time, involving global powers, Billions of dollars, the largest companies is the world, and a very pissed off army of creators.
My prediction: TikTok will negotiate a path forward that satisfies the requirements of the bill without selling the company, we’ll all get to keep our FYPs, and and this whole episode will appear to have ended anti-climactically.