2024-04-30 23:17:24
Beijing won’t approve the change of ownership, leaving the future of the app in doubt
The end of “TikTok” is coming after US President Joe Biden last Wednesday signed an executive order promulgating a new law prohibiting the application from operating on US territory. With this, nearly 170 million users will lose access to the network, which in the last seven years has changed the digital world and marked the cultural development of Generation Z.
Last week, the US Congress passed the bill as part of a broad foreign aid package designed to support Ukraine and Israel. This is the most serious risk for “TikTok” since in 2020 the former head of state Donald Trump tried to do the same, but without success.
However, the ban will not take effect immediately. In fact, it can be avoided under certain conditions. The app’s owner, Chinese startup ByteDance, has one year to sell its product to an American investor. If the sale takes longer, the White House is expected to grant an additional 90 days to finalize it. If ByteDance manages to achieve this, “TikTok” will continue its work on the territory of the States, if not, it will have to say goodbye to the American market.
However, it seems that the transfer of ownership of the social network is a foregone conclusion, because in order for it to happen,
need China’s approval,
who has repeatedly stated that he will oppose such actions that threaten to stand in the way of his building influence in the world of information technology. The communist state even revised its export control rules to be able to block the sale on national security grounds.
“Forcing the sale of TikTok in the US is tantamount to downgrading the app, as the Chinese government will not approve the sale of its algorithms. If it is forced to cease operations there, ByteDance’s prospects in other predominantly liberal democracies will come under even greater pressure,” said Alex Capri, a research fellow at the Hinrich Foundation and a lecturer at the National University of Singapore’s Business School. .
If Beijing doesn’t allow ByteDance to give up TikTok’s algorithm, it could block the sale outright. There is another option where it can solve it, but without the lucrative algorithm, and it is the basis of the app’s popularity.
A ban in the US or a less powerful version of “TikTok” would be
unexpected advantage for “YouTube”, “Google”, “Instagram”
and other competing U.S. companies, as many of the platform’s customers may abandon it, Capri says. It will also be a serious blow to ByteDance’s global ambitions.
“This will mean the end of the company’s expansion, as it would be a sign that the Chinese state values the security of the product’s algorithm more than the survival of the seller. The consequences are that the ideological struggle that takes place in the digital world will become more intense,” said Richard Windsor, an analyst of the technology industry and founder of the American research company Radio Free Mobile.
The ban on “TikTok” probably
will accelerate the fragmentation of the global technology landscape
into two blocs – one centered in the US and the other in China.
“The crackdown on Chinese apps in the US is another step towards a bifurcation not only of the platform economy between Chinese and Western apps, but more broadly towards a bifurcation of the entire global technology landscape. This includes everything from who owns and operates data centers, through space internet satellites, to submarine cables and of course, semiconductors,” warns Capri.
There are many reasons for this situation. US lawmakers have long been suspicious of the video-sharing app’s ties to China and have tried to regulate it, though previous attempts to do so have failed. US officials have repeatedly warned that TikTok threatens national security because the Chinese government could use it to spy on Americans or weaponize it to covertly influence the public by amplifying or suppressing certain content.
They say the concern is justified because China’s national security laws require Chinese companies to cooperate in intelligence gathering. In March, FBI Director Christopher Wray told members of the House Intelligence Committee that Beijing could compromise Americans’ devices through TikTok’s software.
“This app is a spy bubble on our citizens’ devices that is being used to monitor and abuse their personal information,” said Texas Republican Michael McCaul, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
During special classified briefings, Washington lawmakers learned how rivers of data are being collected and shared in ways that are not well aligned with US security interests and could be used to blackmail politicians or journalists.
Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said last month that
the Chinese government has the ability to influence
to “very young people” because they use TikTok as their main source of news.
Already last year, the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council of the EU – the three most important bodies of the bloc – banned “TikTok” from being used on the work devices of their employees, citing concerns related to cyber security. Also, the EU started checking the new subversion of the platform – “TikTokLite”, and threatened to stop the addictive feature in it. It rewards users for watching and liking videos, which European authorities say is dangerous for children’s health.
Lite launched in France and Spain in March, allowing users over the age of 18 to earn points that can be exchanged for goods such as vouchers or gift cards through the app’s rewards program. In a statement on Monday, the European Commission said it had concerns about “risks of serious harm to the mental health of consumers”, including minors.
“TikTokLite” takes up less memory on the smartphone and is made to work on a slower internet connection.