Businessman Frank McCourt, a likely buyer of Tik Tok in the United States, has spoken about his plans for the platform, UNN reports citing Wired.
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The company sued, arguing that the law violates the First Amendment, but the judges sided with the Justice Department, agreeing that the federal government has the authority to block or force the sale of TikTok if it poses a national security risk - even a hypothetical one.
The court's decision leaves TikTok with little hope. A possible scenario is that the newly elected US President Donald Trump will be able to find a way to "save" his favorite platform, which he actually promised to do during the election campaign. However, in addition to winning the final court appeal in the Supreme Court, which is far from guaranteed, an important point for TikTok's fate is finding a wealthy buyer in the United States.
One of the most high-profile potential buyers to emerge so far is real estate mogul and former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, who says he has received $20 billion in unofficial commitments from investors to buy the app in what he calls a "people's bid." The sale will support McCourt's existing technology initiative, Project Liberty, and the so-called Decentralized Social Network Protocol it has developed. McCourt wants to incorporate DSNP into TikTok and allow users to export their friends through other compatible apps.
Frank McCourt also shared his plans to preserve some form of advertising and give people the opportunity to manage their own recommendation algorithm.
"I think a lot has changed, because until Friday there was only speculation about whether ByteDance would win. It all suddenly became very real, didn't it? Now we have the date of January 19. Now we don't know what ByteDance will decide to do. We know that they said they are going to appeal. This is out of our control. But as far as closing it or selling it, that's also up to them, and we just want to make sure they know that there is a viable buyer interested in buying the US TikTok without the algorithm," said Frank McCourt.
Recall
The European Commission has entered into an agreement with TikTok to remove the TikTok Lite Rewards program from the EU. The company undertook to close the app and not to try to circumvent the ban, otherwise it faces a fine of up to 6% of annual turnover.