How about TikTok with American owners?
The TikTok Agreement
Perhaps we will see the agreement between the US and China to keep TikTok alive. Slowly but surely, some details of the agreement, which has been so delayed, are starting to emerge.
No precise terms have been revealed, but based on the initial public statements from representatives of both countries, it is likely to include a US spinoff of the popular social media app, owned by various American investors and still relying on the Chinese platform’s algorithm.
The most crucial point in the negotiations between China and the US was the coveted and highly addictive TikTok algorithm. That algorithm is what made TikTok so successful, and Chinese officials have been reluctant to hand it over to US control. This raises the question of what value the app would have without the algorithm.
Wang Jingtao, head of China’s cybersecurity regulator, said on Monday that the “framework” that the Trump administration boasted about in terms of an agreement this week would include “the licensing of the TikTok algorithm and other intellectual property rights” that ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, “would rely on for the operation of TikTok for US user data and security content.”
Those familiar with the matter said that TikTok was developing a separate app for the US, partially dependent on the Chinese algorithm. The algorithm would be exported to the US, where US companies would train it using US user data.
In Biden’s administration, Congress passed a law to force its sale to a US company in 2024, motivated by cybersecurity concerns. The agreement was supposed to take effect in the month of September, but the deadline, which was initially set by him for the TikTok ban during his first term, now expires on September 17.
