Reuters quoted four people familiar with the matter as reporting on the 25th that if TikTok fails to prevent U.S. legislation from entering the U.S. app store by exhausting all legal means, TikTok parent company ByteDance would rather take over the loss-making app. Don’t want to sell either.
People close to ByteDance revealed that the algorithm TikTok operates on is considered to be the core of ByteDance’s overall operations, so the possibility of a sale is very low.
Additionally, TikTok accounts for only a small portion of ByteDance’s total revenue and daily active users, so in a worst-case scenario, ByteDance would rather shut down the app in the U.S. than sell it to a potential U.S. buyer. Home.
People familiar with the matter said that taking over the US TikTok would have a limited impact on ByteDance’s business and that the company would not have to give up its core algorithm.
It is understood that TikTok shares the same core algorithm with domestic applications such as ByteDance’s short-form video platform Douyin, and sources said its algorithm is considered superior to ByteDance’s rivals Tencent and Xiaohongshu.
In addition, TikTok’s algorithm is impossible to unbundle, and since its intellectual property license is registered in China under the name ByteDance, it is difficult to separate from the parent company. ByteDance will also not agree to sell one of its most valuable assets, its secret source “TikTok algorithm”, to a competitor. ByteDance declined to comment.
On the 22nd, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed the U.S.-Taiwan aid package bill, which includes requiring TikTok to be sold, otherwise it will be banned in the United States. After President Biden signed it into law, TikTok set a deadline for the sale of January 19 next year.
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