As per White House, this week a TikTok and US deal would be signed which would end years of uncertainty for the platform and for the US creators by creation of new working environment for TikTok that would be lessening Chinese influence on the app. Let’s wait and watch what happens as the Chinese government has been saying that the deal is quite possible.
This deal is expected to fulfill the requirements of Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. The terms of the act states that U.S operations of TikTok would be controlled by a new joint venture which would be majorly owned by US investors. There would be a seven-person board of new entity which would include a range of prominent US business person including the likes of Lachlan Murdoch, Michael Dell and Larry Ellison.
Both ByteDance and TikTok would be able to select one each representative on the TikTok US board. TikTok US would be leasing the algorithm from ByteDance as opposed to US owning the algorithm outright. A new version of TikTok algorithm would be recreated which Oracle would be maintaining. Also, the US government would be collecting multibillion dollar fee from investors as part of the deal.
The framework is quite similar to what has been going around for quite some time and since June Donald Trump was first to claim that there was a deal in place for the same. Now for years, Oracle has been involved in TikTok US data separation project for years and has emerged as the front contender for controlling separate American version of the app. In this case the key points of contention have evolved around algorithmic control and dilution of the influence of the Chinese ownership of the app.
China on the other hand did not want to allow Chinese business to be sold to US due to political pressure. Even though US government has been leaking details of the pending deal, the perspective from the CCP remains non-committal. As per the latest news, conversations between China and US have been constructive even though CCP has been committed towards securing its interests and growth in the long term.
Chinese government has made it very clear that it supports Chinese companies adding investment in the US which the US has been looking for and it should be providing an appropriate climate for the investors making it a fair play and make it a win-win situation for both parties rather than looking to blackmail or force a deal on the other party.
It looks that Donald Trump would be giving more extension for arranging a sale in the US. As of now, it’s still not sure when the US TikTok deal would be finalized or if the current framework would be meeting the requirements of China. On the other hand, White House has been claiming that the deal is imminent and Donald Trump is expected to approve the deal later this week.
Now it looks that we might be towards the end of the TikTok – US saga in a manner that meets the requirements of the law.
