This is perfectly fine. The owner of a device should be deciding what software goes on there. And if it’s city-owned, then the device should only be used for official city business. Nobody needs TikTok on their phone except maybe an official city social media manager. Apps that are not required for work have no business being on devices that are for work.
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He’s got CEO money, but can he afford TikTok? It doesn’t seem like it. Maybe if he goes in with a group.
What will the USA use instead of TikTok once it’s banned?
Reels? Shorts?
What if TikTok is sold to itself as a child company? Call it TokTik. Would it still be able to dodge whatever this is?
The whole point is more to force the sale than a ban. It only has to be the US operations (not global tiktok), but it also has to include a copy of the core algorithm for the new standalone company or acquiring company to run fully independently.
I would not expect anything to shake out for years though because ByteDance is going to file a federal suit and a judge will likely put an injunction on the law taking effect until the court case is resolved.
I’ve seen some people out there spreading the information that TikTok/ByteDance are largely not owned by China. This is true information.
If you look at who owns most of the shares in ByteDance, who is on the board of directors, you won’t find too much Chinese ownership.
60% is owned by “global investors”, meaning publicly traded shares. Unknown what percent of those are in China. 20% is owned by the founders, who I think went to the beach. They are Chinese, but do they have influence on the company? 20% is owned by the employees, some of which are Chinese many of which are not.
And then there’s the so-called golden share owned by the actual Chinese government. This is not a large amount of shares. It might even be a single share? It’s not entirely clear. There is some information suggesting that this special share gives them some sort of veto power over the other shareholders. TikTok says the golden share only exists for the purpose of Internet licensing for the Chinese business. It could also be a purely symbolic gesture.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/18/tech/tiktok-bytedance-china-ownership-intl-hnk/index.html
The point I want to make is that it doesn’t matter who owns the shares. Let’s say I owned 100% of the shares in ByteDance. Well, it’s still a Chinese company. Subject to Chinese law. Beholden to the Chinese government. I would have to, as the US owner, relocate the company outside of China to remove it from Chinese jurisdiction. The easiest way to do that is to sell it to a non-Chinese company.
The problem is that because it is a Chinese company, China can block a sale. Even if 100% of the shares were owned by a US citizen.
Even if China bought 100% of the shares in Apple, it would still be a US company. Unless they moved it or sold it. Which they could try to do, and the US could block.
TL;DR: No matter who owns the actual shares, or sits on the board, of ByteDance/TikTok, it is a Chinese company beholden to China.
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The “ban” is also clever. It can’t take effect until 2025 (after the election), and Biden has the nearly unilateral power to defer it.