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TikTok is officially on! cutting blockfriends.
Last Friday, a federal appeals court upheld a law that could lead to a ban on the app in the United States next month. Even if President Joe Biden decides to extend that deadline by another 90 days, TikTok still has a tight deadline to find a way out of this mess.
I spoke with Frank McCourt earlier this year for this newsletter About his bid to buy TikTok. After last week’s events, I figured it would be a good time to check back in. Plus, I got some insight into how creators are preparing for the post-TikTok future.
Let’s talk about it.
This is an edition of the WIRED Politics Lab newsletter. Read previous newsletters here.
At the moment, there are three options left for TikTok. The company could win the appeal, forget about all this and go back to business as usual (eventually). Come next year, the app could be banned. Or, someone could have a lot of money buy TikTok’s US business Out of ByteDance: Wednesday afternoon, my partner Zay Young and I spoke with Frank McCourt, the billionaire former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who wants to do just that.
McCourt’s motivation isn’t just to save TikTok, but to strengthen his personal project. Through his Project Liberty initiative, he’s launched what he calls a “people’s bid,” bringing together a number of investors and groups that share a more open To achieve this, he would use Project Liberty’s Decentralized Social Network Protocol, or DSNP, to allow users to export their friends and a new TikTok among followers.And after Friday’s court ruling, McCourt is more confident than ever that his team will soon be working and possibly rebuilding the app.
In our conversation, McCourt insisted that the sale would make everyone happy, including ByteDance, users and the US government. McCourt offered $20 billion for the app’s brand, its user base and existing content to expand its vision of an interoperable, more privacy-friendly Internet that rivals the likes of Meta and Google says he doesn’t “need or want” the algorithm that powers TikTok’s For You page.
When asked if Project Liberty could maintain TikTok’s existing user base without a favorite algorithm, McCourt said: “People don’t know what they don’t have until you show them.”
