TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance has said that it has no intention of selling the business, and would rather see the platform shut down.
The news comes after the US passed a law forcing the company to sell the hugely popular social media platform, or see the app banned in America.
The sell-or-ban measure was issued into law by US President Joe Biden earlier this week (April 24), following a long-running dispute over claims that the company’s ownership structure could allow the Chinese government to gain access to the data of its millions of American users.
To date, over 30 American states, Canada, and the European Union have separately banned the app from use on government-owned devices over concerns it could be a security risk. India banned the app nationwide in January 2021, while Taiwan and Afghanistan did the same in 2022.
The bill was first brought up last month, when the US House Foreign Affairs Committee voted 24 to 16 to give President Joe Biden the power to enforce a ban on the social media app over concerns that the app is a national security threat and a Chinese espionage tool.
This week’s ruling was voted for with an overwhelming majority of 79 to 18, and was signed by President Joe Biden. With it, ByteDance will have an estimated nine months to sell TikTok. In the event that ByteDance does not sell the platform’s stakes in the United States, TikTok will be banned from US markets, and will be removed from Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store nationwide.
Now, sharing a post to its official account on Toutiao – another platform it owns – the company confirmed that “ByteDance doesn’t have any plans to sell TikTok” (via BBC). “Foreign media reports of ByteDance selling TikTok are not true,” it added, also sharing a screenshot of the article with the Chinese characters meaning “false rumour” stamped over the top.
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The update also comes after TikTok claimed it would take the dispute to court and challenge the “unconstitutional” law.
Similarly, TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, said on Wednesday that the social media company is expected to win a legal challenge to block Biden’s legislation (via The Guardian).
The outlet also highlighted how ByteDance does not publicly disclose its financial performance, but continues to make most of its money in China from other apps including Douyin – the Chinese equivalent of TikTok.
Sources also claimed that ByteDance’s 2023 revenues rose to nearly $120bn in 2023 from $80bn in 2022, and the US accounted for about 25 per cent of TikTok’s overall revenues last year. The app’s daily users in America also make up around five per cent of ByteDance’s DAUs worldwide.
Further, the sources added that ByteDance would not agree to sell its “secret source” to rivals, referring to its algorithm.
The Washington Post has noted that TikTok has in the past proposed a plan to safeguard US users’ data, storing data with prominent American tech company Oracle. Negotiations between ByteDance and the US government however, fell apart shortly afterwards.
The recent bill from the US against TikTok was included as part of a $95billion foreign aid package, including military assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
In response to the package, TikTok wrote on X last week (April 18): “It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill that would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate 7 million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24 billion to the U.S. economy, annually.”
The controversy surrounding the platform also comes just weeks after it was reported that Universal Music Group (UMG) had published an open letter, announcing its intention to withdraw music from its signed artists from TikTok.
The label put the plan into action in February, saying it had already begun taking songs down from the platform.
Per Music Business Worldwide, “Any recording of a song currently available on TikTok that has been co-written by a songwriter signed to Universal Music Publishing will also need to come down in the event of UMPG’s license expiring.
Similarly, BBC claimed up to 30 per cent of the platform’s “popular songs” could be lost, with some industry estimates revealing that up to 80 per cent of all music on TikTok could be muted.
More recently, Taylor Swift’s music returned to the platform after being removed earlier this year, likely due to Swift now owning her masters and publishing rights. This coincided with the release of her album, ‘The Tortured Poets Department’.
Other artists signed to the label who have been affected by UMG’s decision include Bad Bunny, The Weeknd, Drake, Billie Eilish, Justin Bieber, Adele, Coldplay, J Balvin, Post Malone and Sophie Ellis-Bextor.